Trauma Therapy
Trauma therapy recognizes that trauma is an underlying part of many other conditions. This philosophy helps us provide compassionate and effective treatment.
Trauma-focused therapy provides care for individuals who have experienced trauma. There are multiple forms of trauma therapy, and they all help to understand the individuals' past and help them process their emotions and memories.
Trauma therapy also helps people develop healthy coping skills to replace negative coping mechanisms.
In this article, we’ll define trauma and trauma-focused therapy, and discuss why trauma therapy is so effective in treating a number of mental and behavioral health conditions.
What Is Trauma?
Trauma can be defined as the experience of a distressing or frightening event. This distress can be felt psychologically, physically, and emotionally. Sometimes, the effects of trauma are short-lived. Other times, dealing with trauma can be a long-term struggle.
There are three different types of trauma that someone can experience:
- Chronic Trauma comes from recurring events that happen over a long period. Chronic trauma can be caused by bullying, neglect, violence, or combat.
- Acute Trauma caused by a single event. An example would be a mass shooting, accident, or sexual assault. Acute trauma can lead to an inability to sleep, aggressive behavior, and extreme panic.
- Complex Trauma: Complex trauma refers to living through terrible events for an extended time. Examples are growing up in an abusive household, extended poverty, and living in wartime.
Getting the proper treatment and therapy can help manage the symptoms of a traumatic event. If you or someone you love has gone through a traumatic event, seeking the right help is recommended.
Related Article: Understanding Psychological Effects of Trauma
The Effects of Trauma
No matter how “bad” trauma is, the emotional and psychological effects can last for months or years after the event or events. Those who experience these effects long after a traumatic experience are likely to be diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Some symptoms of PTSD include:
- Flashbacks
- Panic attacks
- Anxiety
- Trouble concentrating
Related Article: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
These symptoms often occur in related groups called clusters. Sometimes, these symptoms don’t even develop until years later.
Related Articles: Delayed-Onset PTSD, PTSD Symptom Clusters
What is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma-focused therapy is a treatment to help those who have lived through traumatic events. There are different approaches to trauma therapy such as forward-facing trauma therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Each approach has the same goal—to help people process trauma.
Steps of Trauma Therapy
Most types of trauma therapy has four general steps:
- Realizing the impact of trauma
- Recognizing signs and symptoms
- Responding by integrating therapeutic practices
- Resisting re-traumatization
The purpose of these four steps is to help the client process the trauma and loosen its grip.
What Trauma Therapy Can Help With
Even if a person isn’t diagnosed with PTSD, trauma can still have lasting effects. Whether symptoms are mild or severe, they can impact a person’s everyday life.
Trauma therapy can help those who’ve shown lasting effects of a traumatic experience, but it can also help anyone who has developed issues yet. If a person has just recently experienced a traumatic event, they can get trauma therapy to process those feelings and memories before they become an issue.
At Sequoia Behavioral Health, we understand that trauma can be a root cause of many mental health and behavioral disorders. That’s why we use trauma-focused care at the heart of all of our programming. Learn more about what we treat and how trauma therapy can help.
Guiding Principles of Trauma Therapy
Most forms of trauma therapy have six guiding principles. These exist to provide successful treatment in a safe environment.
- Safety: A mentally, emotionally, and physically safe environment is important for comfort and openness
- Peer Support: Small group therapy lets clients encourage each other during treatment
- Empowerment & Choice: The client focuses on reframing their memories and surrounding emotions in order to change their reactions to the trauma
- Trustworthiness & Transparency: The therapist should ensure that all treatment procedures are explained in detail to the client
- Collaboration & Mutuality: In small group activities and individual counseling, everyone involved works together to ensure everyone reaches their goals and are held accountable
- Cultural, Historical & Gender Issues: The therapeutic procedure will bring people from different genders, historical, and cultural backgrounds together to share struggles and relate to each other
Each of these pillars is meant to emphasize to the client that they aren’t alone and they are safe. Even if treating PTSD isn’t the focus of treatment, feeling comfortable enough to be vulnerable is absolutely vital.
Benefits of Trauma Therapy
One of the best things about trauma therapy is that it can help anyone no matter how long ago the trauma occurred or how severe their symptoms are. Even if trauma isn’t the focus of treatment, it’s possible to experience the benefits of trauma therapy.
Create Healthy Coping Skills
As one goes through trauma therapy, they will develop healthy coping skills. Some examples of healthy coping skills include:
- Journaling
- Breathing exercises
- Mindfulness Exercises
- Meditation
- Talking with friends and family
- Spending time in nature
Developing healthy coping skills not only works alongside a healthy lifestyle, but it also prevents living past traumatic events.
Related Articles: Mindfulness Movement Exercises, Mindfulness Breathing Exercises
Identify Triggers
Another important benefit that comes from trauma-focused therapy is the ability to identify what triggers flashbacks. Knowing what what these triggers are can allow a person to avoid them or cope with them.
A trigger is anything that sparks a traumatic flashback. Trauma counselors work closely with their clients to find what words, places, or people that can act as triggers, then create a plan for the client to live without fears of flashbacks..
Related Article: How to Help Someone With PTSD
Improve Affect Regulation
Affect regulation is a psychological skill that allows a person to have an appropriate response to intense emotions linked to trauma.
Affect regulation helps us stay within the window of tolerance, which is the level of stress and anxiety that we can handle before “get stuck” in dysregulated emotions. The skill of affect regulation brings stability to those who have suffered from traumatic experiences.
Related Article: The Polyvagal Theory Ladder
Three Phases of Trauma Treatment
Trauma therapy generally has three sequential stages:
- Safety and stabilization
- Processing and remembrance
- Connection and integration
Each stage prepares the client for the next one. Whether a client is ready to move on to the next phase is up to them and their counselor.
Safety and Stabilization
In this beginning stage, the client and therapist work together to implement the best coping mechanisms for emotional regulation and making a mentally safe place.
This phase is foundational for trauma treatment, as it provides a calming solution to overwhelming emotions. Different strategies work better for different people. While going through this process, the client will try different stabilization techniques and determine what works best for them.
Processing and Remembrance
When trauma creates distress for long periods of time, it means that person’s brain hasn’t stored those memories away properly. They exist in a way that causes intense emotions and those panic-like symptoms.
Processing means working to file those memories away correctly. Each type of trauma therapy will do this differently. For example, EMDR simulates rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Normally, our brains file away and process memories during this stage of sleep. By using this biological function intentionally, clients can process traumatic memories.
Connection and Integration
The final phase of the trauma therapy process is connection and integration. In this stage, the client practices the strategies and techniques that they learned in trauma therapy. Now, they have the tools they need to apply these healthy coping techniques.
Trauma Therapy at Sequoia
Healing trauma offers freedom that many people may not have thought possible. Sequoia Behavioral Health offers an evidence-based trauma-focused therapy program to treat a wide variety of mental and behavioral health concerns.
Located in Mesa AZ, We offer inpatient and several different methods of outpatient treatment. Call us to get started on your wellness journey.