Therapy is a common and effective solution for dealing with the symptoms of trauma, but it’s not always clear what that means or what it entails. If you’re curious about how therapy can help you heal from trauma, this article might help.
What is Trauma?
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines trauma as “Any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting, negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning.”
Simply put, trauma can be the result of how our nervous systems respond to stressful events. While trauma can be the result of stressful events caused by human behaviors, natural disasters, or other things, the difference between a stress response and trauma response is how our nervous systems are impacted, and how that impact continues once the event is over.
Trauma often has significant, long-lasting effects, where the impact of stress typically ends once the stressor is removed.
What are the Common Symptoms of Trauma?
Trauma impacts everyone a little differently, but some common symptoms of a traumatic response include:
Intrusive symptoms:
- distressing memories, thoughts, or images of a traumatic event
- dreams or nightmares of a traumatic event
- flashbacks, or feeling like you’re back in a traumatic moment
Avoidance symptoms:
- Making efforts to avoid any reminders of the traumatic event, such as:
- People
- Places
- Things
- Situations
- Conversations
Mood and memory changes:
- Having trouble remembering things
- Constant negative beliefs about yourself and others
- Constant negative emotional states such as fear, anger, guilt, or shame,
- Decreased interest in activities that bring you joy
- Being detached from others
- The inability to experience positive emotions like joy and happiness
Changes in reactivity:
- Irritable behavior or mood
- Reckless or self-destructive behavior
- Hypervigilance
- Being easily startled
- Trouble concentrating
- Trouble staying or falling asleep
- Dissociation
How Can Therapy Help?
Therapy can help those experiencing a trauma response in many ways. The most common benefits include:
1. Improved Functioning:
Therapy can improve everyday functioning by increasing coping skills that improve overall emotional regulation. This is helpful when managing daily stressors, as well as intrusive thoughts, triggers, and flashbacks that may come from a traumatic experience. With practice, coping skills can help reduce anxiety and restore daily functioning.
2. Reduced Symptoms
Therapy can help reduce symptoms by working through the trauma, improving functioning, and learning how to manage triggers and stress, allowing you to get back to doing the things you enjoy with the people you love.
3. Processing Traumatic Memories
Therapy can help you learn to tolerate your traumatic memories and process them in a way that provides new meaning. This allows you to move on and heal while being able to stay regulated when coming face to face with reminders.
4. Improved Sense of Self
Therapy can help you explore your sense of self, create stronger self-awareness, and help instill self-compassion. This can be helpful when dealing with negative emotions and symptoms of trauma and can be an empowering part of healing.
5. Improved Relationships
Therapy can help improve your relationships by helping you manage symptoms of reactivity, helping you find more trust and safety, and providing skills and education around boundaries and interpersonal communication.
6. Improved Emotional Experiences and Expression
Therapy can help you get back in touch with your body and mind safely. This can help you begin to experience a wider range of emotions and expressions while remaining emotionally regulated.
7. Improved Quality of Life
Through healing all these areas, you can improve your overall quality of life and get back to the things that are important to you, without letting your trauma responses dictate your life.
What Can I Expect from Trauma Therapy?
While there are many different modalities that therapists use to address trauma in therapy, you can expect to work with a trauma-informed therapist who will support you by providing psychoeducation about things like trauma, the nervous system, and the brain. You can also expect to learn and practice coping skills for emotional regulation, and to eventually begin processing your trauma in a safe, controlled environment in the manner you and your therapist feels is best.
Where Can I Learn More?
If you are interested in exploring therapy for trauma, you can reach out and schedule a consultation with one of our therapists. Rooted Counseling and Wellness specializes in trauma and provides a safe, holistic way of healing. You can learn more about trauma and treatments on our blog, review our trauma-trained therapists, or call our intake team today for more information.
References:
American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Trauma.
https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma#:~:text=Any%20disturbing%20experience%20that
American Psychiatric Association. (2022).
Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
(5th ed., text rev.). American Psychiatric Publishing
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – Symptoms and causes. (n.d.). Mayo Clinic.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder
symptoms-causes/syc-20355967
Yadav, G., McNamara, S., & Gunturu, S. (2024, August 16).
Trauma-Informed therapy.
StatPearls – NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK604200