When a person has experienced trauma ("Big T" trauma or "little t" trauma) from their childhood or their adulthood, the brain and body store that traumatic memory in ways such that aspects of that memory can be re-activated by present-day interactions and situations. When this happens, the person experiencing this re-activation is split-second processing the current event through the filter of that past trauma. As a result, they are reacting emotionally, physically, and/or verbally- from that place of trauma.

These past traumas can be diverse and range from: witnessing a parent being physically or emotionally abused during childhood, you, yourself, experiencing physical, sexual, or verbal abuse, being dismissed, harshly reprimanded or shamed by others etc.

Trauma can look like: crying when expressing yourself; keeping quiet to "keep the peace; " overproductivity; ultra-independence; trouble asking for help; people pleasing; hyper-vigilance; control focused. 

You are the one who gets to define what is traumatic for you!

We use EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), somatic experiencing and parts work as a trauma "reset." At the beginning of the treatment, you might work with your therapist to increase bodily awareness and increase feeling present in your body. To manage the traumatic feelings or memories that might resurface, the therapist might work with you to identify some safe spaces, which can be a place, or memory with  a person, or envisioning doing something you love.

Just like trauma impacts all of us differently, our healing will be an individual journey as well.

 

For more information about EMDR, Somatic experiencing, and parts work, please follow the Resources link.