Restorative Ground Counseling
Healing from the Past
Throughout life we all experience discomfort and difficult situations that eventually pass by; the stress from being busy at work, a non-chronic injury or illness, a minor argument with a friend or loved one.
Trauma is different. Trauma is when an experience has such a strong impact that it is stored in the body and the mind is unable to process and resolve it on its own. These past pains and hurts permeate into the present moment and cause automatic reactions that feel out of control and keep us from growing in the directions that we want to.
If you’ve experienced a traumatic event, you may notice that you:
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Reexperience images, feelings, thoughts or sensations related to the trauma that can be caused by seemingly benign triggers (a disagreement with a friend, a car horn, someone touching your shoulder, etc.)
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Have difficulty sleeping and recurring nightmares that may or may not be related to what happened
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Feel tense or “on edge” and it is hard to fully relax
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Struggle to trust others in your life
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Feel disconnected from yourself or your emotions, or feel so much that you find ways to numb or disconnect from it all
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Experience sudden bursts of anger or shifts in your mood
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Have trouble concentrating and completing tasks or being present in conversations
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Have constant self-criticism and lack of self-confidence or self-esteem
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Are having strong physical reactions such as headaches or stomach issues with no identifiable medical cause
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Challenges in some of your relationships
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If any of these experiences resonate with you, there is hope. By reaching out for help, you can learn to identify and understand how your past experiences have shaped you and what you can do about it.
How Treatment Works
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Treating trauma is different in some ways than resolving experiences of depression, anxiety or other mental health issues. Purely cognitive approaches of therapy, such as the popular Cognitive Behavioral Therapy model, haven’t shown much evidence to resolve many of the symptoms of trauma.
That’s because when your brain goes through a traumatic experience and is then triggered in the present moment the part of your brain that is rational and logical is shut down. Different parts of your brain, such as the midbrain (the emotional brain that scans for danger) and brainstem area (that controls fight, flight or freeze) are in control in these moments. Trauma rewires the alarm system of our brains to be on the lookout for danger, and we can’t think through what is happening when the alarm is going off.
Trauma therapy is centered around retraining the internal alarm system of the brain and regulating the fight or flight response to return to a relaxed state. I utilize evidence-based practices to treat trauma such as Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) as well as Internal Family Systems (IFS) while also emphasizing somatic approaches to help the mind and body return to a state of equilibrium and peace.
What the Leading Experts Say
WHAT IS EMDR AND IFS?
Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of trauma therapy that incorporates a similar process related to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep while you focus on particular traumatic memories. It has been found that this combination of eye movements while thinking of the traumatic event allows the brain to reprocess the experiences and then resolve them. It allows you to access the emotional and physical sensations connected to the trauma which helps your body to release them.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a type of therapy that operates under the belief that we all have different parts of ourselves that influence how we move through the world and operate almost like a family unit. We have parts of us that were hurt or victimized and experienced trauma, and other parts that were then formed in response to make us feel better or prevent us from being hurt again. As we work to understand these parts, the roles they play, and what they protect, we can work to bring our whole system into harmony and allow our innate goodness to shine through.
HOW CAN THERAPY HELP?
As described earlier, trauma is stored in the body and the brain and does not resolve on its own. When the impacts of trauma are suppressed, they often come out in more maladaptive coping mechanisms such as binge eating, addiction, anger outbursts, depression and relational difficulties.
I like to use this metaphor to explain trauma- imagine that you got shot in the leg and instead of removing the bullet, you were just stitched up. You may be able to function decently well, get things done in your day and are successful in many areas of your life. But every step you take, you feel it. There’s a pain there that affects everything you do. It slows you down and keeps you from running full speed. You have to limit the distances you go before the pain flares up, and sometimes it hurts for no reason at all. This is what unresolved trauma can feel like. It impacts everything and slows you down from living your life on your terms.
Here’s the reality- processing through your trauma isn’t always comfortable. Just like surgery, you have to dig in and get the bullet out. For trauma, these are the emotions and sensations connected to the memories that are buried within your body. It can hurt to feel all of that and let it out. That’s why my job is to create the conditions to do this in a way that is safe and contained. I ensure that you are fully prepared for what treatment entails and am here to walk alongside you every step of the way. It’s been a profound honor to witness those coming to terms with the past and processing the pain they experienced and releasing it completely.