Trauma Therapy
Do You Feel Overwhelmed By Past Traumatic Events
Are you having trouble getting through an upsetting past event?
Do you feel the need to avoid certain people or places because they remind you of an unpleasant experience? Have you been struggling with feelings of emptiness, despair, hypervigilance, numbness, or difficulty connecting with others?
Perhaps you endured a threatening event that left you feeling unsafe and afraid. You may have endured more severe trauma such as abuse, neglect, an accident, or some other incident that causes recurrent and unwanted flashbacks or nightmares. Maybe heightened emotions like anger and sadness have left you feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Or it may be that your relationships with those closest to you are deteriorating because you react explosively, withdraw, or completely shut down.
Trauma Symptoms Vary For Each Person
Life after trauma can feel like an endless cycle of trying to survive and manage triggers—which leaves you feeling vulnerable and unsafe. Your experience is unique and may fall within a broad range of symptoms.
Maybe you’re struggling with frequent unexplained stress, anxiety, depression, or general unease. Or you may be experiencing physiological changes such as elevated heart rate, sweating, weight changes, breathing changes, insomnia, or appetite and eating pattern changes.
Big “T” events are typically associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, including death, serious injury, violence, or life-threatening experiences.
Healthcare workers, first responders, family, and friends can be susceptible to vicarious trauma because of their continuous exposure to trauma victims.
Little “t” trauma, are events that can affect people in traumatic ways but not to the severity of Big “T” Trauma or meet the criteria for PTSD. These events can be extremely distressing and interfere with one’s daily functioning (i.e. appetite, sleep, physically, socially, relationally, academically or, at work). Little “t” trauma can include non-life-threatening injuries, relational stressors (i.e. bullying, emotional abuse, harassment), and loss of friendships or relationships.
Living with trauma or PTSD can feel like you’re carrying a heavy weight around with no way to ease the burden. You may doubt that you can let go of the guilt and pain, and find joy again. However, therapy can help you to heal from trauma, resolve the pain, and regain a greater sense of well-being.
Experiencing Trauma Is More Common Than You May Think
It is normal to be concerned about what the future holds. However, when these experiences leave you feeling anxious or stuck, it can often result in wanting to “numb out” with unhealthy distractions. Over-using substances, binge eating, excessive shopping, promiscuity, or social withdrawal are some of the ways people try to numb unwanted feelings.
Unexpected triggers can feel exhausting and confusing. You might shift between feeling irritable to feeling numb, detached, or like things aren’t real. Trauma can disrupt your sense of peace, however, trauma therapy can help to restore it.
Unfortunately, Nobody Is Immune To Trauma
There are several issues in today's culture that may contribute to people feeling traumatized—being bullied at school or work, feeling constantly excluded from social activities, or having an aggressive argument with someone.
For some people, the fear of inflation and an impending recession has caused economic trauma in terms of major financial stress and anxiety, especially post-pandemic. Economic challenges have negatively affected the peace of mind and financial safety and many individuals have not yet been able to recover from the damage COVID inflicted.
It’s not easy to deal with the effects of trauma. You may be doubtful that recovery from trauma is achievable, or that you’ll be able to feel like yourself again. However, you are not alone. Counselling can help you to learn to let go of past traumas, seek healing, and re-discover joy.
Trauma Therapy Can Help You To Resolve Your Pain And Move Forward
Often, people don't recognize how their life is impacted by trauma and how much energy they expend trying to keep it at bay. Trauma can impact your ability to trust yourself, other people, and the world around you. However, in therapy, you can feel safe and relaxed in a space where you can feel comfortable speaking about trauma and PTSD without the fear of being judged.
With the help of our experienced, compassionate therapists, you will be met and guided along your healing journey to receive insight into your trauma and PTSD symptoms and understand the impact they have had on your life. We work towards helping you develop coping skills, experience acceptance, and find the courage to change and heal.
What To Expect From Trauma Therapy Sessions
Our trauma and PTSD treatment sessions are focused on the goal of helping you to achieve healing so you can get back to living a more peaceful life.
An important aspect of therapy is learning various skills and techniques that can help you to identify triggers and find relief from trauma and PTSD symptoms. During our sessions, there are several ways to support you, so you can process your experiences. We may work to enhance your self-awareness, build upon grounding and mindfulness exercises, and practice breathing techniques. You will also learn more about your own emotional and physiological reactions to triggers.
We want to show you that you do not have to be defined by your past traumatic experiences. We strive to help you reclaim your power and move toward healing so you can replace shame, insecurity, guilt, and depression with self-love, and joy.
Trauma and PTSD Treatment Approaches
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) and Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) are two of the most common approaches we use in trauma therapy.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is an evidence-based therapy that is backed by rigorous scientific study and is recommended as first-line treatment for PTSD and other problems related to trauma. You do not have to talk directly about what happened to you. Similar to CBT, you will learn to become aware of how your thoughts lead to certain behaviours and emotions and identify the specific thoughts and beliefs that are keeping you stuck experiencing the same symptoms. By changing your thoughts, you can change how you feel.
Our treatment methods, along with the right techniques can help you to finally feel relief and heal from the trauma you experienced. With the help of our compassionate and experienced trauma therapists at Aligned Minds, feeling peace and joy is possible. It is possible to overcome the effects of trauma.
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) is a structured therapy that encourages you to briefly focus on the trauma memory while simultaneously experiencing bilateral stimulation (typically eye movements), which is associated with a reduction in the vividness of the emotion associated with the trauma memories. It is a gentle trauma treatment that goes beyond traditional talk therapy and focuses directly on your memory, and is intended to change the way that the memory is stored in the brain, thus reducing and eliminating the problematic symptoms that might be coming up from this memory.
EMDR allows you to be guided through a trusted, step-by-step healing process with interactive components including history taking, preparation, assessing target memories, processing the memory to adaptive resolution and evaluation of treatment results). Processing of a specific memory is nuanced but can generally be completed in a few sessions. EMDR therapy differs from other trauma focused treatments in that it does not include extended exposure to the distressing memory, detailed descriptions of the trauma, challenging dysfunctional beliefs about the trauma, or homework assignments.
Perhaps You Still Have Some Concerns About Trauma Therapy…
I don't want to have to "relive" my trauma or have to tell my story again. It was horrible.
We will honour the pace of healing that feels right for you so that therapy feels like a safe and supported process. It is possible to embark on a safe and gentle journey of healing, without comprehensively or painfully revisiting your particular areas or events of concern. We honour the pace our clients need and will not force them to talk about anything they are not ready to process yet.
What if I get triggered during the treatment process? I'm not stable enough for trauma therapy.
You are awake, present, and aware at all times during sessions. Should you become distressed, there are proactive strategies you can use to regain a sense of calm before proceeding. You also always have the option of stopping the session/process at any time should you choose to do so.
You can experience recovery from trauma without directly "re-enacting" it so you won't be retraumatized. Research shows that therapy does not make symptoms worse and that it is possible to notice some positive changes and forward movement toward healing in just a few sessions.
Therapy is too expensive and time-consuming.
While therapy does involve a commitment of time and financial resources. Given the impact that trauma symptoms can have on your productivity, immunity, concentration, sleep, quality of your relationships, and overall well-being, many consider it a worthwhile investment.
Please also check with your insurance provider to see if you have coverage for counselling services in your benefit package.
It Is Possible To Heal From Trauma And Learn To Truly Feel Peace And Happiness Again
If trauma and PTSD have prevented you from feeling calm, safe, and happy, therapy at Aligned Minds strives to give you the tools you need to get back on your feet and retake control of your life.
Once you’re ready to begin your recovery journey, you can start trauma and PTSD therapy and find out more about how treatment can help you. Please call us at (825) 509-5455 or email us at hello@alignedminds.ca for a free, 15-minute consultation.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Warmly, Aligned Minds
"To be aware of a single shortcoming
in oneself is more useful than to be aware of a thousand in someone else."
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama