Trauma Treatment
Your experiences are real
and they don’t have to be your whole life.
What is trauma?
Trauma can be defined in a lot of ways, and we prefer not to lock into one, because therapeutically, it doesn’t help too much.
There are life experiences that commonly result in distress, such as abuse or near death experiences.
That said, trauma does not have one cause or one result. Lots of people go through intense experiences that leave a lasting impact. That impact? We can help with that.
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If you’ve experienced an event or even lots of events so disturbing that they continue to affect you on a regular basis, you deserve to have freedom from them.
You might be struggling with things like:
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If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms, we can help.
A note about PTSD:
People who have had traumatic experiences sometimes develop PTSD, but if you do, it doesn’t have to be a life sentence. We can help you live a life where you don’t erase your memories, but they also don’t keep hitting you in the face.
How do we treat trauma?
We believe in using treatments that work.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure (PE) are both treatments that the The American Psychological Association strongly recommends to treat trauma. Because they’ve been proven to work, that’s what we offer.
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CPT
CPT is a cognitive therapy focusing on gaining awareness of where you got “stuck” in the natural recovery process from a traumatic event and working to get you “unstuck” for good.
Learn about someone who, after years of therapy that wasn’t working, got better in TEN SESSIONS.
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PE
PE is a behavioral treatment that helps you learn to not be afraid of traumatic memories or reminders.
It helps you identify the memories and things that are keeping you trapped, and then completely change your relationship with them.
If you have PTSD and aren’t sure if these treatments sound right for you, we’d encourage you to check out this Decision Aid (multiple choice quiz) developed by the National Center for PTSD.
Will you make me do something I don’t want to do?
The short, simple answer: no.
The longer, nuanced answer: living life with trauma is a painful experience. You get trapped in cycles of negative emotions and intrusive thoughts that stop you from living your best life.
Moving past trauma is uncomfortable because it forces you to look at things you’re trying desperately to avoid. In therapy, you learn a new way to relate to those events. That process is so much less uncomfortable than the pain you were experiencing from trying unsuccessfully to escape the pain.
Essentially: you’re already being bothered by these memories. If we look them in the face, we can get them to stop bothering you.
Ultimately, your goals and your results are our first priorities and what we do together is up to you.
Can I take my medication while I am in therapy?
If you are already working with a prescriber and taking medication for your symptoms, we’d like you to continue with that treatment exactly until you start to feel better from your work with us.
Once you start feeling better or having symptom relief in therapy, we may have a conversation together with your prescriber about lowering your dosage or going off medication entirely, depending on your preference and your current level of symptoms.
Many of our clients do choose to go off medication once they have eliminated their diagnosis and find that they don’t need it anymore.
There is one important exception to the above policy:
If you are taking an as-needed anxiety medication, you might find that it will interfere with treatment. We actually WANT you to feel all the feelings fully in this moment. So medication that interrupts those feelings is going to teach your brain the things we’re trying to undo. Because of this we would likely discuss with you and your prescriber not taking that medication on treatment days or during the treatment period.
Again, that would be in discussion with both you and the prescriber, and any decision we would come to would be together for your best long-term success.
How long will it take for me to feel better?
This is a really reasonable question and we’re so glad you’re asking it! We can’t know in advance of meeting and treating you exactly how long it will take you to get better, but usually people see improvement within weeks for trauma treatment, and complete treatment (as in they don’t need therapy any more) within months.
When we meet with you, coming up with your goals and personal timeline of check-ins on progress will be part of the plan. You have a right to see measurable results.