Trauma Therapy

Is Past Trauma Making It Hard to Form Healthy Relationships?

Have you struggled with depression or anxiety ever since living through a traumatic experience? Do you have trouble building and maintaining romantic relationships or friendships? Are you prone to engaging in negative self-talk that only reinforces your shame?

Mistreatment from your family of origin, peers, or romantic partners can affect the way you relate to other people and the way you perceive yourself for years afterward. Maybe you’ve faced unrealistic expectations and pressure from your family, and as a result, you’ve never felt comfortable in your own skin. Perhaps you were bullied or ridiculed by your peers throughout your childhood or adolescence, and in adulthood, it’s hard to fully trust other people.

Trauma Can Affect Your Physical and Emotional Wellbeing

Memories of your trauma might fuel negative self-talk, and you may have a tendency to judge yourself and others harshly. You might feel shame around your responses to triggers and try to hide your symptoms, yet part of you still longs for connection, making it hard for you to set boundaries and say no to others.

If you were mocked because of your physical appearance, you might have fallen into disordered eating patterns in an attempt to avoid negative attention. At times, you may get angry about what’s happened to you, but with no healthy outlets for these strong emotions, your physical health suffers. You may experience chronic pain or inflammation with no discernible medical cause.

A supportive therapist can help you heal both the physical and emotional symptoms of trauma and shift your view of relationships. Through counseling, you can finally find freedom from past trauma.

Social Media Can Exacerbate Trauma Symptoms

Countless people have experienced trauma, and our dependence on technology can actually make it harder to cope with these events. Many people spend hours each day exposed to highly edited and curated images of other people’s lives on social media. For an individual struggling with low self-worth linked to past trauma, extensive time on social media can worsen their self-image, and the world’s conflicts serve as negative background noise.

Furthermore, criticism is prevalent on social media, which can influence the way people talk to themselves. Some people will attempt to soothe these feelings of emptiness and confusion with emotional eating or other coping mechanisms that provide short-term relief but inhibit long-term healing.

Many People Don’t Know Where to Turn for Support

Lots of people who have lived through trauma don’t feel like they can turn to their family or friends for help. They might lack positive role models who can illustrate a path forward. Additionally, people who seek counseling to address trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sometimes find traditional talk therapy or other popular approaches to trauma therapy ineffective. Spending hours telling a therapist about their most painful memories can be re-traumatizing and doesn’t always lead to resolution.

A poor experience with talk therapy can discourage trauma survivors from reaching out for help again, but working with the right counselor can be transformative for people struggling with past trauma. Through innovative approaches to counseling like Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), you can finally heal from past trauma while developing a more compassionate, loving relationship with yourself and others.

Trauma Therapy Can Help You Understand How the Past Informs the Present

In my practice, I offer tools that can provide immediate relief to clients as we focus on deep, holistic trauma healing. I apply a transformative, rapid-resolution approach for trauma counseling known as Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART). This is a guided eye movement therapy designed to help you process trauma stored in your body’s memories and alleviate your symptoms for lasting healing. While I often work with clients who are addressing trauma related to an eating disorder and negative body image, we can also target other issues during sessions.

I pursued training in ART because I wanted to provide clients with pivotal trauma intervention, and I experienced its benefits for myself after recovering from a traumatic injury. ART granted me immediate relief and newfound confidence that changed my life for the better, and I know that it can be transformative and beneficial for anyone who is reeling from the long-lasting symptoms of physical and/or emotional trauma.

What To Expect in Trauma Therapy Sessions

Through ART sessions, you’ll identify how your past experiences have influenced your present circumstances. In one protocol, we walk through your typical day one moment at a time to address how your trauma affects your daily life. Clients generally engage in ART for one to five sessions, but if you want to tackle multiple issues rooted in childhood trauma, you may benefit from spending a couple of sessions focused on each specific issue. Depending on your needs and goals, we can schedule longer three-hour intensive sessions. Ideally, ART will enable you to remember the events without experiencing the associated, painful emotional distress.

Treatment Approaches for Trauma Therapy

At the beginning of an ART session, we’ll spend a few minutes talking before we delve into addressing your target event through guided visualization and eye movements. You’re welcome to describe the event first if you would like, but this is not a requirement. You will only have to “see” the traumatic event for a few moments, and I’ll aid you in processing sensations that arise for rapid relief. We can address any residual issues that come up in the following sessions.

While ART is central to my practice, I integrate this modality with other techniques to support the healing process. I can draw from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you restructure negative thought patterns. We’ll use guided imagery and breathwork exercises in sessions that you can easily practice at home on your own—and as a certified yoga teacher, I can provide suggestions for relaxing poses. I also offer journaling prompts during sessions, which can help strengthen skills like self-compassion and healthy introspection.

If you’ve lived with the symptoms of past trauma for years, it can be hard to imagine a brighter future. In trauma counseling, you’ll learn the origins of your trauma responses and find relief from emotional pain without suppressing your memories, allowing you to form stronger connections with people who care deeply about you.

But You May Still Have Questions About Trauma Therapy…

What if talking about my trauma in therapy worsens my symptoms?

ART enables you to alleviate the pain left by trauma without discussing the event in detail. Many clients are pleased to find that they are not required to share anything specific in sessions about the trauma. Clients essentially replace their negative images with positive ones, which makes for a much more appealing process than talk therapy or other trauma therapies that may reopen traumatic events without resolution until many sessions later. Additionally, I’ll incorporate other holistic, mind-body therapies as we move through sessions, to further ease the process. Through ART, you can hold on to the knowledge you’ve gained—while losing the pain.

Will it take a long time to see improvements through therapy?

ART is a rapid-resolution therapy, and many people feel significant relief after their first session. Depending on the complexity of the issues rooted in eating disorders and body dissatisfaction, it may take anywhere from one to five sessions to fully process trauma and heal a particular issue. Some clients are able to successfully process a traumatic event in a single 90-minute session, and I also offer intensive sessions to work through multiple traumas in a one- or two-day format.

I’ve had negative experiences with therapy in the past, and I’m nervous about being misunderstood.

If you’ve had discouraging experiences with past therapists, I will meet you where you are to create a plan centered around your goals. I take a relaxed, conversational approach to sessions to help you feel at ease. I have personally experienced dramatic healing through ART, and if we’re a good fit, I’m here to support you on your own healing journey.

Through Trauma Therapy, You Can Cultivate Lasting Inner Peace

If you’re ready to heal from past trauma, I encourage you to reach out to learn more about ART. To book a free 15-minute consultation or schedule your first appointment, fill out this form or call or text me at 407-622-0202.