Traditionally associated with war, domestic abuse and other violent events, trauma also results from other incidents often overlooked such as: automobile accidents, routine medical procedures, sudden loss, sexual and/or physical assault. In addition, ongoing stressors of fear and conflict, among other potentially threatening circumstances are common contributing factors. To emphasize, the events on their own do not cause trauma. Two individuals can experience the same events, and have very different reactions and even narratives thereafter. In short, trauma results from an individual feeling overwhelmed not only in relation to a single incident, but even more often through the accumulation of stress over time.
Individuals I work with often struggle from the effects of:
- Abuse as children
- Chronic pain and physical symptoms
- Chronic fear and terror
- Collective trauma
- Dissociation
- Early developmental trauma
- Grief and loss
- Harassment
- Horror
- Hypervigilance
- Medical/dental trauma
- Neglect
- Oppression
- Physical abuse/assault(s)
- Post-traumatic stress symptoms
- Racial stress and trauma
- Relational trauma
- Sexual abuse/assault(s)
- Toxic and traumatic shame
- Transgenerational trauma
When a person’s body, psyche and nervous system fail to respond and adequately process adverse events, traumatic responses may develop. Whereas the effects of trauma can be long-lasting and pervasive.
At once, combining culturally-responsive and racially-sensitive perspectives with trauma-informed, somatic methods, our journey together will aim to:
- Resolve symptoms that result from trauma by re-balancing the nervous system
- Attend to and transform fight/flight/freeze as well as appease/attach/submit survival strategies
- Release chronic stress bound up in the body
- Restore protective responses and healthy aggression/assertion
- Cultivate assessment skills and discernment for natural safety-seeking impulses
- Reconnect with life-affirming behaviors
- Enhance resilience
Phases of trauma healing:
First and foremost, getting acquainted and building enough trust in our therapeutic relationship is essential. Not to worry, your apprehensions along with any mistrust are also welcome here. Second, learning and insights can only be gained when there is enough sense of safety and good-will present. Therefore, establishing a solid relationship with your therapist creates the container for trauma healing to be possible.
Urgency is a hallmark of traumatic responses.
In reality, trauma-informed, somatic therapy is gentle and requires slowing down. Unfortunately, so many individuals start off by wanting to tell me everything, which altogether can potentially flood your system. Trauma-informed approaches recognize that aims for a full narrative can be too triggering, and potentially counter-productive for many seeking trauma recovery. Instead, I hold space for an emergent narrative, which inevitably will evolve with your healing process.
Too much, too soon and not enough support are common markers of traumatic experiences.
General treatment plan:
- Stabilization and symptom reduction
- Trauma reprocessing
- Integration
While phases of treatment can be neatly outlined, however, healing from trauma is often not linear. Current stressors from life events may trigger stress responses, and therefore create too much instability to focus on processing traumatic memories. So, stabilization is essential, and emphasized, until capacity for more is developed over the course of working together.
Therefore, when you’re in crisis, we won’t be tackling the hardest stuff. It simply doesn’t make sense to. Since you’re already overwhelmed, first, reducing your stress levels and looking at what is working will be our top-priority. In the meantime, I emphasize sleep habits, exercise and self-care because they are foundational for stress relief. Furthermore, we will learn to recognize the tolerances and capacities of your nervous system.
Since turning towards trauma can be de-stabilizing, doing so from stable footing makes for more effective outcomes. Furthermore, sustainable transformations.
More often than not, the individuals I work with have a complexity of different traumatic experiences for us to sort through together. While not every single one needs to be targeted, certainly time and space are needed to nurture changes at the level of your nervous system. Chiefly, our aim will be to untangle traumatic responses from your intrinsically healthy ones.
Somatic, trauma recovery is akin to homeopathy—a little at a time. For emphasis, slowing down to the rhythm of the body’s innate wisdom nurtures trauma recovery and deep healing.
Once you’ve developed tools and skills for navigating life’s ups and downs, and while you are maintaining healthy habits to support yourself well, you may decide our work is done. Even though we may both feel sad to part ways, at the same time, I will gladly see you off to enjoy life as fully as possible. With grace. I wish to witness you enthusiastically embrace all the blessings and growth opportunities life presents you. Sometimes well after our work together, I am fortunate to receive brief notes of gratitude from former clients updating me about significant life changes—such as new additions to the family and so forth!
Ultimately, I am committed to supporting those suffering as a result of trauma to live with greater ease, choices, meaning, presence and vitality.
Without a doubt, what I love about supporting individuals to recover from trauma is the awe-inspiring power of life energy. Undeniably, in each individual there is an unstoppable, indestructible aliveness that remains untarnished in spite of the difficult, horrific and tragic events that so many of us endure and survive. To this end, I revere this source of aliveness, which is inherently wise, whole and healing.
“We are born knowing how to rest and listen to what our bodies need. It’s second nature and an inner knowing. Infants and children follow their body cues and, without doing so, would not survive. This inner knowing is slowly stolen from us as we replace it with disconnection. We have been bamboozled and led astray by a culture without a pause button… [and] are barely surviving from our sleep deprivation, worker exploitation, and exhaustion. We must rest.”
—Tricia Hersey, Creator and Founder of The Nap Ministry, author of Rest Is Resistance