Trauma Treatment

Trauma actually changes your brain. That is true, validated, evidentiary science. So, what is trauma? For many years, trauma was thought of as the negative consequence of experiencing severely distressing events like domestic violence, sexual assault, or witnessing violence or death. Then, we started to understand that our bodies and minds stored and processed a number of experiences, ongoing conditions, and even systemic oppression, the same way they dealt with events like surviving war or other acts of extreme, traumatic violence. By recognizing and validating the experience of all forms of trauma, The Soul Talk  team helps individuals through healing trauma  that supports you to lead a more fulfilled and satisfying life.

Complex & Relational Trauma

In many practices, trauma is considered exclusively in relation to experiencing or witnessing one or more traumatic events. While this is a real and serious concern for some people, many more experience traumatic responses to situations that are long-term and often hidden. Many people don’t even see or validate these forms of complex and relational trauma, but for those experiencing it, the trauma is all too real. Some examples of complex trauma include:

• There’s no traumatic moment to point to, but you find yourself experiencing physical and emotional symptoms of trauma response (racing thoughts, accelerated heart rate, reexperiencing upsetting events). If you think about the moments when this happens, you can uncover what triggered it, but you still don’t understand why.
• You have difficulty developing and maintaining healthy relationships. You may avoid close friendships and romantic partnerships completely, or you may find yourself partnering with people who do not respect or validate your boundaries or needs. You truly want to find healthy and supportive relationships, but it feels impossible.
• Your childhood was happy enough, your parents didn’t do anything wrong, but you still feel like something was missing. You love your parents, but part of you is holding on to resentment that you can’t even explain to yourself. You may find yourself overcompensating with your own children or distancing yourself from close relationships with them.
• You’re not like everyone else. Your whole life, even the most well-meaning people, have said this to you. At first, it felt good to be different, but after a lifetime, hearing how different you are because you’re creative, think outside the box, or don’t conform to their normal…well, it doesn’t feel good anymore. 
• You’re a thriving member of the LGBTQIA+ community. You have found love and friendship and joy in your community, but the world does not always recognize or accept that. Ongoing, covert discrimination may be invisible to your friends or loved ones who have never had to deal with it, but as much as you try, it impacts your life. You find yourself with higher levels of stress, you’re struggling with depression, your anxiety is out of control. 
• The person in the mirror doesn’t seem to match how you feel and who you believe you are. Even worse, the person other people see doesn’t seem to match either of these self-perceived images. Who does that mean you are?

Trauma Therapy

You may not identify any of these examples as trauma, but we do. Like any other profession, our field is always growing and changing. Even if you don’t recognize your specific complex trauma experience above, therapy can help you understand how feelings of isolation, loneliness, shame, anxiety, or depression are often a result of the self-defensive, neurobiological response to unrecognized and unprocessed trauma. During therapy, we are here to honor and validate the emotions and experiences of complex and relational trauma. We don’t look at trauma response and other big emotions as something that’s broken and needs to be fixed. Instead, we interpret your distress as a message that your mind and body are sending you. We work together to understand what they’re trying to teach you about your experience, needs, values, and identity, and create opportunities for healing. You are a resilient and remarkable person, and the more you understand and accept your own value, the more you can advocate for and protect your needs.

Therapy Sessions for Trauma

During therapy for trauma, we will be learning together what the impact of trauma is on your life and how you can regain a greater sense of control. Over the course of your therapy sessions, we may:

• Observe moment-to-moment experiences to gain awareness of how trauma is stored in your body and understand your unique threat response
• Track your triggers and thought and behavior patterns, so you can identify these situations as they arise and start to regain control over the experiences
• Practice boundary setting to create a more secure emotional environment where you can feel safer 
• Cultivate intimacy in your relationships, so you can build a support system and community where you feel confident enough to explore and grow as an individual

Let’s begin.

You are not in this alone. You were never meant to be. Each and every one of us innately possesses strengths to live more enriching, joyful lives; let us help you to (re) connect to your strengths to find well-being.