Treating Trauma
We all know that bad things happen in life. Our parents warn us, and we expect that some things will go wrong. Our cars break down, our parties get rained out, friends betray us, we struggle in relationships, and so on. But most of us are actually optimistic that really bad things, like what others experience, will never happen to us. When they do, we are taken by surprise, maybe even shocked, and the world as we knew it suddenly seems unreal and unsafe.
Traumatic events are unexpected, dangerous to our very being or way of life, and out of our control. They dismantle our world-view and rock our core securities. Traumatic events are very bad things that happen to us during which our bodies help us to survive by calling forth the most extreme tactics of the God-given human Stress Response - fight, fight or freeze. The Stress Response also causes many physiological reactions in our bodies, including changes in how we store the memory of the event in our brain. Because of this, traumatic memories usually need to be resolved using different techniques than whatever typically helps us to “get over” things.
The aftermath of the stress response to survive trauma has normal symptoms which can be very distressing and can last for weeks. Experiencing trauma symptoms can be like having a strange physical ailment with un-explainable symptoms.Understanding what is happening in your mind and body is the start to feeling in control again and knowing what steps to take in order to return to normal. Without this knowledge, you may feel out of control, crazy, or afraid.
Without healthy resolution, trauma symptoms can turn into PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). PTSD includes many possible symptoms which cluster around having persistent fear of danger (hyper-arousal), indelible imprints of the traumatic moment that intrude upon your life (intrusion), and a numbing and withdrawal from reminders of the event or daily activities (called constriction).
In counseling, many presenting problems are either rooted in trauma or made more complicated by traumatic events which affect people’s world-view and behavior patterns. Left untreated, trauma can have devastating life-long effects. But there is hope, and there is help. Trauma is curable, and Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) instead of PTSD is possible! Wellspring specializes in the resolution of trauma and has skill-sets in various trauma-specific therapies, such as EMDR, as well as some experiential therapies. We also have an intensive trauma resolution program for youth, called Bounce, and one for adults, called Restore.
If you or someone you care for has experienced trauma, consider learning more about how trauma works in the brain, and discover the various paths to recovery.
