Trauma Focused Therapy

Have you been trying to get into a relationship but find you make excuses as to why it isn’t happening for you?

Often one doesn’t realize that past trauma is wreaking havoc in their love lives. It feels easier to assume that things beyond your control are getting in the way.

However, this hinders your ability to find love. Knowing what is getting in the way and taking charge of your life so that you feel more in control, can pave the path towards finding and securing a healthy loving relationship.

Do you:

• Struggle to feel attracted to anyone?
• Find it hard to create a safe space for a new person to enter your life?
• Feel like running away when things begin to feel too intimate?
• Do you make yourself too busy for a relationship?
• Does the thought of rejection overwhelm you?
• Do you feel un-loveable?

All of the above are examples of issues that may be the result of a physical, emotional or sexual trauma.

Issues that you may be struggling with that indicate trauma may be getting in your way include:

-Feeling out of control

-Substantial mood swings

-Difficulty establishing trusting relationships

-Difficulty with letting go of small arguments

-Taking things personally very frequently

Through the use of Somatic Experience Therapy, trauma is eliminated from the deep recesses of the mind and body allowing you to feel balanced and emotionally regulated.

Created by Dr. Peter Levine, a renowned trauma therapist, Somatic Experience Therapy works on the notion that trauma gets stuck in the body and manifests in symptoms similar to PTSD.  The Somatic Therapist utilizes the body to rid the mind of these unwanted symptoms.  Utilizing the body as a form of treatment as opposed to treating this cognitively, triggers the mind through the body to recall past traumas – accessing the deeply hidden memories trapped inside. The practitioner asks the client where they feel the trauma in the body and the client discharges it through noticing it and remembering different experiences that arise from the sensation in the body. A natural discharge removes the feeling of trauma from the body and the practitioner invites the client to consider corrective experiences.

What Does a session of Trauma Therapy look like?

First, the therapist will do a pre-interview to learn about your trauma and overall health history and answer any questions about your expectations, asking questions to assess how your body is responding to your trauma and stress.

The therapeutic process will involve arousing the trauma by triggering past memories and then inducing sensations of safety and calm. This process of going back and forth between these states focuses on recognizing these sensations. Trauma can interfere with our ability to recognize our internal state, and this technique helps us reconnect with ourselves and what’s going on in our bodies.

This is practiced in the safety of your therapy so that you become familiar with these sensations and once learned you will hopefully be able to down-regulate on your own. Because of how our bodies hold and express trauma, your therapist may see small movements that indicate your body moving into flight mode. You will learn to safely ride these somatic experiences out as you begin to heal.