Trauma Recovery
My Approach to Therapy
I honor the courage that it takes to begin therapy. If we were to work together, our therapy would involve focusing on how to relate to yourself differently, learning new skills, and learning ways to live a more fulfilling and meaningful life. Our first few sessions are spent getting to know each other to make sure that I am the right fit to help you meet your goals and needs. We will collaboratively work together to best make an individualized plan for treatment.
Psychological trauma can be caused by many different experiences including car accidents, rape, abuse, neglect, witnessing trauma, having a near death experience, military service, traumatic loss, exposure to racism or oppression among other experiences.
Trauma Recovery in therapy may include:
Trauma is complex and often can leave overwhelming and sometimes confusing feelings and thoughts. For some people, it is therapeutic to do trauma processing, which means revisiting the traumatic event(s) in detail with an intention of integrating the traumatic experience and decreasing any post-traumatic stress symptoms.
There is not a 'one size fits all' approach to trauma recovery. As such, I offer more than one approach in providing trauma processing in therapy to provide the best option for you: EMDR, Internal Family Systems and Cognitive Processing Therapy:
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR is a trauma treatment that research has shown to be effective for treating Post-Traumatic Stress. If this therapy is appropriate for you, we would focus on coping skills and self-soothing skills initially. We would then identify specific aspects of a traumatic event. Through bi-lateral movement of the eyes (similar how our eyes move during REM sleep), I would ask you to identify and focus on feelings, thoughts, images and body sensations associated with the memory of the trauma. Using a structured protocol, you would re-process various aspects of the targeted memory as well as related memories that emerge in the processing session with the goal of decreasing the intensity of your internal reaction to specific memories. Length of trauma treatment varies.
In addition to the standard protocol for EMDR , I am specifically trained in and use when appropriate:
Internal Family Systems Therapy is a way of working with parts of you that protect you and parts of you that may hold emotions and beliefs related to traumatic experiences. If this therapy is appropriate for you, we would focus on ways to relate to yourself, get to know parts of yourself that help you manage getting by as well as get to know wounded parts of you that may hold guilt, sadness, grief or shame about things that happened in the past or hold anxiety, anticipation or fear about your future. Internal Family Systems is considered an evidenced-based treatment. Research has shown that Internal Family Systems therapy is effective in helping treat depression, phobia, panic, generalized anxiety disorder. Preliminary research supports its use for PTSD. Length of IFS treatment varies. For more information about Internal Family Systems, see the Center for Self Leadership: https://selfleadership.org/
Cognitive Processing Therapy is a 12 session trauma treatment that incorporates aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and has been found to be effective for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In this therapy, we would examine why you feel this trauma occurred and focus on ways to change the things you are telling yourself about why the trauma happened the way it did including working with any self-blame, guilt, shame and other feelings. Specifically, in this therapy, we would specifically focus on how the trauma impacted your sense of safety, your ability to trust others, your sense of empowerment, your self-esteem and any intimacy issues that have been impacted by trauma. For more information about Cognitive Processing Therapy: https://cptforptsd.com/
I honor the courage that it takes to begin therapy. If we were to work together, our therapy would involve focusing on how to relate to yourself differently, learning new skills, and learning ways to live a more fulfilling and meaningful life. Our first few sessions are spent getting to know each other to make sure that I am the right fit to help you meet your goals and needs. We will collaboratively work together to best make an individualized plan for treatment.
Psychological trauma can be caused by many different experiences including car accidents, rape, abuse, neglect, witnessing trauma, having a near death experience, military service, traumatic loss, exposure to racism or oppression among other experiences.
Trauma Recovery in therapy may include:
- Putting words to unspeakable experiences
- Learning coping skills to deal with overwhelming feelings
- Feeling layers of emotions such as shock, grief, sadness and anger
- Gaining insight on how trauma has impacted your life
- Help shift how trauma has impacted your nervous system
- Identifying ways to cope and find how to continue to live your life moving forward
Trauma is complex and often can leave overwhelming and sometimes confusing feelings and thoughts. For some people, it is therapeutic to do trauma processing, which means revisiting the traumatic event(s) in detail with an intention of integrating the traumatic experience and decreasing any post-traumatic stress symptoms.
There is not a 'one size fits all' approach to trauma recovery. As such, I offer more than one approach in providing trauma processing in therapy to provide the best option for you: EMDR, Internal Family Systems and Cognitive Processing Therapy:
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. EMDR is a trauma treatment that research has shown to be effective for treating Post-Traumatic Stress. If this therapy is appropriate for you, we would focus on coping skills and self-soothing skills initially. We would then identify specific aspects of a traumatic event. Through bi-lateral movement of the eyes (similar how our eyes move during REM sleep), I would ask you to identify and focus on feelings, thoughts, images and body sensations associated with the memory of the trauma. Using a structured protocol, you would re-process various aspects of the targeted memory as well as related memories that emerge in the processing session with the goal of decreasing the intensity of your internal reaction to specific memories. Length of trauma treatment varies.
In addition to the standard protocol for EMDR , I am specifically trained in and use when appropriate:
- Flash Technique by Phil Mansfield, Ph.D. to help desensitize traumatic memories to prepare clients to do standard EMDR protocol.
- Resetting Affective Circuits Protocol and Early Trauma Protocol (including addressing in utero experiences, one's birth experiences, and pre-verbal trauma occurring in early life/before the age of 3/4 years old). My approach stems from training by Katie O'Shea, MS, LPC.
- Attachment-Focused EMDR from training by Dr. Laurel Parnell, Ph.D. to address relational traumas.
- Recent Events Protocol and Recent Traumatic Episode (R-TEP) Protocol to use for traumatic experiences that have occurred recently (i.e. within days, weeks, months of the event).
Internal Family Systems Therapy is a way of working with parts of you that protect you and parts of you that may hold emotions and beliefs related to traumatic experiences. If this therapy is appropriate for you, we would focus on ways to relate to yourself, get to know parts of yourself that help you manage getting by as well as get to know wounded parts of you that may hold guilt, sadness, grief or shame about things that happened in the past or hold anxiety, anticipation or fear about your future. Internal Family Systems is considered an evidenced-based treatment. Research has shown that Internal Family Systems therapy is effective in helping treat depression, phobia, panic, generalized anxiety disorder. Preliminary research supports its use for PTSD. Length of IFS treatment varies. For more information about Internal Family Systems, see the Center for Self Leadership: https://selfleadership.org/
Cognitive Processing Therapy is a 12 session trauma treatment that incorporates aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and has been found to be effective for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. In this therapy, we would examine why you feel this trauma occurred and focus on ways to change the things you are telling yourself about why the trauma happened the way it did including working with any self-blame, guilt, shame and other feelings. Specifically, in this therapy, we would specifically focus on how the trauma impacted your sense of safety, your ability to trust others, your sense of empowerment, your self-esteem and any intimacy issues that have been impacted by trauma. For more information about Cognitive Processing Therapy: https://cptforptsd.com/