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Trauma Therapy
Do You Struggle With Negative Beliefs And Low Self-Esteem?
Is there a painful event in your past that you can’t seem to let go of? Have you struggled with negative beliefs and low self-esteem ever since? Are you suspecting that you have symptoms of trauma but you’re not sure that your experience counts?
Maybe you’ve tried to talk yourself out of your emotional pain numerous times. You’ve told yourself that your trauma wasn’t “bad enough” or that you’re just “overreacting.” You’ve tried to push down your feelings and just be strong. Yet no matter what you do, the negative beliefs persist and you still don’t feel comfortable in your own shoes. Perhaps you want to seek help, but a part of you feels embarrassed to do so.
The More You Run From Trauma, The Harder It Is To Find Peace
In the wake of a traumatic experience, you may have adapted protective behaviors to shield you from the pain of trauma. In the end, however, these behaviors may do more harm than good. Perhaps you isolate a lot and avoid intimacy out of fear of betrayal or rejection. Maybe you engage in self-destructive habits that “numb” the pain but don’t address it. As a result, you may feel like you’re running from your trauma—and yet the more you run from it, the more powerful it becomes.
If this is the case, I encourage you to pursue trauma therapy with me. I want to help you improve your self-confidence, reduce your stress, and embrace a future free from the shadow of the past.
Most People Experience Trauma At Some Point In Life
Trauma is far more common than most people realize. After all, a traumatic experience doesn’t have to be a single event—it can also be something that takes place over long periods of time. Dealing with child neglect, grief and loss, chronic illness, and emotionally abusive parents are all examples of trauma that fly under the radar.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences study estimates that over 60-percent of adults have experienced trauma. Yet this study doesn’t cover racism, sexism, and other forms of social injustice in its definition of trauma. So the actual percentage is probably far, far higher.
Many Trauma Survivors Constantly Have To Deal With Dismissive And Belittling Remarks
Oftentimes, what makes trauma so hard to live with is not the traumatic experience itself, but the aftermath. Trauma survivors routinely experience secondary wounding because of dismissive and blaming comments. Many people I work with have heard incredibly hurtful things, such as “That happened a long time ago,” “It wasn’t that bad,” and “You’re just playing the victim.”
Think about it this way: if you injure the same spot on your arm multiple times, that spot is going to be extra sensitive to anything that touches it. Emotional wounds are the same way. As a trauma counselor, I want to help you heal these wounds so that they don’t keep getting reinjured.
Trauma Therapy Can Help You Develop New Grounding Skills And More Empowering Self-Beliefs
A lot of clients come to me because of troubling thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Yet as we work together, we generally find that these are symptoms of a bigger problem: trauma. In this way, therapy often begins with surface-level work and then gets deeper as it goes along. While it’s important to address symptoms, my primary goal is to help you resolve the root cause of your pain.
Above all, trauma therapy is a chance to be seen, heard, and validated for what you’ve been through. There is no belittling or minimizing here—your trauma is worth seeking help for, regardless of what anyone says. Together, we will deconstruct the shaming and dismissive messages you’ve received and replace them with beliefs that are affirming and empowering.
What To Expect In Sessions
Counseling can help you gain insight into how your brain and body respond to trauma. This can help you expand your self-awareness and have more control over your stress reactions. You will learn to identify your trauma triggers as they occur and practice coping strategies for regulating them. I will help you notice when you dissociate or “numb out” and use grounding skills to keep you in the here and now.
The main approach that underlies my practice is called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing). The goal of EMDR is to neutralize the emotional pain of trauma so that you can remember what happened without feeling overwhelmed. This approach uses a series of gentle stimulation techniques to change your relationship to painful memories. The great thing about EMDR is that it doesn’t require that you go into detail about your trauma, reducing the risk of re-traumatization.
With my help and support, I am confident that you can overcome the pain of the past and experience peace in the present. Together, we’ll work on creating a future free from your traumatic past.
You May Have Some Questions About Trauma Therapy…
Is EMDR going to hypnotize me?
No—you need to be fully present and in control to participate in EMDR. Although the tapping and side-to-side eye movements of EMDR can access your unconscious, you are expected to be fully alert and conscious while doing them. If anything makes you uncomfortable, we can slow down and work on de-stressing. You’re in control of your own trauma treatment and I’ll never do anything you don’t want to.
What if therapy makes my trauma worse?
Confronting the past can be daunting, but think about it: you’ve been through the worst part already. You’ve come this far and you deserve to experience peace and healing in your life. The preparation part of EMDR makes sure you are ready to work through your memories and have coping skills for managing anxiety. Besides, you don’t have to share all the details of your trauma. Oftentimes, I don’t even know what clients are processing when we do EMDR.
What if I don’t remember what happened and it was a long time ago?
You don’t need to remember your traumatic experience perfectly. My focus is on the feelings and perceptions that your experience created. By targeting negative beliefs and intrusive thoughts, you can work through the pain of the past without confronting it directly.
Let Me Help You Take Back Your Power And Restore Your Confidence
If you feel like trauma is holding you back from your true potential, I would be honored to help you take back your power. To get started, you can book a free 15-minute phone consultation with my online calendar.