Trauma Therapy Techniques

Liv­ing means expe­ri­enc­ing the good, bad, and every­thing in between. When good things hap­pen, the nat­ur­al response is hap­pi­ness, grat­i­tude, and ful­fill­ment. When bad things the nat­ur­al response is a swirl of neg­a­tive emo­tions that can be severe and long-last­ing and even trau­mat­ic in some cas­es. Any­thing from the loss of a loved one, part­ner vio­lence, a car acci­dent, or a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter can be a dis­tress­ing event. These events CAN cause trau­ma — an emo­tion­al response to bad events that can severe­ly dis­tort one’s men­tal health. We may feel iso­lat­ed, irri­ta­ble, desert­ed, and out of touch with life. When that hap­pens con­sis­tent­ly for more than one month, a ther­a­pist may diag­nose PTSD, depend­ing on the sever­i­ty and fre­quen­cy of your symp­toms. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, even though a trau­mat­ic inci­dent may have occurred in the past, you may still feel or see the dark clouds on your hori­zon, no mat­ter where you look. If this is the case, it may be time to con­sid­er trau­ma ther­a­py and begin work­ing with a trained trau­ma ther­a­pist.

Types of trauma therapy

There are dif­fer­ent types and tech­niques of trau­ma ther­a­py, each with its unique approach and train­ing process that will be dis­cussed here. They are Cog­ni­tive Pro­cess­ing Ther­a­py (CPT); Trau­mat­ic-Focused Cog­ni­tive Behav­ior Ther­a­py (TF-CBT); Cog­ni­tive-Behav­ioral Ther­a­py (CBT); and Eye Move­ment Desen­si­ti­za­tion and Repro­cess­ing (EMDR). Your men­tal health provider will help you decide which trau­ma treat­ment plan is the most suit­able. Some­times, a com­bi­na­tion of two trau­ma ther­a­py types may make more sense, con­sid­er­ing trau­ma expo­sure and the strength of symp­toms.

If your men­tal health provider is not trained in any trau­ma ther­a­py tech­niques, ask whether they use a trau­ma-informed lens in their treat­ment of your con­di­tion can be a good place­hold­er while you find a provider who does have train­ing. That said, a trau­ma-informed lens does not replace trau­ma ther­a­py, nor is it as effec­tive as trau­ma train­ing and facil­i­ta­tion of trau­ma treat­ment.

Is trauma therapy helpful?

The short answer is yes. stud­ies like this one show the suc­cess rate of trau­ma ther­a­py to be effec­tive between 77% — 100%. But for trau­ma ther­a­py, many would have lost out on liv­ing a reg­u­lar, hap­py life. Trau­ma ther­a­py offers a potent path to heal­ing and reclaim­ing life again. Now, you may have heard this myth:

Trau­ma ther­a­py is about dwelling on the past with no way for­ward.

That’s false. Because trau­ma ther­a­py is about brave­ly pro­cess­ing a trau­mat­ic event, it can trig­ger the body’s abil­i­ty to heal and cope in a way that almost noth­ing else does. Trau­ma ther­a­py is treat­ment aimed at elim­i­nat­ing trauma­ti­za­tion — and it works.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

CPT is a pow­er­ful tool that helps you iden­ti­fy neg­a­tive beliefs and empow­ers you to move past them deliv­ered over 12 ses­sions.

Here’s a break­down of how CPT works (tech­niques):

• Iden­ti­fy­ing Core Beliefs

  Fol­low­ing a trau­ma, it’s nat­ur­al to devel­op neg­a­tive beliefs about what hap­pened. These beliefs might sound like “I’m weak for allow­ing this to hap­pen,” “The world is a dan­ger­ous place,” or “I’ll nev­er feel safe again.”  In CPT, your ther­a­pist will work col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with you to iden­ti­fy these under­ly­ing beliefs.

• Exam­in­ing Neg­a­tive Thoughts

  Once you’ve iden­ti­fied your beliefs, the ther­a­pist will guide you in crit­i­cal­ly exam­in­ing their accu­ra­cy and log­ic. For exam­ple, sup­pose you believe the assault was your fault because of your cloth­ing. In that case, your ther­a­pist will assist you in explor­ing the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion — that the per­pe­tra­tor is ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for their actions.

• Devel­op­ing More Adap­tive Beliefs

  You can grad­u­al­ly devel­op more real­is­tic and empow­er­ing beliefs by chal­leng­ing unhelp­ful beliefs. For instance, you might replace “I’m weak” with “I’m a sur­vivor,” or “The world is dan­ger­ous” with “I can take steps to stay safe.”  This shift in per­spec­tive empow­ers you to take con­trol of your life and rebuild your sense of safe­ty.

CPT is a very col­lab­o­ra­tive process, mean­ing you and your ther­a­pist work togeth­er to under­stand your trau­ma and devel­op health­i­er cop­ing mech­a­nisms. CPT is gen­er­al­ly deliv­ered over 12 ses­sions and may last about three months. You may feel some mild or mod­er­ate dis­com­fort when com­mu­ni­cat­ing about trau­mat­ic events. Don’t wor­ry; those feel­ings do not linger, and you’ll like­ly get good at deal­ing with them.

Traumatic-Focused Cognitive Behavior Therapy (TF-CBT)

Trau­ma-focused cog­ni­tive behav­ior ther­a­py is for chil­dren and ado­les­cents. This ther­a­py type has many of the same core ele­ments as the adult one, includ­ing iden­ti­fy­ing trau­ma-relat­ed beliefs, chal­leng­ing them, and encour­ag­ing the child to con­front the event. Par­ents are also part of this process, learn­ing and receiv­ing action­able advice from the ther­a­pist that can help the child cope and heal from the trau­ma.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a wide­ly used ther­a­peu­tic approach for trau­ma recov­ery, focus­ing on iden­ti­fy­ing and chal­leng­ing mal­adap­tive thought pat­terns and behav­iors. Through cog­ni­tive restruc­tur­ing and expo­sure tech­niques, CBT helps indi­vid­u­als devel­op cop­ing skills, reg­u­late emo­tions, and reframe neg­a­tive beliefs asso­ci­at­ed with trau­ma.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR):

EMDR is pri­mar­i­ly an indi­vid­ual expe­ri­ence under the guid­ance of a trained ther­a­pist. Some peo­ple feel much bet­ter after a few ses­sions, while oth­ers may require more time. EMDR uses bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion (rapid eye move­ments, tap­ping) to help process and release the emo­tion­al bur­den asso­ci­at­ed with trau­mat­ic mem­o­ries.  Dur­ing EMDR, you’ll metaphor­i­cal­ly keep one foot in the room and one foot in the past, present, or future—where the trau­ma is. The bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion is a mech­a­nism to facil­i­tate this. While researchers and ther­a­pists are not 100% sure how EMDR works, bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion does facil­i­tate the detach­ing from intense neg­a­tive emo­tions and cre­ation of a more neu­tral, or even pos­i­tive per­spec­tive on the event.

Both trained and certified—people who have pur­sued advanced train­ing beyond the basic train­ing course—EMDR ther­a­pists will guide you through­out the process.

How EMDR works:

• Tar­get­ing the Mem­o­ry

  Dur­ing EMDR ses­sions, you’ll col­lab­o­rate with your ther­a­pist to iden­ti­fy a spe­cif­ic trau­mat­ic mem­o­ry and the asso­ci­at­ed emo­tions, thoughts, and phys­i­cal sen­sa­tions.

• Bilat­er­al Stim­u­la­tion

  This is the linch­pin of EMDR. While focus­ing on the mem­o­ry, your ther­a­pist will guide you through bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion tech­niques.  Bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion acti­vates both sides of the brain and allows you to process mem­o­ries and emo­tions ‘stuck’ in the brain. This might involve fol­low­ing their visu­al cues (rapid eye move­ments), feel­ing taps on your hands (bilat­er­al tap­ping), or audi­to­ry bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion (EMDR music).

• Pro­cess­ing and Inte­gra­tion

  The bilat­er­al stim­u­la­tion is believed to acti­vate a process sim­i­lar to REM sleep, a stage of sleep where the brain con­sol­i­dates mem­o­ries and emo­tions.  This can lead to the mem­o­ry becom­ing less vivid and emo­tion­al­ly trou­ble­some.  As you process the mem­o­ry, your ther­a­pist will help you devel­op more adap­tive thoughts and beliefs about the expe­ri­ence.

What to Expect Dur­ing Trau­ma Ther­a­py

Most trau­ma treat­ment is done with­in 10–15 weeks through mul­ti­ple ses­sions. The road to heal­ing from trau­ma is a journey—an event­ful one lit­tered with intense emo­tions and a cou­ple of set­backs to test your patience.

As a ther­a­pist who’s helped many on this jour­ney, I always rec­om­mend two things:

●       One, keep an open mind mind. Be will­ing to explore your trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences. Although it feels chal­leng­ing at first, it cer­tain­ly gets more man­age­able.

●       Two, trust your ther­a­pist. They are there to guide you, and you must trust and accept that guid­ance for it to work. Nev­er hes­i­tate to ask your ther­a­pist ques­tions.

Emdr therapy Austin

My life’s work is cen­tered around treat­ing trau­ma and anx­i­ety.  No mat­ter where you live in Austin, Texas, you can receive ther­a­py online. I have been trained in and am pur­su­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in EMDR, pri­mar­i­ly due to the pos­i­tive effects that have tran­spired when peo­ple use this treat­ment approach with me. Through EMDR, I have helped peo­ple reclaim hope and opti­mism, as well as peace.

If you or a fam­i­ly mem­ber is expe­ri­enc­ing chron­ic trau­ma, please feel free to reach out here for a free con­sul­ta­tion.

Let’s get to you feel­ing bet­ter