If you have made it this far, you are likely in a position ready to take healing action to address your complex trauma. In this section, I will explain several options for treating trauma, benefits and disadvantages associated with them.
This is a form therapy that directly addresses behaviors and thought patterns that are no longer useful. Recent advances have been made on the basis of both research and clinical practice thus it is vetted by the medical community and highly regarded.
What does it imply for you?
With CBT, you are invited to look at what harmful behaviors or unhelpful thought patterns you have. For example, for someone with OCD, learning that brushing their teeth three times is no different than one, may allow their body to understand the logic associated with this behavior. With trauma, it works similarly as it exposes you to a condition that you previously thought was dangerous e.g. dogs or men with bald heads, and eases your body at a pace that is tolerable to calm amidst the anxiety, to eventually become desensitized.
If it’s so cool, why doesn’t everyone do it?
Well, CBT can be difficult. There is a major part of responsibility on the side of the client for healing as you would be consistently asked to be triggered until you learn to relax amidst the difficulty.
CBT eases your body at a pace that is tolerable to calm amidst the anxiety felt, to eventually become desensitized to fear
These forms of therapy address the connection from thought/brain activity and the way trauma is stored in the body.
In Sensorimotor Psychotherapy specifically, by accessing sensations using the “now” experience, the client is invited to get the trauma “unstuck”.
What does it mean for you as a client?
Sessions are present moment focused, and you are likely to be invited to share about a current struggle. Through the issue today, you will then be invited to feel the sensations in your body on where the problem is located, and backtrace the earliest memory that resembles this feeling. For example, your partner left quickly this morning and it left you with an uneasy feeling. By tapping into the sensation of the unease, you may remember a time where your mom left rapidly and didn’t come back for a few days. By revising the past in this way, grounded in your body, pain is more likely to be expressed, grieved and reach a place of resolution. Some individuals report warmth, stillness and even sleepiness after a session.
If it’s so cool, why doesn’t everyone do it?
These forms of therapy can take a long time, as they rely on the client's ability to remember forgotten memories and work at the pace of the client. Contrary to cbt, which challenges the client to confront difficult memories, the client may delay progress by using a gentle approach. This is why in my practice I combine short term prolonged exposure with sensorimotor psychotherapy.
By revising the past in this way, grounded in your body, pain is more likely to be expressed, grieved and reach a place of resolution
This is a specific type of CBT aimed at reducing complex PTSD. It is one of the longest researched and most thorough types of treatment for PTSD.
What does it mean for you as a client?
You’ll be asked your trauma history, grading the difficulties in order to find out the most challenging things in your life. Your therapist might ask you to challenge yourself in situations you would otherwise avoid and learn to cope through increasing your window of tolerance.
If it’s so cool, why doesn’t everyone do it?
Like CBT, the responsibility in healing is highly placed on a client. Not everyone is prepared to go through a thorough and intense form of healing.
EMDR was created under the theory that traumatic memories have an emotion associated with them. To rewire the memories and emotions associated, the client is invited to use new eye movement and dissociate the emotions.
What does it mean for you as a client?
You’ll be asked to focus on your eyes during sessions to create new memories of the traumatic event aiming to decrease the fear and trauma associated. It is also relatively fast - most clients complete EMDR in 12 sessions.
If it’s so cool, why doesn’t everyone do it?
Most of the responsibility is placed on the therapist, thus a high level of trust needs to be established to ensure you feel safe at all times. EMDR has also been controversial. Research has demonstrated that EMDR reduces PTSD symptoms compared to a control group receiving no treatment. However, EMDR and exposure therapy (CBT) without eye movements have been compared with no difference in results. It seems that even though EMDR is beneficial some wonder whether the eye movements may not be necessary.