Trauma

Something keeps you on edge.

You have trouble controlling your emotions – making you lash out at those you love. Something sets you off, and all you feel is anger. You feel like an emotional wreck, and daily coping is hard.

Adverse reactions and unpredictable responses to minor confrontations or disagreements make establishing relationships difficult.

Something that reminds you of that previous experience triggers fear and anxiety.

At this point, you feel helpless to cope with what happened, and those feelings make it challenging to move forward.

How you feel may result from trauma.

Trauma can be anything that suddenly disrupts and affects your sense of well-being. Therapists refer to the broad spectrum of traumatic events as Big Ts and Little Ts. You may have heard of covert and overt trauma.

Overt trauma often includes experiences such as violence, rape, assault, near or actual death experiences – or witnessing them.

Covert trauma doesn’t involve touching but can still have an emotional impact. This type of trauma can occur from disturbing experiences such as emotional abuse, neglect by a parent or caregiver, growing up in a dysfunctional home, or bullying. The results of such incidents can affect your sense of self and even your sense of reality in current and future relationships.

The effects of overt and covert trauma, even if experienced in childhood, can stay with you for long periods, making it difficult to cope as an adult. Relationships suffer, memories can intrude on your life, and you tend to avoid situations that make you relive those experiences.

Whether big or small, trauma may need processing before discovering and realizing healing and wholeness with a new purpose.

Therapy can start the healing process.

When I work with patients suffering from trauma, we start by trying to identify the cause of their trauma and the stressors that keep them on edge.

Then, we focus on building resilience to allow you to develop the skills to cope with that experience (or experiences).

One method I use to help you reprocess your trauma is EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Research has proven this method to help individuals reprocess their trauma in a way that allows them to put it in the past while moving forward with a new outlook on life. If you want to know more about EMDR, please click here.

Whether you are suffering from Big T or Little T trauma, I can help you. Don’t let that traumatic experience keep you stuck. We can work together to help you overcome what keeps you in physical and emotional distress.

Our work starts with you contacting me today.