What is Trauma?

Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that can have long-lasting effects. It encompasses various forms of psychological or physical injury. These range from feelings of being frightened, threatened, or violated to experiencing profound disappointment, abandonment, or abuse. Such events can occur at any stage of life. While some individuals can process these experiences without enduring significant psychological harm, others may need professional support due to the overwhelming impact of these events' intensity, duration, and frequency.

Understanding Trauma Experiences

• Acute Trauma: If you have gone through a sudden, overwhelming event like a car accident or natural disaster, you may be dealing with acute trauma. This type of trauma shakes your sense of safety and control, often having a lasting emotional impact.

• Chronic Trauma: This refers to the emotional burden that accumulates from enduring situations like ongoing domestic abuse or long-term exposure to an abusive environment. Unlike acute trauma, the effects of chronic trauma build up over time and can feel inescapable.

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): If you find yourself constantly reliving traumatic experiences through flashbacks or nightmares, you could be dealing with PTSD.

• Complex Trauma: This occurs when you've faced multiple traumatic experiences, especially in contexts where trust should be inherent, such as repeated abuse from a family member or ongoing betrayal in a romantic relationship.

• Complex PTSD: This is an advanced form of PTSD that arises from prolonged exposure to traumatic events, particularly those that occur in relationships or situations where you should feel safe.

• Developmental Trauma: If you experienced neglect or abandonment during your formative years, you could be grappling with developmental trauma. Such early experiences can profoundly shape your emotional and psychological well-being.

• Medical Trauma: Experiencing severe injuries that require surgery or extended hospital stays can result in medical trauma. The high levels of stress, fear, and pain accompanying such events can profoundly impact your mental health.

• Attachment Trauma: This type of trauma occurs when the vital bond between a child and caregiver breaks down, often due to inconsistent caregiving or neglect.

• Traumatic Loss: The sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one can cause what is known as traumatic loss, having a lasting emotional impact that shapes how you deal with grief going forward.

• Identity Trauma: Discrimination or stigmatization based on aspects of your identity, such as race, gender, or sexual orientation, can lead to identity trauma. 

Why Focus on Trauma?

Therapy aims to go beyond merely managing symptoms to uncover the root causes of persistent emotional suffering. While it's normal to feel sad, worried, or angry, when these emotions become overwhelming or persist over time, they often signify underlying issues, potentially related to trauma.

How Do I Know If I Have Experienced Trauma?

Recognizing trauma doesn't necessarily require recalling the event. The focus of therapy is on helping you transform from a traumatized sense of self to one that is confident, secure, and resilient. To determine whether you have experienced trauma, consider the following indicators. The more you resonate with these points, the more beneficial it will be to focus on trauma in your therapeutic journey.

Emotional State

• Feeling Inadequate or Inferior: Struggling with an inner sense that you're not good enough.

• Overwhelmed by Anger and Frustration: Feeling consumed by uncontrollable emotions.

• Burdened by Guilt and Insecurity: Carrying a heavy load of shame and self-doubt.

Behavioral Responses

• Constant Need for Validation: Always seeking approval or affirmation from others.

• Always On Guard: Living as though danger is perpetually around the corner.

• Avoiding Emotional Confrontation: Side-stepping difficult feelings or states of emptiness.

Relational Issues

• Fear of Losing Connections: Worrying that mistakes will cost you relationships.

• People-Pleasing: Maintaining relationships by accommodating others, even at your own expense.

• Fear of Being a Burden: Hesitant to express needs or concerns to avoid disappointing others.

Existential Challenges

• Feeling Lost and Directionless: Struggling with a lack of purpose or clarity.

• Pondering Life's Meaning: Frequently questioning the bigger picture or your own mortality.

• Sensing Otherness: Feeling like you're fundamentally different from those around you and do not feel understood.

If you find yourself relating to one or more of the issues listed below, it's possible you're grappling with unresolved trauma. Remember, you're not alone, and understanding is the first step to healing. This list is not diagnostic, but consider it a welcoming door into better self-understanding and emotional well-being.

Emotional Issues

• Persistent Sadness or Despair: Feeling hopeless or overwhelmed for extended periods of time. If you find yourself enveloped in a cloud of despair or hopelessness, you're not alone. There's a way to find sunlight again.

• Anxiety: Experiencing irrational fears, panic attacks, or constant worry. Fear and constant worry can be daunting, but you don't have to go through it by yourself. When fears or constant worries make you feel like you're losing control, remember that support and guidance are available to help you regain your footing.

• Anger: Struggling with intense anger or irritability. If intense irritability or anger is becoming a constant companion, understand that this is a common reaction to deeper issues, and a pathway to peace does exist.

• Guilt or Shame: Feeling overwhelmingly guilty or ashamed, often for things outside your control. Overwhelmed by guilt or shame, especially for things outside your control? You deserve compassion and understanding.

• Emotional Numbness: Feeling disconnected from your own emotions or the emotions of others. When emotions feel distant or disconnected, it can be a lonely place. You don't have to journey through it alone.

Cognitive Issues

• Flashbacks: Re-experiencing traumatic events vividly. Vivid re-experiencing of past events can be jarring; help is available to navigate through these mental landscapes.

• Difficulty Concentrating: Struggling to focus on tasks or make decisions.  Struggles with focus or decision-making can be disorienting, but you're not alone in this.

• Negative Beliefs: Holding a negative view of yourself, others, or the world. If you find yourself stuck in a negative thought pattern about yourself or the world, know that change is possible.

• Memory Issues: Having gaps in memory, especially related to traumatic events. Gaps in memory, especially around traumatic events, can be unsettling; compassionate guidance can help you sort through the fog.

Behavioral Issues

• Avoidance: Actively avoiding places, people, or situations that remind you of the trauma. When avoiding places or people connected with past trauma, understand that it's a common defense mechanism; and it's possible to lower those defenses safely over time.

• Hypervigilance: Being excessively alert or watchful, even in safe environments. If you're excessively alert even in safe spaces, it's an understandable reaction to feeling threatened; but you can learn to feel secure again.

• Impulsive Behavior: Engaging in risky or destructive behavior without thinking of the consequences. Engaging in risky activities without forethought can be a cry for help; there are healthier ways to find relief and control.

• Disconnection: Withdrawing from friends, family, or activities you once enjoyed. Withdrawing from friends or activities is a common way to cope; reconnection is possible, and it's okay to take that first step.

Physical Issues

• Sleep Problems: Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or experiencing nightmares. If nights are long and restful sleep is elusive, know that there are ways to improve your rest.

• Fatigue: Feeling constantly tired or lacking energy. Constant tiredness is more than just physical; it's emotionally draining too. There's help to regain your energy.

• Physical Pain: Experiencing unexplained aches and pains. Unexplained aches and pains can weigh you down; lifting that weight is easier with the right support.

• Chronic Illness: Struggling with persistent health issues like headaches, stomach issues, or other physical complaints. Persistent physical issues can be both a cause and a result of emotional turmoil; holistic care is available.

Interpersonal Issues

• Difficulty Trusting Others: Struggling to build or maintain relationships. Struggles with trust can make relationships hard; let's explore how to rebuild that trust safely.

• Conflict in Relationships: Frequent arguments or emotional distance with friends, family, or partners. If emotional distance or conflicts are the norm, new ways of relating and connecting are possible.

• Codependency: Feeling a constant need to take care of others at the expense of your own well-being. Taking care of others needn't mean neglecting yourself; balancing these needs is a skill you can learn.

Other Issues

• Substance Abuse: Misusing drugs, alcohol, or other substances to cope. Using substances to escape can provide temporary relief but permanent solutions do exist.

• Eating Disorders: Engaging in binge eating, anorexia, or bulimia as a form of control or coping. Coping through food, whether too much or too little, is a signal, not a life sentence.

• Self-Harming: Engaging in behaviors like cutting, burning, or hitting oneself as a way to cope with emotional pain. Physical self-harm is often an external expression of inner pain; there are gentler ways to cope.

• Suicidal Ideation: Having thoughts of suicide or planning suicide. If you're experiencing thoughts of ending your life, immediate help is available; you don't have to carry this burden alone.

What Is the Point of Talking About Previous Trauma? Why Not Just Build Skills to Move On?

Building coping skills is indeed one option for addressing trauma and its impact on mental, emotional, and relational health. In some situations, focusing solely on skills might be the most appropriate approach for moving on quickly. It's worth mentioning that discussing previous trauma in detail is never a requirement when working with me. Everyone has their own methods of self-preservation and the right to decide what they are comfortable discussing. If you're not ready to talk about something that could overwhelm you, we won't address it until you feel ready. This is a matter of basic respect; the aim to help should never warrant intrusive pressure.

What Makes Psychodynamic Therapy Different from CBT, DBT, or EMDR?

Short-term therapies like CBT, DBT, and EMDR have helped countless people. They offer quick, targeted ways to manage symptoms, which is wonderful. I have also compiled practical skills and strategies for clients who wish to learn concrete techniques. Psychodynamic therapy is generally a long-term approach. Many people who have tried short-term therapies and have seen some improvements may eventually opt for long-term therapy to delve deeper into their issues and enjoy a more personalized therapeutic experience. For those who find short-term therapy less effective, you may benefit from a more tailored, long-term approach, such as my client-centered psychodynamic therapy.

How Can I Determine if Short-Term or Long-Term Therapy Is a Better Option for Me?

Exploring therapy options is a brave step! Starting with short-term therapy is an excellent way to get a feel for the therapeutic process. This typically involves a series of about 12 sessions over 3 to 9 months, depending on your comfort and progress. If, at the end of it, you find something lacking or yearn for a deeper connection, you might consider my client-centered, long-term psychodynamic approach. Sometimes it takes a while to uncover what we really need, and that's perfectly okay. Take all the time you need to decide; this is your journey, and you should feel empowered at every step.