What Makes Trauma?
A person is said to have been traumatized when a specific experience overwhelms his or her capacity to cope and recover.
Most people exposed to a traumatic event which threatens their life or well-being invoking feelings of helplessness, terror or horror, develop some symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress. This includes an intrusive re-living of the experience, anxiety, depression, nightmares, sleep disturbances, and a host of possible physical reactions. They tend to avoid all situations that consciously or sub-consciously remind them of the event. They often startle easily as their nervous system is turned on to “high-alert”. This is a very exhausting state; however, not everyone who experiences a traumatic event will go on to develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Although the initial symptoms of trauma may fade over a period of weeks, it is much more common than you think for the passage of time to do very little.
Children are more easily traumatized than adults, and adults, traumatized as children, will become easily re-traumatized if faced with over-whelming stressors in adult life.
Betrayals by loved ones such as parents or partners, or other trusted adults, such as religious leaders can be the most difficult to talk about. There is often a tendency to block parts of the memory or to become “spacey” when reminded of the event.
If you believe or “feel” that you have been traumatized, it is best to talk this over with a trained specialist. Trauma has many ways of influencing your present life decisions and relationships
How Do We Treat Trauma?
A life healed from trauma is a truly wonderful thing. Such healing can even prevent certain types of illness and, as neuro-biologists are now believing, can even reverse the effects of some auto-immune disorders.
If you are to heal the trauma of the past or present, it will be necessary to work through its impact and meaning in a safe and careful way, so that you do not become re-traumatized. Only specific types of psychotherapy have been shown to be particularly effective in treating trauma.
This includes EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). As well, some prescription medications can be helpful in managing the symptoms of PTSD while you undergo therapy, while others, such as benzodiazepines will interfere with the effective information processing that occurs during EMDR. Alcohol and recreational drugs are not helpful, and even harmful.
Whether it has been days, months, years or decades since you were traumatized, the good news is that we now have very effective treatments with which most people can make a full recovery. Please note the embedded documentary in which lead experts in the field discuss the method used at this clinic (EMDR).
Rhonda has a soft and gentle approach yet the therapy goes deep. Whatever you are carrying, she will help you to sleuth it out, understand it and support you in bringing healing to it. You can ask any question you like and she will honour it.