Therapy for Trauma & PTSD

Have you experienced a distressing or traumatic event that has left you feeling stuck or unable to move on? Perhaps you have intrusive thoughts that pop up and you can’t seem to stop them. Other times you may feel symptoms like sweaty palms, a racing heartbeat, or feel a knot in your stomach. Maybe you didn’t realize that you’re storing some trauma, but you’ve done some work on yourself and are now getting hung up on something deeper you need to work through.

Trauma hurts. Let us help you work through it.

What does trauma do to the brain?

There are many different theories or modalities that can be used to understand trauma, so it’s important to stress that there is no ‘perfect’ way to understand it! One way to help you understand trauma is by helping you understand the concept of our “human” and “animal” brains. Our human brain is responsible for our human behaviours – logical reasoning, emotional regulation, creativity, anticipation and so on. Our animal brain, however, is responsible for those animal instincts – eating, sleeping, breathing, fight or flight. As you can imagine, we need both brains to be balanced, healthily functioning individuals. When our brain undergoes a trauma, our frontal lobes can many times say “ahhh we don’t want to feel this anymore – let’s take a break!” This is where dissociation kicks in – our frontal lobes (human brain) takes a bit of a break and goes offline, meaning our animal brain kicks in. In this regard, your brain in many ways is trying to help you – your brain is trying to stop you from hurting and to help you by safe by activating your fight or flight response. In this state of mind we don’t have the emotional regulation skills that we do when our human lobes are online. This is where you may not act yourself or have a variety of different emotions, some of which may not always make sense! Being that you’re primarily engaged in fight or flight mode, you’ll be more hypervigilant, on guard and cautious – constantly looking for threats that could threaten your safety. When we understand trauma through this lens, we can see that we need to learn how to get our frontal lobes (human brain) back online, and learn ways to keep it online when we need it to. As we develop confidence inn this , we then work to train our brains to no longer be threatened (or as threatened) by the threats that once crippled us, which works to keep our brain from thinking it needs to go back to fight or flight mode.

What’s a trauma response?

As human beings, we can all experience events or situations that are just too painful to process in the moment when the event is happening. What may result is that the memory is stored in a maladaptive way in our brains and whenever we experience a trigger, the same feelings and thoughts come rushing back to us as if the event were happening to us right now. Struggling with painful memories, anxiety, or feelings of shame, guilt, or fear can leave us feeling afraid, upset, depressed, isolated, and make it difficult to trust others. Trauma responses can come in waves or can be constant. Either way, no one wants to live in a traumatized state of mind.

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Insomnia or nightmares
Fatigue
Being startled easily
Difficulty concentrating
Racing heartbeat
Edginess and agitation
Aches and pains
Muscle tension

Shock, denial, or disbelief
Confusion, difficulty concentrating
Anger, irritability, mood swings
Anxiety and fear
Guilt, shame, self-blame
Withdrawing from others
Feeling sad or hopeless
Feeling disconnected or numb

Symptoms of Trauma & PTSD

When experiencing symptoms of trauma & PTSD, individual experiences will differ. People in all stages of life can experience events that may overwhelm their system. Traumatic events can affect people differently, depending on many factors. Many of the symptoms associated with trauma & PTSD mimic symptoms of other diagnoses as well, making it sometimes difficult to decipher. Check out this list of symptoms:

What can cause trauma & PTSD?

Major trauma can involve events such as war, natural disasters, a serious accident, or sexual abuse. However, there are also events that may not fall into the category of major traumas that can still have a highly distressing impact on people, such as the loss of a loved one, bullying or harassment, or other disturbing events. One way to understand trauma is by referring to trauma as anything that inhibits the brains ability to cope. Sometimes, we don’t really recognize that our brain/body has been through something traumatic – we’ll often uncover this later!

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Therapy to Support Trauma

At Rebound Total Health, we are well-equipped to help you through your trauma and/or PTSD. One of the key modalities we use tot help clients navigate trauma is EMDR. EMDR (Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) is an evidence-based psychotherapeutic approach that involves using the natural healing power of one’s own mind to process distressful memories and decrease their emotional charge. This approach goes beyond traditional talk therapy to focus on and process the memories that cause pain, fear, and symptoms of anxiety. Individuals can move forward without feeling the intense symptoms that were once triggered in their daily lives. Another body-based trauma modality we implement is Brainspotting which involves finding where in the brain our trauma is stored and helping the brain process. For many, simply being able to healthy explore their trauma in a safe environment is largely beneficial. One important thing to be mindful of is that in order to process trauma, you don’t always necessarily need to relive or re-tell the story. Many clients are able to heal and move forward without reliving the trauma in great detail. In all cases, before exploring your trauma, we make sure you are well versed with the necessary coping skills and strategies that help keep you within your window of tolerance. When addressing trauma, we’ll make sure we find the right approach for you!