trauma-informed care

Trauma-informed care honors the impact that past, painful events have on your nervous system in the present. It asks the question; What is your behavior trying to tell me? Perhaps you fly off the handle when you least expect it. Or you feel muzzled when you want to speak up. Maybe you become overwhelmed with sadness or dread, seemingly out of nowhere. Or you get stuck in the same, stressful relationship dynamic, over and over again. These behaviors make no sense to you, and they get in the way of life’s enjoyment.

If any of these symptoms feel familiar to you, you may be reliving trauma.

When you experience these traumatic events, your memories of them do not get stored like normal memories. Instead, they get split off in the limbic system (also known as the emotional brain). Then, when present-day events activate these memories, your body experiences them as happening all over again, no matter how long has elapsed since they occurred. 

This can lead to the following symptoms:

  • Mistrust

  • Emotional overwhelm

  • Numbing

  • Self-destructive behavior

  • Depression

  • Insomnia

  • Shame

  • Rage

  • Heightened startle response

  • Decreased concentration

  • Loss of self-identity

  • Difficulty relating to others

  • Intrusive thoughts

  • Nightmares

  • Black-and-white thinking

  • Hopelessness

  • Few memories

  • Anxiety or depression

  • Chronic pain

  • Substance abuse/eating disorders

  • Feelings of unreality

  • Dissociation

  • Distortions in self-concept 

It is useful to note that there are two forms of trauma; Big T and small t: 

  • Big T trauma occurs when you experience (or witness) a life threatening event. For example, being in a war, or a car accident, or a victim of attack, etc. 

  • Small t trauma occurs when you are exposed repeatedly to events that threaten your sense of safety. This often starts in childhood, although it can also occur later in life. We see this in people who were neglected or abused, for example, or who witnessed domestic violence. 

Trauma-informed care recognizes that talking alone can’t help these symptoms (in fact, talking about trauma can increase symptoms). With trauma-informed care, I help you differentiate between a body memory and what is happening now. Then, we work together to heal and integrate the body memory so that it no longer influences your life to the extent that it does now.

HOW IT WORKS;

While I tailor therapy to each individual client, the psychotherapy modalities I favor when working with trauma are EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, IFS (internal family systems) and mindfulness.

EMDR

  • This is an eight-phase process in which I use bilateral stimulation (BLS) to desensitize and reprocess body memories. In the assessment phase, we identify the negative self-beliefs that you hold from the traumatizing experience(s) and also the positive self-beliefs you would rather hold. Then I use eye-movements, sounds or tapping to desensitize the negative beliefs, reprocessing them with the positive beliefs.

IFS

  • This is a process in which I help you heal by identifying and unburdening your wounded and protective parts, which paves the way for your Core Self to take charge. Everyone has a Core Self, which embodies the eight Cs - calmness, confidence, courage, compassion, clarity, connectedness, curiosity and creativity. 

Mindfulness

  • This involves the recruitment of your “noticing brain.” It has a direct connection to your limbic system (emotional brain), which means it can change trauma-related activity. When you turn on your noticing brain, you reduce activity in your emotional brain, therefore training it to be less reactive.