Could You Benefit from Trauma Therapy?

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Trauma is a response to a situation in which your resources are insufficient to overcome a perceived threat. Trauma may be caused by an intense event like an accident, a sexual assault, community violence, or a natural disaster. Or trauma may be caused by repeated exposure to a stressor, like cyber bullying, domestic violence, or child abuse over time. We all experience trauma. It is part of life. However, some people experience higher degrees of trauma and have a harder time coping with their traumatic experiences. 

At RTPC, our trauma work is informed by Bessel van der Kolk, leading expert in the field of trauma recovery, Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, and Brene Brown, shame and vulnerability researcher and educator. 

Trauma experienced in childhood tends to have a greater impact and is not always seen as unusual, since in childhood we are still learning about the world and how things work. Children that have caregivers that neglect, abandon, or abuse them, tend to think it is their fault somehow and that the adult was acting appropriately. This can lead to a lifetime of self-criticism, emotional reactivity, feeling left out, loss of sense of belonging, loss of sense of worthiness, a tendency towards self-hate, self-harm, and a vulnerability to being abused or used by others as an adult. 

Physical trauma such as assault, sexual assault, physical abuse, witnessing or being involved in a shooting or violent crime, military combat trauma, natural disasters, war, accidents, near drownings, chronic pain

Interpersonal trauma including infidelity, compulsive sexual behaviors, codependency, patterns of arguing and shaming, chronic blaming and invalidation, name calling, domestic violence, bullying, child abuse, neglect or abandonment, discrimination

Difficult life transitions such as losing your job, divorce, loss of a child, unexpected loss of a loved one, military deployment, immigrating to a new country

• Making it easier for you to determine your needs and ask for help

• Reducing your negative self-talk 

• Improve self-validation

• Changing your habit of people pleasing to become more assertive

• Change your pattern of getting angry or defensive when given feedback

• Improve your ability to bond with people that are supportive, affirming, trustworthy

• Learn new more functional coping skills
• Reduce your use of dysfunctional coping skills like compulsive behaviors

• Improve your ability to calm yourself down when angry or fearful

• Improving your self esteem and self confidence

• Reducing ruminating, worrying, obsessing. 

• Increase in the ability to self soothe or calm yourself down when upset. 

• Increase ability to cope with difficult social situations, reduce social anxiety

• Reduce your anxiety, irritability 

• improve your sleep and eating habits

• Improve your sense of belonging

• Improve your ability to bounce back after adversity (resilience!)