Trauma Therapy

The effects of trauma on your mind, body, and relationships can leave you feeling powerless. You survived (or are surviving), and yet, you feel thrown around by unpredictable grief and exhausting anxiety. You feel trapped by your symptoms and the patterns of relating to yourself and the world. You may not be able to imagine being free of the hold your painful memories hold over you.

At Relational Psych, we recognize trauma as an emotional response to distressing or life-threatening events that can persistently impact your life. Such events could be a single occurrence or repeated stressors, and either can lead to enduring mental, physical, and emotional distress. 

Some types of trauma include:

• PTSD or acute trauma
• Complex trauma or complex trauma (also referred to as C-PTSD)
• Religious trauma  
• Trauma related to health or medical issues
• Sexual trauma
  

Struggling with trauma can manifest in various ways, both physically and emotionally. Not everyone will experience the same symptoms, and some may not even recognize them as signs of trauma. Here are some common indicators:

• Intrusive thoughts or visual memories about the traumatic event.
• Feeling confused and not remembering details about the event or experiences
• Feeling emotionally numb or disconnected.
• Knotted stomach, grinding teeth, headaches
• Fatigue
• Difficulty sleeping or nightmares.
• Irritability, anger, or mood swings.
• Avoidance of places or things that remind you of the trauma.
• Feelings of guilt or shame.
• Thinking “I’m broken”; “It was my fault”; “I wasn’t protected”; “I could have stopped it”
• Being fearful it’ll happen again
• In relationships, you may feel lonely, misunderstood, scared of conflict, unlikeable, unlovable, or worried you are ‘too much’

It's important to remember that these signs can appear immediately after the traumatic event or years later.

At Relational Psych, we care about decreasing trauma’s hold on you by making sense of what happened and helping you grow your capacity to be with yourself and others. We will help you work through the discomfort in your mind, your body, and your relationships.

• Long-term change: We want you to experience profound transformation, so we will delve into the roots of your trauma. We will help you explore the origin of your trauma, understand and acknowledge what happened, recognize your triggers, regain control, and build resilience. We’re here to help with support, consistency, challenge, understanding, and patience.
• Specialists in diagnosing: It can be difficult to differentiate trauma symptoms from other mood or cognitive issues (like depression, anxiety, or ADHD). While your clinician has extensive training in the different types of trauma, sometimes a psychological assessment is valuable to provide accurate diagnosis and treatment recommendations. 
• Strong therapeutic alliance: The most impactful aspect of therapeutic change is the therapeutic relationship. We believe change happens in relationships, and we will be intentional in building a strong, trusting relationship with you at your pace.
• EMDR: Some of our clinicians are trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which is a specialized approach to healing trauma through natural processes of the brain. ‍
• Skills & coping: We can help you develop effective coping mechanisms and emotional regulation skills to manage and mitigate symptoms of trauma. However, until you work through the dynamics that are powering the effects of trauma, your pain will keep popping up in new ways and you’ll remain powerless. If you are primarily looking for skills building instead of in-depth transformation, we'd be happy to refer you to another therapy practice specializing in behavioral therapy.