Trauma and PTSD

Sad, anxious, or numb…

You might not even know (or be able to express) why you feel that way – why you feel disconnected from others… why you can’t sleep.

It probably has roots in childhood, when your emotional needs weren’t met.

They may have been dismissed or ignored. You may have been told you were “stupid” or didn’t receive physical or verbal affection.

Maybe you were yelled at daily, physically abused, or put in dangerous situations.

Or you were told you were “weak” when you cried, pushing you to bottle up your feelings rather than express them.

Whatever the trauma, you adopted new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving to survive.

Here’s the problem…

Those coping mechanisms were useful when the trauma and stress were present, but they can be problematic when they endure into adulthood AFTER the stress is gone.

When you’re a victim of a crime, bullied at school, or abused at home (for example), the trauma creates lasting, negative emotional wounds.

Then, even years later, you have a “fight, flight, or freeze” response when you experience similar internal stress.

Maybe you’ve learned to deal with the pain…

“Somewhat.”

Most people only find temporary relief through “numbing” measures like diversions or substances.

Despite your best efforts, you keep getting triggered.

But you know this for sure:

You want to get better.

You want peace and prosperity in your life.

And you’re ready to do something different!

It takes courage to heal from trauma and PTSD.

But you can do it… and I’m here to help you every step of the way.

Whether you’ve suffered trauma or are a “wounded parent” wanting to keep their PTSD from being passed down to your children, therapy can help you heal.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

Living with PTSD and trauma is emotionally painful and can be debilitating. The symptoms don’t go away without treatment that resolves the impact on the mind and body during the trauma.

Reprocessing memories with EMDR gets to the part of the brain that holds the effects of trauma and provides rapid relief from daily flashbacks, nightmares, and irritability, so you can get back to feeling like your real self without the jitters and uncontrollable negative thoughts. EMDR reinforces more positive information, such as your wisdom, so you can make sense of what happened and feel better!

If you had difficult or insecure relationships with your parents, such as an unpredictable, dismissive, or abusive parent, I’ll use an attachment-based approach to strengthen you before we start EMDR. It’s unique because the resources we’ll use are created personally for you. We’ll reinforce your resources, figures, and memories with EMDR so that you can easily connect with them in your mind and body while you are reprocessing.

Sometimes, trauma gets passed down from generation to generation. If you carry emotional wounds from a traumatic childhood and are interacting with your children with the same anger or patterns you had with your parents, we will work to heal you of those early painful interactions, so you don’t pass that trauma on to your children.

Brainspotting

For people who want to move past the emotional disturbances of trauma quickly, Brainspotting is an effective and powerful therapy. They often don’t even realize how much past trauma upsets them until they talk about it, and they get choked up or tears well up in their eyes. As much as they want to heal, they have attempted to cope by pushing their feelings down or ignoring disturbing body sensations that get triggered.

During the therapy, we’ll work with the eye position connected to your trauma. While focusing on this spot and allowing your intense feelings and body sensations to be felt fully, there is a shift, and the disturbances in your body and mind will be released. The images and irrational beliefs around the memory no longer carry power. Depending on your motivation and the complexity of your situation, a single memory may be resolved in one or two sessions.

During Brainspotting, we’ll use a healing, attachment-based therapy to strengthen you if your sense of security was “rocked” as a child due to the loss of a parent; an abusive parent; chronically ill or emotionally absent parent. We’ll create your personal resource figures and reinforce them with EMDR, so you can easily access them in your mind and body while Brainspotting to get the comfort and wisdom you need.

Meeting your needs through therapy…

During childhood, you may have experienced developmental trauma. You may have received a critical message through your experiences with caregivers that “You are not lovable” or “You are bad.” Since you believed it was true, you didn’t heal from it. This wounding recording feels real as an adult and then gets played back whenever something feels like “You are not lovable” or “You are bad” or “You did something wrong.”

Before and during Brainspotting or EMDR, we’ll use this Developmental Needs Meeting attachment-based therapy previously mentioned so that you can feel supported to meet your emotional needs.

We will create a circle of internal resources and figures (and reinforce them with tapping or eye movements) that you can connect with in session to heal your attachment wounds immediately.

Tools

I teach you many stabilizations, grounding tools, and visualizations to help you feel more confident.

I’ll show you how to tap and breathe while focusing on the sensation in your body so you can get relief immediately. I’ll also show you how to contain feelings and disturbances so they are set aside until we can process them.

Grounding and containment are very effective when panic or anxiety-driven, uncontrollable negative thoughts occur.

You can feel healthy and whole again!

I am compassionate, and it is my #1 priority to help you heal from your trauma.

Remember that we will only begin when you feel safe, strengthened, and ready to start trauma therapy. Also, with EMDR and Brainspotting, you don’t have to talk about every detail of the trauma, just a few specific parts. If you are ready to take back your life and break away from the effects of your trauma and PTSD, call me today, and let’s get started!

It’s time to regain control and return to a place where you can thrive!

I can’t wait to learn more about you. Call me today for your free consultation: (818) 259-7650.