Do You Struggle With Symptoms Of Trauma?
Do you constantly feel on edge? Do you struggle with anxiety, have trouble sleeping, or suffer from intrusive thoughts or memories? Do you avoid certain situations or types of people because they remind you of an event or experience?
Maybe you feel like your emotions are out of control or you have trouble in your relationships. Perhaps you struggle with toxic shame, frequently judging and attacking yourself. You might feel unworthy of love, happiness, or peace.
These are all symptoms of trauma, and trauma therapy can help.
Trauma Is More than We Think
Trauma is a general term to reflect the idea that you experienced an event that overwhelmed your ability to cope. You felt scared and helpless and out of control. Still today, you struggle with pain, anxiety, and distress. You wonder if you can ever recover.
Traumatic experiences can take various forms – physical, sexual, or emotional abuse; assault; neglect; torture; terrorism or political violence; combat; bullying; racism; weight stigma; natural disaster; traumatic grief (i.e., losing a loved one unexpectedly); experiencing physical harm (e.g., a car accident); receiving a serious medical diagnosis, etc. – and can impact your emotions, relationships, sense of self, and your behavior, as well as your appetite, sleep, and life as a whole.
You might struggle with anxiety, depression, mistrust, or feelings of guilt. Perhaps you meet full criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Complex PTSD. Maybe you turn to substances, eating disorder symptoms, or other self-destructive behaviors to cope. The feelings and sensations are often unbearable.
You’re not alone in this. 50-60% of people experience at least one trauma in their lifetime. At Gatewell Therapy Center, our specialized trauma therapists have worked with trauma at all levels of care. We are skilled in treating both the primary symptoms of trauma, as well as its correlates, such anxiety, depression, and more. Trauma therapy with our counselor can help you feel more grounded and in control.
Trauma Therapy Can Help You Take Control Of Your Life
Our trauma therapists can help you understand what happened and how it impacted you. We focus on helping you process your experiences, cope more skillfully, and relate to yourself and the world more effectively.
Trauma impacts us but doesn’t have to haunt us forever.
What To Expect In TraumaTherapy Sessions
Trauma therapy at Gatewell is caring, compassionate, and comprehensive. More than anything, our approach is empathic and deliberate, mindful of you and your boundaries. Your first session is an opportunity to share what brought you to us. We’ll get a sense of what’s going on and the severity of your struggles. We may have you complete self-report measures, such as the PCL-5, the GAD-7, and the PHQ-9, and we’ll gather a lot of information during
this first meeting. We’ll be able to make some treatment recommendations at this time.
Initial goals for trauma therapy are to help you stabilize and contain your symptoms. Once you are stabilized and safe, deeper trauma work can begin. Our counselors help you process traumatic experiences while providing you skills and tools for safety and coping outside of session. While processing traumatic experiences in therapy, you will also learn how to regulate emotions, cope with distress, and engage in self-care outside of therapy. You are encouraged to be an active participant in the treatment process, providing feedback to your therapist about the pace and depth of the work you are doing together.
How Trauma Therapy Can Help You Recover
We’ll develop an individualized plan to help you heal. Trauma therapy can include individual sessions, DBT skill training, and consultation with other providers.
Some of the other approaches we use to address your trauma include:
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which helps you gain much-needed skills to regulate your emotions.
- NeuroAffective Relationship Model (NARM), an intervention for Complex PTSD, which helps you identify your trauma-based survival strategies and explore new ways of relating to others and yourself.
These trauma therapy approaches, individually and collectively, can result in a reduction of symptoms and an increased ability to live your life.
But You May Still Have Concerns About Starting Trauma Therapy. . .
Talking about my trauma will be too painful.
In trauma therapy, as with any other type of therapy, no intervention will occur without your consent. You can set the pace of therapy and any boundaries around what you discuss. Many of our interventions don’t involve recalling the specific details of your trauma. We can help you heal even if you don’t feel comfortable describing what happened in depth. Still, we’ll be sure to equip you with skills to help you cope with any distress that might arise.
I’m not sure I have the time or money to invest in this process.
Many of our approaches to trauma therapy don’t take long. CPT, for instance, is a 12-session intervention that has proven to be effective in addressing symptoms of trauma. Our DBT skills groups offer a more economical way of learning evidence-based coping skills that help with trauma symptoms. Even if your process takes longer, we can offer skills and strategies to provide you with more immediate relief.
I have complex trauma. Things feel hopeless, and I don’t even know where to start.
That makes sense, and that’s why we’re here. We can walk alongside you as you wade through the murky waters of complex, developmental, relational, or attachment trauma. We’ve seen it all, and we have hope that with trauma therapy, you can start to feel better and live your life more peacefully and effectively.
Trauma Therapy Can Help You Thrive
You’re a survivor, but you continue to struggle with symptoms that weigh you down. Working with one of our trauma therapists can help you thrive. Feel more at ease in your mind, your body, and your life. Contact Gatewell Therapy Center to schedule your first appointment.