Does Trauma Therapy Mean I Have to Live through My Traumas Again?
No, you do not need to relive trauma to heal, or dredge up every terrible memory or feeling. Trauma therapy is about nervous system regulation, self-awareness, resiliency, skills and empowerment and should never retraumatize. A skillful trauma specialist will know how to help you heal without overwhelming you.
There are so many reasons to be reluctant to be in therapy. It can be a hard, soul-searching process. It’s so intimate, sitting with someone you’re just getting to know talking about all the things that are hard to talk about, worried about being judged as harshly as we judge ourselves, concerned that the therapist is going to drag you through all the stuff you don’t want to think about but can’t seem to escape.
We don’t want to feel the heat of our shame, our estrangement of our differences, anger towards imperfect loved ones, the pain of loss and regret. We don’t want to share things we wish we hadn’t said or done, things that were done to us.
Trauma therapy is about NOT retraumatizing you
It takes emotional courage to engage in this process and a level of trust and safety with your therapist. The seriousness of the process of personal growth can be leavened with humor and a real sense of connection with your therapist. A skilled therapist has a strong sense of timing, orchestrating the process to prevent overwhelm, keeping you from dropping into depression or soaring up into anxiety. Trauma therapy is about not retraumatizing you in the process.
Therapy does not have to be a headlong dive into pain. In fact, it needs to be balanced with a recognition of our strengths, our survival and growth, a remembrance of the parts of our lives that bring us meaning and satisfaction. These can be relationships, creativity, animals, nature, humor, work, art, music, physicality, alone time, meditation, really anything that works for you.
In addition to relational talk therapy, we use 4 modalities, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Mindfulness and Attachment Repair and we may flow from one to another depending on what the client’s needs are at that moment.
Principles to keep you safe
We always balance trauma work with strengthening work. With all these approaches are certain principles that strengthen your agency, promote resiliency and prevent retraumatization. Because trauma is held in the body and is a nervous system dysregulation, your learning skills to manage your overwhelm is more important that addressing each and every traumatic event.
Respect for the client
This includes a myriad of elements—working on what the client wants to work on, going at the client’s pace, respecting their boundaries, beliefs, and lived experience.
Divide & conquer
The triangle of awareness consists of thoughts, feelings and body sensations. Let’s say you are hit by a shame spiral, a cascade of familiar and overwhelming stuff you want to run from. It is being fed by your thoughts (“I’m so stupid”), feelings (shame, self-hatred, panic) and body sensations (heat in your chest and face, jumpiness in your legs). As you develop somatic awareness, you can tease apart these 3 factors to prevent overwhelm. Once you can recognize and gently move aside your thoughts and feelings, you are left with the heat and the jumpiness but no story to perpetuate the whirlwind
Freeze frame
With your therapist you can gain skill in stopping the cascade of of bad thoughts/feelings/body sensations. This often comes as a real surprise when we are used to having an upsetting memory come up and have it hurtle through every miserable part of it.
Mindfulness of Negative Thoughts
You may be unaware of the self-judgmental thoughts that run on a loop in the background or you may be all too aware of it and feel powerless in the face of its pronouncements. Mindfulness helps us recognize these thoughts and stop buying into their toxicity.
Grounding in the Here & Now
Grounding connects us to ourselves and are the simplest of skills:
stand up and feel the weight of your body and the solidity of the ground beneath your feet
stand and shift your weight from one foot to another, going back and forth like slow-motion running
rest a pillow on your lap so that it covers your torso and giving it a squeeze
hug your pet
take a short walk
look at the sky
smell the roses
Compassion for the Inner Child without overidentification
Developing compassion for our Inner Child and everything she has gone through is such tender and important work, especially for those of us who are reproducing her experience through judging, distancing, revulsion, harsh criticism.
At the same time, we are strengthening our relationship to our Adult Self, developing the resources to care for our Inner Child, to protect and speak for her.
Resourcing
Resources bring us back to ourselves and remind us of our worth. They can include bringing to mind a secure space, either real or imaginary. They can also be protective, wise and nurturing figures, from your real-life experiences, spiritual figures, mythology, movies, books, anything that fills you up.
Orienting
Orienting calms and regulates our nervous system by quickly bringing us out of the past into the present.
Looking around the room, all the way to the left, all the way to the right, up to the ceiling and down to the floor, noticing the exits, seeing what’s outside. (See our blog “Seeing Red Can Help You Manage Trauma Symptoms”)
Titration & Pendulation
Instead of diving headlong into trauma, your therapist will help you titrate your experience, slowing things down to prevent overwhelm.
Pendulation is the process to achieve titration, moving from upsetting material to resourcing and grounding, teaching your nervous system resilience and regulation.
Somatic awareness and mindfulness skills more important than traumatic events
Because the nervous system doesn’t work chronologically, learning to regulate it can be done working somatically but without unpacking all your historic events.
You can gain a real sense that your traumatic events are in the past and live with a real sense of being in the present with greater ease and security.
