Trauma Therapy
Have you experienced a life-threatening event? Have you had difficulty returning to your normal day to day activities?
Have you been avoiding people, places, and things that remind you of the event?
Do you feel a heightened sense of alertness? Like you are on guard or watchful?
Do you re-experience the event in dreams or during wake hours, as if they were happening again?
Are you burdened by feelings of loss, guilt, anger or sadness?
Have you become disillusioned with the world?
Do you blame yourself for the event?
Many people struggle to return to normal after a life altering, traumatic event. Having a scary, dangerous, or near-death experience happen to you or a loved one can make you question your own safety and the security of the world around you.
During this time of Covid many people are struggling with the sudden loss of a loved one or family member. These losses often came without warning and without the ability to say goodbye.
Many people struggle to cope following a Trauma
You are not alone in your struggle, and there is no reason to endure the pain by yourself. Indeed, approximately 1 in 4 people struggle with post-traumatic stress symptoms directly following a major trauma and 1/6 will go on to suffer with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder well after the event. Help is available.
Trauma Treatment that Works
Thankfully, there are effective treatment options for post-traumatic stress symptoms. Decades of research on trauma survivors has resulted in the development of several evidence-based treatments, including Prolonged Exposure Therapy ¹, Cognitive Processing Therapy ², and Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy ³. These therapies are based in cognitive behavioral theory and have been shown be the gold standard for trauma treatment with children, teens, and adults alike.
Trauma treatment at Larsen Behavioral Wellness involves first learning skills to manage strong feelings. Your therapist will work with you on relaxation training techniques such as deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, mindfulness, and visualization. You will learn how to identify automatic thoughts and associated feelings and when those thoughts and feelings are triggered in certain situations. Over time, as you develop confidence in your skills and your relationship with you therapist, you will deeply process your traumatic experience in therapy sessions.
For many people, trauma causes our brain to make false associations and false conclusions about the nature of the trauma. People often blame themselves for the event while others come to the conclusion that the world is an unsafe place. These thoughts and beliefs are very upsetting and often come with levels of shame. Through the trusted relationship with your therapist, you will be encouraged to discuss these thoughts, so that they do not rule your life.
I do not want to talk about my trauma
For many clients, traumatic memories are so painful that they may go to great lengths to avoid thinking about or talking about them. Unfortunately, this avoidance is the reason PTSD is maintained over time. For example, in the short term, one may feel a sense of relief avoiding the place where they had their car accident or the bar were they first encountered the person who assaulted them, but over time the avoidance of these scenarios becomes harder as the symptoms become activated with increasing numbers of people and places. It can soon become difficult to avoid trauma triggers and this leaves a person feeling like things are spinning out of control.
The key to overcoming trauma is to talk about the trauma. Talking about the trauma will take power out of it, and over time, you will become less emotionally reactive to it. It may seem difficult to even think about right now, but as you begin to develop trust in your therapist, you will feel more comfortable talking about your trauma. Trauma treatment can progress slowly at your own pace so as not to overwhelm you. It is important to discuss the pace of your treatment with your therapist and this is something our clinicians will do with you from the very first session.
I’ve had therapy before for this and it didn’t work
Many clients think they have had treatment for their traumatic experiences during past counseling encounters; however, they come to find out that the treatment was ineffective because the therapist was not using an evidenced based treatment approach. Unless you have had a form of exposure therapy, which involves repeatedly revisiting the trauma during therapy, you have likely not had an evidence-based form of trauma treatment. Discussing the trauma in one therapy session is not effective trauma treatment. It takes time, repetition, and deep reflection to overcome some of the deep-seated beliefs and negative thoughts that trauma causes. Therapy with a psychotherapist trained in one of the aforementioned forms of evidence-based therapies (CPT, PE, and TF-CBT) is the most efficient and best way to overcome your trauma and get back to living your life.
I am too ashamed to talk about this
Shame is a common response to trauma. That is due to a common fallacy that we have control over the things that happen to us. The truth is there are many things we have no control over or at the least do not have complete control over. But our brain does not like that, so when a trauma happens to us, our brain will go to great lengths to convince us that we had some control over our trauma. Overcoming the shame you feel about the cause of the trauma is a critical part of the therapy process.
You can get better
Your trauma does not have to define your life. You can get better and many people do. Even if you’ve been in therapy before, it’s possible there is still more to do. In studies of Cognitive Processing Therapy, 89% of clients saw significantly more improvements in their trauma symptoms during the course of treatment than those in regular supportive therapy (Asmundson, et al. 2018) ⁴. These results have been replicated for children as well (Jensen et al., 2014) ⁵.
Take the first step NOW!
You may be wondering if today is the right day to make a change. We invite you to contact us through our contact form or call us on (201) 639 3361 for a free phone consultation to discuss your concerns and decide whether we are the right fit for you. We have several expert trauma therapists in our group. When you call, Danielle, our clinic coordinator, will walk you through the intake process and match you with the best therapist for your concerns. Why wait? Call today and take the first step in your journey towards wellness.
¹ https://www.med.upenn.edu/ctsa/workshops_pet.html
² https://cptforptsd.com/
³ https://tfcbt.org/
⁴ Asmundson, G., Thorisdottir, A. S., Roden-Foreman, J. W., Baird, S. O., Witcraft, S. M., Stein, A. T., Smits, J., & Powers, M. B. (2019). A meta-analytic review of cognitive processing therapy for adults with posttraumatic stress disorder. Cognitive behaviour therapy, 48(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/16506073.2018.1522371
⁵ Jensen, T.K., Holt, T., Ormhaug, S.M, Egeland, K., Granly, L., Hoaas, L.H., Hukkelberg, S.S, Indregard, T., Stormyren, S.D., & Wentzel-Larsen, T., (2014) A Randomized Effectiveness Study Comparing Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy With Therapy as Usual for Youth. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 43(3), 356-369. DOI: 10.1080/15374416.2013.822307
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