Have you experienced a life trauma?

When I say the word trauma you may imagine something drastic or extreme such as an accident, violence, or a natural disaster… In fact, trauma simply means a “wound, injury or shock”. A traumatic event could be something large or small – what makes it traumatic is how you experience it. The same event could be experienced by two different people and only experienced as traumatic by one of them. Along with predictable traumas such as an accident, violence, or natural disaster, traumatic events could include the death of a loved one, childbirth, abuse or neglect, robbery, and even witnessing or supporting someone else in their trauma.

Yes, I would like to schedule my initial consultation.

When you experience trauma, your brain tries to protect you

Recent research has helped us understand far more about how the brain understands and holds information when there is a traumatic event. We know that when someone has a stressful response to the event they can experience PTSD or Acute Stress Disorder. As a result, that memory is stored in a separate neural network isolated from our regular memories. When triggered, you may experience flashbacks that can make the event feel real again, losing connection with your present reality and safety.

What if I avoid triggers that bring back the trauma?

Avoidance is the most common response to trauma, taking care to not trigger feelings and memories about the event. This is stressful, however, as it requires you to be hypervigilant to best protect yourself. Others may turn to drugs or alcohol or other self-destructive behaviors to numb the fear and memories.

Do you have post-traumatic stress disorder?

The symptoms of PTSD are diverse, and perhaps not initially seen as connected to the trauma. When you look at the pattern as a whole, however, it becomes clear that your body is feeling acute stress leading to issues such as:

unable to stop thinking about the event
nightmares or difficult falling asleep
desire to avoid thinking about the event,and avoiding people or places that remind you about the event
overwhelming emotions when something reminds you of what happened, including flashbacks or panic attacks
feeling numb, hopeless, or a lack of interest in things you used to enjoy
memory and concentration problems
social isolation and difficulty trusting others
feelings of guilt, shame, anger, or feeling unsafe
suicidal thoughts
substance use (alcohol or drugs) to calm down the intensity of the emotions that are felt when the event is brought to mind.
physical symptoms such as headaches, stomach pain, muscle cramps, hypertension, ulcers, and even nausea.

When trauma causes dissociation

Have you ever felt as though you were watching yourself from outside of your body and not able to control a situation?

Often these two experiences go hand in hand. Dissociation essentially means that your brain has isolated an experience in a particular segment of your brain that is not accessible within your normal memory stores. It is most often found when there has been extended abuse, neglect or fear in childhood and the brain has needed to find some way to protect you from the daily stress. It functions as a kind of amnesia, so that the memory of the abuse is not in your conscious awareness unless triggered in some way.

Yes, I would like to schedule my initial consultation.

How do we experience dissociation?

As adults, when we have dissociated we may feel disconnected from daily life or loved ones. Only “parts” of yourself may be present for particular feelings or situations, and when feeling unsafe (with or without good reason) you may automatically detach emotionally in order to cope. This can make it difficult to keep yourself safe should you be presented with real danger.

“Houses are designed with walls between rooms, especially where there needs to be privacy, such as bathrooms and bedrooms. Self-systems are similar, with barriers impeding access to corners of self where secrets or pain is kept. In the internal “houses” of people who survived childhood trauma, there are often many thoughts, feelings, body sensations and emotions that are experienced as private, or even shameful. Those things are kept secret from the self and from others, as if they are kept behind locked doors and thick walls. Dissociation produces amnesia barriers that reduce the ability to slide effortlessly between parts of self. The walls and doors in their internal house are locked up tight, and aren’t accessible to the conscious mind in the way areas of an open-floor-plan house would be accessible. Over the course of therapy, many people arrive at a more open floor plan to their internal house, because they feel less ashamed and accept themselves better.”

-Sandra Paulsen

The good news is that counseling will address both the emotional and physical impacts of surviving a traumatic experience. I find EMDR to be a very effective way to facilitate the resolution of painful or upsetting memories.

How I Can Help

To treat Complex PTSD and dissociation in adults I use a combination of internal family systems, brainspotting, and EMDR. Internal family systems focuses on understanding and resolving dissociative symptoms through greater awareness of the different aspects of self and offers a helpful approach for resolving inner conflict by promoting a safe and supportive internal environment. Brainspotting is a technique for processing trauma that uses bi-lateral stimulation through sound – providing entry into the neural networks that store the traumatic material in a more gentle approach.