Your story matters, and you don't have to go through this alone.
What comes to mind when you hear the word “trauma”? Many people imagine an emergency room: doctors and nurses rushing to treat victims of violence, car accidents, or assault. Of course, these certainly are all forms of traumatic events, but when it comes to mental health, a trauma is any moment that a person’s brain detects a significant danger, violation, or threat to life as you know it. You don’t have to have gone to an emergency room to have been through a trauma, and you may not even have realized that your brain went into a trauma response when your trauma occurred!
Often, people seek therapy for depression, stress, or anxiety, but when we dig deeper, we realize that trauma and difficult past experiences are actually at the root of these problems. I have dedicated myself to learning effective and efficient forms of therapy and counseling to address Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in people of all ages. Whatever your age or situation, you need to share your story, your version of what happened and why you think it did. Parents and caregivers: your kids need to talk about it, and they need you to guide them through that process. I can help.
Therapy is a confidential space where you can open up, feel safe, and be deeply understood and witnessed. We will figure out together what your situation is calling for in you, and ultimately, through our work together, I hope you'll come to know and feel that, to quote the great poet Rumi, "A wound is the place where the light enters you."
Often, people seek therapy for depression, stress, or anxiety, but when we dig deeper, we realize that trauma and difficult past experiences are actually at the root of these problems. I have dedicated myself to learning effective and efficient forms of therapy and counseling to address Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in people of all ages. Whatever your age or situation, you need to share your story, your version of what happened and why you think it did. Parents and caregivers: your kids need to talk about it, and they need you to guide them through that process. I can help.
Therapy is a confidential space where you can open up, feel safe, and be deeply understood and witnessed. We will figure out together what your situation is calling for in you, and ultimately, through our work together, I hope you'll come to know and feel that, to quote the great poet Rumi, "A wound is the place where the light enters you."
Treatment for All Ages & Stages
Trauma impacts people of all ages and stages in life. My understanding of child, human and relationship development helps me understand that impact more fully, and provide insights that might help the whole family in recovery.
EARLY CHILDHOODYoung children lack the language skills to talk about and describe what they've been through, so talk therapy isn't appropriate for this age group. They need, instead, to play out the stories of their trauma and have those stories witnessed and understood by their caregivers.
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ELEMENTARY AGETherapy for this age group matches to their curious, playful and creative young minds, and also makes sure parents are involved. Games, activities and art help the child and family take steps towards talking about trauma, managing symptoms and building a safe and healthy life.
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TEENSTeens and young adults might need to strengthen or change their coping strategies. Being in the process of developing a personal and sexual identity, this age group might need help figuring out how their trauma fits in to how they understand their developing selves.
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ADULTS Faced with the responsibilities of life and survival, many adults learn to live with their pain, and do so valiantly for long stretches of time before being given the opportunity and space to even consider how their past is shaping their present. Treatment can be life changing.
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Impact of Trauma, PTSD and Stress
Difficult events, in the past or present, can have a range of impact on individuals, depending on age, family life, social supports, and a person's unique intersectionality of race and culture.
ON THE BODY
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ON THOUGHTS & FEELINGS
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ON BEHAVIORS
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Types of Trauma
Examples of events that often trigger a traumatic stress reaction include sudden loss of a loved one, sexual abuse or assault, violence in relationships, and physical abuse by a caregiver. Other things that aren’t always considered traumatic, but could actually cause PTSD symptoms, include bullying or harassment, incarceration of a parent, miscarriage, and even divorce. Social or cultural events, like experiencing racism or living in chronic poverty, can be traumatic for a person. Secondary or vicarious traumatic stress can occur when a person directly witnesses another person’s trauma, or is exposed to the impact of that person’s trauma. Medical providers, firefighters, and EMTs operate beautifully under pressure, but later on might have difficulty processing the gruesome details of an incident.
There are so many types of events that could contribute to a person developing PTSD, so to determine whether an event may have been traumatizing, we have to consider a wide range of conditions and factors, chief among them are a person’s age and resources at the time of the event. An adult, for example, likely won’t be traumatized by seeing their parent drunk, stumbling around, being ill, or passing out. A child, however, has a keen understanding of their own limitations and knows their sense of survival depends upon their parent--If my parent isn’t available or able to take care of me, I’m on my own to survive. The conditions of an event can make a situation stressful for one person, and traumatizing to another.
One important point: traumatic events don’t always result in post-traumatic stress disorder! Usually, a trauma will generate a unique form of stress that we call “post-traumatic stress,” however the trauma survivor may process and move through this stress in an adaptive way. We call that “natural recovery,” and it is similar to the process of healing when you get a bad cut—if you clean it, bandage it, and put some ointment on it, it’ll hurt for a little while but then heal into a scar. Sometimes, though, that natural recovery process gets stuck, and the brain holds onto the idea that we’re not safe. That’s when post-traumatic stress can become post traumatic stress disorder. Think of that cut again: if you don’t have an opportunity to clean it, or you can’t find any bandages to keep it covered and prevent dirt from getting in, it’s much more likely to get infected and cause longer-term suffering. Without care and attention, it might never heal right. That's where trauma therapy comes in.
There are so many types of events that could contribute to a person developing PTSD, so to determine whether an event may have been traumatizing, we have to consider a wide range of conditions and factors, chief among them are a person’s age and resources at the time of the event. An adult, for example, likely won’t be traumatized by seeing their parent drunk, stumbling around, being ill, or passing out. A child, however, has a keen understanding of their own limitations and knows their sense of survival depends upon their parent--If my parent isn’t available or able to take care of me, I’m on my own to survive. The conditions of an event can make a situation stressful for one person, and traumatizing to another.
One important point: traumatic events don’t always result in post-traumatic stress disorder! Usually, a trauma will generate a unique form of stress that we call “post-traumatic stress,” however the trauma survivor may process and move through this stress in an adaptive way. We call that “natural recovery,” and it is similar to the process of healing when you get a bad cut—if you clean it, bandage it, and put some ointment on it, it’ll hurt for a little while but then heal into a scar. Sometimes, though, that natural recovery process gets stuck, and the brain holds onto the idea that we’re not safe. That’s when post-traumatic stress can become post traumatic stress disorder. Think of that cut again: if you don’t have an opportunity to clean it, or you can’t find any bandages to keep it covered and prevent dirt from getting in, it’s much more likely to get infected and cause longer-term suffering. Without care and attention, it might never heal right. That's where trauma therapy comes in.
PTSD Symptoms
When PTSD occurs, a person struggles with symptoms in each of these four categories: intrusions of their traumatic memory to daily living, changes in thoughts and moods, changes in physiological arousal levels, and avoidance.
Intrusions to daily living.
Intrusions of the traumatic memory to daily living are often thought of as “flashbacks,” but can also include simply feeling distress emotionally or physiologically when a person remembers the trauma. Certain objects, people or places that remind someone of their trauma might act as triggers of traumatic memories, and suddenly a PTSD survivor’s daily life is being intruded upon by the distress of the trauma. The level or intensity of distress a person with PTSD will have in reaction to triggers can vary widely. Some people have nightmares where the trauma replays like a movie, or full blown “dissociative flashbacks” where they actually believe they are back at the moment of the trauma. This happens frequently for military service members who were exposed to war or combat where there was a profound threat of death, but also to people like rape survivors whose intimate moments are interrupted by scary memories from the past.
Changes in thoughts and moods.
Following a traumatic event, people often experience thoughts and moods that are different from how they previously felt. This is hugely significant, because thoughts and moods comprise our experience of life and are the primary mode of suffering for many people with PTSD. A person who grew up believing that they were generally in-control and able to keep themselves safe in life might feel completely mind-blown by the idea that they actually are vulnerable to danger and can’t control and prevent negative events. They might over-accommodate their belief systems and come to the conclusion that they’re completely out of control, so why even bother trying to protect themselves? This could lead to an empty and discouraged mood, and reckless behaviors. Others still may be utterly convinced of their culpability in a traumatic event, and be stuck in the type of self-blame that prevents them from accepting and recovering from their trauma. Overall, people who go through trauma experience changes in how they think and how they feel: they experience more depression, more instability, more anxiety, more helplessness, among many other possible emotional reactions. A trauma can shake a person’s worldview to the core, causing them to doubt or even throw out what they previously believed about themselves and how the world operates. It could force an identity crisis, make a current relationship no longer viable, or throw a person into self-defeating behavioral or relational patterns.
Changes in Physiological Arousal Levels.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms also emerge due to changes in physiological arousal levels. When we encounter something that presents a threat of danger, a primitive part of our brains decides—without input from those more rational parts—what to do about the danger: stay and fight, run away, or freeze up or hide. When a brain detects danger and implements one of these trauma responses, a cascade of physiological events occur to ready the body for seeking safety and ensuring survival. Adrenaline and cortisol might flood the bloodstream, the heart might speed up to push blood and oxygen to our muscles, or brain activity may change to effectively shut down emotional processing. This split-second danger decision capacity of the brain is wonderful because it increases our chance of survival in response to a perceived threat and helps us tolerate pain. The problem is, however, that the fight/flight/freeze responses often get paired with the facets of the environment which were at-play when the initial event occurred, like the smell in the room or the position of the body at the time of the event. The brain of someone with PTSD may be continuing to deploy a fight/flight/freeze response in reaction to something in the environment that is similar to the original trauma. In short, someone with post-traumatic stress disorder is often trying to stay safe from something that isn’t actually dangerous! When this happens over and over, the body undergoes physiological changes, such as heightened cortisol levels and a resistance to regulated or relaxed functioning, leading to staying vigilant and on-guard all the time. Changes in a body’s physiological arousal levels lead to things like difficulty concentrating, hypervigilance, trouble sleeping, increased irritability, and being easily startled.
Avoidance.
Lastly, following a trauma, survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder may develop a pattern of avoidance due to the painful experience of re-living their traumas. Places, people and objects can serve as reminders of the trauma. Even just having to retell the story of a trauma can be awful. A leftover fear from childhood is that emotions will be so strong, that they’ll overwhelm and harm a person’s body. Many trauma survivors think it would be easier to avoid trauma reminders out of fear that remembering constitutes the same amount of pain as they felt during the initial trauma. We try to trick ourselves into feeling better by avoiding the memories, denying how bad it really was, or even denying that it happened at all. Sometimes, avoidance can work to manage PTSD symptoms for a long time. People can end up working all the time, compulsively organizing their lives, or developing acute suicidality in an effort to keep away memories and feel in-control. The problem is that trauma is like a beach ball: you can hold it under as long as you’re focused on it, but the second you get distracted and take your hand off, it pops back up to the surface. Symptoms of avoidance include trying not to think about the trauma, spaciness, feeling dazed or like things aren’t real, having out-of-body experiences, difficulty paying attention, and forgetfulness.
Trauma Therapy
Therapy that addresses post-traumatic stress head-on is life-changing for PTSD survivors. Remember earlier when we talked about how a trauma is similar to getting a bad cut? We explored how psychological healing can be similar to physical healing because it comes once a cleaning-out of sorts takes place. For a flesh wound, the clean-out process involves removing any harmful objects or bacteria that may have gotten into the cut with soap and water or even alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. For a psychological trauma, the clean-out process involves removing any harmful beliefs that got in during the trauma or perhaps because of the trauma. Just like how a flesh wound’s healing can be complicated by bad bacteria not cleaning out, a trauma’s healing can be complicated—or even stopped—by beliefs such as, “I can’t handle remembering,” or “People would be ashamed of me if they found out how guilty I really am.” It might be tough to figure out that belief that’s getting in the way of natural recovery, but if we search hard enough and do our clean-out right, we’ll find it and get recovery rolling.
Once we get recovery rolling, the goal of trauma therapy shifts to understanding all of the ways in which traumatic stress has impacted life for a person and helps a survivor feel and process their natural feelings. It’s important for a trauma therapist to deeply validate the emotional experience of the trauma, if there was fear, or shame, or even excitement or pleasure at the time. Treatment strives to understand and honor all components of a person’s experience, without any judgment. People each have incredibly unique backgrounds, personalities, socio-cultural presentations and life experiences, so no two people will have the same reaction or response to a trauma.
Evidence-based treatment models, or “EBTs” are types of trauma therapy that have been developed and tested scientifically to prove their efficacy. For therapists without a lot of training in trauma therapy or EBTs, it can be difficult to provide good therapy because there is often a tendency to “collude with the avoidance.” This is because a person with PTSD usually becomes uncomfortable and distressed when they remember their trauma, and a therapist, being human, doesn’t want to cause more pain, so may not push the client forward in treatment at the right pace. It takes a lot of skill and practice to figure out how to help someone to face their trauma without getting overwhelmed, and that is why those with post-traumatic stress should search for a therapist who has a solid level of experience treating post-traumatic stress disorder. With the right provider and therapy model, trauma treatment can be empowering, efficient, and energizing. It can be the best investment you’ll ever make.
I have certifications in treatment models for every age group. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of trauma therapy that works for all ages. It is based on the principle that our brains know how to heal themselves, but that sometimes information about a trauma can get “stuck” and cause problems. If we can activate the brain’s natural adaptive information processing system, we can help alleviate trauma symptoms. Certain activities, like moving the eyes back and forth or experiencing gentle vibrations in the hands, can facilitate this activation of the processing system and bring about important and vital healing messages.
Young children with traumatic stress who have not yet developed adequate language skills to describe their experiences need to communicate through play. Since they are so young, they also need someone to serve as a keeper of their memories and to be there in the future to help them cope with triggers. Thus, the best treatment for young children will incorporate play and parent/caregiver involvement. Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) does both, and for this reason I utilize this approach in my trauma therapy with children aged 0 to 5 years.
For older children, teens and young adults (typically those aged 5 to 21 years old), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT) is a gold-standard treatment to alleviate trauma symptoms. Children who have Post-traumatic Stress Disorder also need a caregiver to tell their story to and help support them, and TF-CBT incorporates parents into treatment. TF-CBT helps kids ease into talking about their trauma, using art, craft projects, stories and metaphors.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is an additional evidence-based treatment model that was initially created by a psychologist in the US Department of Veterans Affairs and works well for older teens and adults. CPT focuses on the connections between thoughts, feelings, behavior and bodily sensations and helps trauma survivors address ways of thinking that might keep them “stuck” and get in the way of recovery from symptoms of PTSD and other problems.
Once we get recovery rolling, the goal of trauma therapy shifts to understanding all of the ways in which traumatic stress has impacted life for a person and helps a survivor feel and process their natural feelings. It’s important for a trauma therapist to deeply validate the emotional experience of the trauma, if there was fear, or shame, or even excitement or pleasure at the time. Treatment strives to understand and honor all components of a person’s experience, without any judgment. People each have incredibly unique backgrounds, personalities, socio-cultural presentations and life experiences, so no two people will have the same reaction or response to a trauma.
Evidence-based treatment models, or “EBTs” are types of trauma therapy that have been developed and tested scientifically to prove their efficacy. For therapists without a lot of training in trauma therapy or EBTs, it can be difficult to provide good therapy because there is often a tendency to “collude with the avoidance.” This is because a person with PTSD usually becomes uncomfortable and distressed when they remember their trauma, and a therapist, being human, doesn’t want to cause more pain, so may not push the client forward in treatment at the right pace. It takes a lot of skill and practice to figure out how to help someone to face their trauma without getting overwhelmed, and that is why those with post-traumatic stress should search for a therapist who has a solid level of experience treating post-traumatic stress disorder. With the right provider and therapy model, trauma treatment can be empowering, efficient, and energizing. It can be the best investment you’ll ever make.
I have certifications in treatment models for every age group. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of trauma therapy that works for all ages. It is based on the principle that our brains know how to heal themselves, but that sometimes information about a trauma can get “stuck” and cause problems. If we can activate the brain’s natural adaptive information processing system, we can help alleviate trauma symptoms. Certain activities, like moving the eyes back and forth or experiencing gentle vibrations in the hands, can facilitate this activation of the processing system and bring about important and vital healing messages.
Young children with traumatic stress who have not yet developed adequate language skills to describe their experiences need to communicate through play. Since they are so young, they also need someone to serve as a keeper of their memories and to be there in the future to help them cope with triggers. Thus, the best treatment for young children will incorporate play and parent/caregiver involvement. Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) does both, and for this reason I utilize this approach in my trauma therapy with children aged 0 to 5 years.
For older children, teens and young adults (typically those aged 5 to 21 years old), Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT) is a gold-standard treatment to alleviate trauma symptoms. Children who have Post-traumatic Stress Disorder also need a caregiver to tell their story to and help support them, and TF-CBT incorporates parents into treatment. TF-CBT helps kids ease into talking about their trauma, using art, craft projects, stories and metaphors.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) is an additional evidence-based treatment model that was initially created by a psychologist in the US Department of Veterans Affairs and works well for older teens and adults. CPT focuses on the connections between thoughts, feelings, behavior and bodily sensations and helps trauma survivors address ways of thinking that might keep them “stuck” and get in the way of recovery from symptoms of PTSD and other problems.
Treatment that actually works!
The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse (CEBC) is a resource that shows the types of therapy that are well-supported by research and shown to work to reduce the impact of the stress or trauma on your child. Find a link here to the CEBC's page on effective treatments for child and adolescent trauma and read more in my blog post about this.
Knowing what they are not supposed to know and feeling what they are not supposed to feel, traumatized people need a safe space and the means to share what they experienced, and for someone to witness and give permission to how they feel about it.
GET IN TOUCH
Reach out to me today for a free and confidential consultation about how therapy can help you
and your family with the transformation you're seeking.
and your family with the transformation you're seeking.
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phone |
772.218.1109
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address |
100 E. Linton Blvd. Suite 210 B-1
Delray Beach, FL 33483 |
