Trauma Therapy San Diego
Do You Feel Like A Part Of You Is Stuck In The Past?
Are you haunted by painful memories that, as much as you try, you can never shake? As a result, do you often feel anxious, depressed, and withdrawn? Is it hard for you to make friends, maintain close relationships, and live a fulfilling life?
Taking stock of your life presently, perhaps you feel unhappy and dissatisfied. Having experienced trauma in your past may be holding you back from becoming the person you want to be. If feelings of worthlessness or not being good enough pervade your worldview, you may struggle with motivation, focus, and finding your purpose. What’s more, you might have fallen into a pattern of entering toxic relationships where you lose your voice or put their needs ahead of your own.
The Aftermath Of Trauma Can Affect You Physically And Emotionally
Whether your trauma was caused by a one-time event or adverse experiences in childhood, you may be contending with symptoms that are difficult to manage on your own. If you live in a state of high anxiety, you may experience shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, chest pains, nausea, and trouble sleeping. You might find you’re often tense and nervous and can’t relax as you ruminate over intrusive thoughts that get stuck in your mind.
Trauma can also activate your fight-or-flight response whenever you’re triggered to remember what happened, leading to nightmares, hypervigilance, or an exaggerated startle response. When life gets too overwhelming, perhaps you check out emotionally or feel out of body, as if what’s going on around you isn’t real. You may turn to drugs, alcohol, or mindless distractions for relief.
You probably try to downplay what happened to you in the past as not warranting such emotional and physical fallout now, but sadly, that is the nature of trauma. Therapy will validate your experience and help you process the trauma that keeps you stuck. With the right treatment, there is hope.
Trauma Is A Common Human Experience
It’s rare to experience a life free from trauma. A worldwide survey conducted in 2016 found that “over 70 percent of respondents reported a traumatic event.” [1] The most commonly reported events were “Witnessing death or serious injury, the unexpected death of a loved one, being mugged, being in a life-threatening automobile accident, and experiencing a life-threatening illness or injury.” [1] Further, “1 in 13 individuals will develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in their lifetime. [2]
“Big T” traumas such as the events described above typically involve a life-threatening incident and, along with sexual assault and warfare, are what we commonly associate with the term “trauma.” However, subtler forms of “little t” trauma can also trigger a similar trauma response, causing both physical and emotional distress. Many of us experience “little t” trauma in childhood as a result of being raised by emotionally unavailable caretakers or having our thoughts and feelings invalidated.
Receiving The Right Kind Of Treatment For Trauma And PTSD Is Important
Many of us seek therapy with the idea that it is “one-size-fits-all”—as long as we find a therapist to talk to, we’ll eventually get better. Unfortunately, when it comes to trauma, talk therapy alone might not be enough to address the distressful memories that remain stuck in our nervous systems and continue to haunt us. To heal, we need to reprocess these memories and the associated core beliefs that are stored deep within the brain.
If you have tried traditional talk therapy to heal trauma or PTSD without success, you may benefit from utilizing evidence-based treatments, such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Over my career as a trauma and PTSD counselor, I have witnessed the firsthand transformation trauma-targeted therapy can offer and am eager to share what it has to offer with you.
Therapy Can Help You Process Your Trauma
Unresolved trauma keeps a part of you frozen in the past. As much as you want to move on with your life and find peace and fulfillment, you might feel stuck and unable to find a positive path forward. You might not recognize how deeply your past experiences still affect you today—emotionally, physically, and spiritually. Still, I am here to validate your experience and remind you that you deserve to heal.
Trauma and PTSD counseling offers a safe space to develop a deeper awareness of how trauma affects the way you think and feel about yourself and the world around you. As a therapist who specializes in addressing trauma and PTSD, I will provide you with tangible tools and skills to manage distressing symptoms, as well as incorporate evidence-based approaches, such as EMDR, to help process and release painful experiences. The goal of therapy will be to free yourself from the weight of trauma and unearth the happier, healthier person that’s remained hidden for so long.
What To Expect In Sessions
Trauma treatment will be collaborative and tailored to your specific needs. We will work together to decide on your goals, ensuring we move at a pace you feel comfortable with. When addressing childhood trauma in therapy, it’s important that we first develop skills to calm the mind and body before moving on to an exploration of past experiences. We will only dig deeper when you feel more grounded and can manage whatever anxiety symptoms you may be experiencing.
Sessions will be guided by what is coming up for you presently. If, for example, you’re encountering difficulty in your relationship, we might examine your family history and discover patterns and negative beliefs you may have developed in childhood that continue to influence how you see yourself and relate to others. I will also explain the function of the nervous system and explore what triggers you into fight-or-flight mode.
EMDR Therapy For Trauma And PTSD
I am passionate about incorporating evidence-based modalities into trauma treatment, including Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), [1] Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and mindfulness. EMDR is a particularly effective therapy for treating trauma. Through eye movements or bilateral tapping, EMDR mimics REM sleep, allowing you to process distressful experiences that remain stuck in your brain and nervous system.
CBT cultivates more awareness about how thoughts and beliefs affect your emotions and behaviors. Negative core beliefs you have held about yourself may be causing you to internalize shame and experience difficulty in maintaining healthy relationships. Not only does CBT provide tools to help you manage the symptoms of trauma, but it also allows you to shift your beliefs and perspectives more positively. DBT offers effective skills to regulate emotions, foster mindfulness, and build your distress tolerance.
You don't have to be controlled by your past. PTSD therapy can help you overcome your trauma symptoms, restoring your sense of self with newfound self-compassion, confidence, and empowerment.
But Maybe You’re Not Sure If Trauma Therapy Is Right For You…
I’m afraid of reliving my trauma in therapy.
Before we jump into any deeper treatment, such as EMDR, you will first learn tools and skills to help regulate difficult emotions and manage the symptoms associated with trauma, such as anxiety and feeling out of the body. I will always set a pace you’re comfortable with and never push you beyond your limits. Utilizing EMDR doesn’t require you to talk about your trauma unless you deem it may be healing to do so.
Since others are worse off than me, does my experience warrant trauma therapy?
A common protective mechanism we possess is to minimize a traumatic experience as “no big deal.” But no matter how small an event may seem, if it is negatively impacting how you think and feel, it’s usually a sign you could use some help and support. Therapy provides a supportive environment to safely process your trauma and learn lifelong coping strategies to keep your symptoms in check.
I’ve tried trauma counseling before but it didn’t help.
Many clients I work with have tried talk therapy previously but found it wasn’t particularly helpful in overcoming their trauma. As a counselor who specializes in treating trauma, I have received training in EMDR, an evidence-based modality that’s effective in reducing symptoms as well as addressing deeply rooted emotional pain. Depending on your comfort level, we will use as many hands-on tools and skills as possible to help you heal from trauma.
Getting The Right Treatment At The Right Time Offers Hope
Don’t allow unresolved trauma to get in the way of your happiness and well-being. If you would like to find out more about trauma therapy with Resilience Counseling, please contact us so we can set up a free,15-minute consultation today.
Trauma and OCD therapy as well as other areas specialization in San Diego, CA
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4869975/
[2] https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_adults.asp#:~: