What is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma Therapy with a Certified Trauma Therapist in Lafayette, LA
Trauma is not always what you think. Most people think of trauma and think of something horrific. While that is one way of defining trauma, trauma can include any extremely distressing event or situation beyond the normal human experience. I'm confident that I can help you heal from whatever trauma is holding you back. I have training from some of the best experts in the field such as Linda Curran & Frank Anderson along with EMDRIA approved EMDR Basic Training & advanced EMDRIA trainings such as EMDR for First Responders & EMDR + IFS Parts Protocol: An EMDR Advanced Training.
Peter Levine
“TRAUMA IS A FACT OF LIFE. IT DOES NOT, HOWEVER, HAVE TO BE A LIFE SENTENCE.”
What is Trauma & PTSD?
Trauma is an emotional response to a deeply distressing or traumatic event. People who have experienced trauma may suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which can be characterized by intense anxiety, flashbacks, nightmares, and other symptoms. PTSD can significantly interfere with day-to-day activities and increase the risk of developing other mental health problems. Treatment for trauma and PTSD often involves a combination of psychotherapy, medications, support groups, lifestyle changes, relaxation techniques, and other interventions. Knowing the signs and symptoms of trauma can help people seek out professional help and support to manage their condition. If you or someone you know is struggling with trauma or PTSD please reach out for help.
Symptoms of PTSD
Post Traumatic Stress (PTS) is the direct experience of, witnessing of, or learning of a traumatic event. We can also experience micro traumas (little t) that others may not recognize as impactful but for you can still be distressing.
There are 4 main categories of symptoms of trauma as defined by the DSM-V-TR:
Avoidance Symptoms
Re-Experiencing Symptoms
Hyperarousal Symptoms
Negative Mood & Cognition Symptoms
Symptoms may include things such as distressing dreams, flashbacks, body reactions to internal or external triggers; repeated, disturbing or unwanted memories, reliving the experience, avoidance of memories, or sleep difficulties.
Trauma Modalities Used
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Narrative Therapy
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)
Prolonged Exposure (PE)
Written Exposure Therapy
Types of Trauma
Acute or Single Incident Trauma
Results from exposure to a singular event or overwhelming experience including a single event of abuse, sudden loss, car accident, or witnessing of violence.
Complex Trauma
Results from chronic, multiple, and/or prolonged exposure to overwhelming, compromising, distressing events. Usually within the context of an interpersonal relationship such as violence, neglect, or abuse.
Developmental Trauma
Results from earlier onset exposure to ongoing or repetitive trauma throughout one's childhood. Can include physical and/or sexual assault & abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment, or witnessing death or violence.
Repetitive Trauma
Results from exposure to chronic/prolonged or multiple experiences of overwhelming traumatic events such as living with a chronic or terminal illness that requires treatment.
Vicarious Trauma
Results over time from hearing or witnessing other people's suffering & needs.
Intergenerational Trauma
Passed down from those who directly experienced an incident to the later or subsequent generations.
Historical or Shared Trauma
Results from the traumatic events or experiences that a large group of people share with society or entire ethnicity, community, or national group.
What is EMDR?
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence based & heavily research treatment that was first developed in 1987. The goal of EMDR is to help clients reprocess dysfunctionally stored memories or events with the use of the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model to reduce symptoms of anxiety through desensitization with the use of bilateral stimulation (BLS). In addition, EMDR helps clients reprocess dysfunctionally stored memories which results in changing the negative beliefs/thoughts that surround those memories.
What can EMDR treat?
PTSI/PTSD
Anxiety Disorders
Phobias
Panic Disorder
Grief
Depression
Chemical Dependency
Dissociative Disorders
Performance Anxiety
Body Dysmorphia
Personality Disorders
Eating Disorders
Integrating IFS & EMDR
IFS and EMDR are modalities that compliment each other to provide transformative results for healing. With my advanced training in both IFS and EMDR as well as training in the integration of these two models specifically, we can use these treatments to help increase self-awareness and achieve deeper traumatic resolution and healing. In IFS, we honor the system’s protective parts that sometimes interfere with Phase 4 in EMDR if they feel overlooked. Therefore, we approach Phases 1-2 of EMDR through an IFS informed lens which helps build trust therefore using IFS as an entryway to your inner system and then using EMDR to heal.
Transformational Healing with IFS + EMDR Intensives
What does an IFS + EMDR Intensive Entail?
Think of an intensive as a turbocharge version of your traditional therapy sessions. In having multiple hours dedicated to you and your healing you’re more likely to see accelerated progress, deeper exploration, more breakthroughs, and extended focused attention on you & your healing. As a result, you’re more likely to accomplish months worth of progress in just one day. Scheduling an intensive with me will involve using IFS to identify a target part to begin working towards or working through healing steps, usually incorporating EMDR and thus, bilateral stimulation. In doing this in an intensive, you will more easily be able to unblend from the parts that usually show up and interrupt the process in traditional 50-60 minute sessions.
3 hours | $600