Trauma Survivors

 To treat the symptoms of trauma we have to:

• Create safety through embodiment and learning how to resource ourselves
• Reduce phobias to the trauma symptoms or “parts”
• Take it slow so we do not activate the “parts” but instead, befriend them
• When we are ready and we know how to create internal safety, we work to fully process the trauma symptoms (emotions, physical symptoms and story) so that we can change the neurobiological “loops” that create the trauma symptoms over and over
• We stay grounded and resourced throughout and we end with a New Truth – an updated and more enlivening way to view our lives today
• We make sense of how the past is impacting our current lives, integrate this into our sense of self and we learn to make new choices
• We practice resourcing, self soothing; we practice living our new truths; we practice being in the here and now, instead of in the there and then.

We work from the following theoretical frameworks: Trauma Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) , Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM), Attachment-Focused, Neurobiological, Sensorimotor, trauma-informed yoga therapy and Relational Psychotherapy.  

Together we will discover the strategies you used to cope with the trauma you experienced and how adaptive those strategies were. We will notice how those strategies continue to be alive today, and how they can be out of place in your life as it is being lived now. We will look at ways to update those strategies to better fit your current life. We will also notice the ways those strategies have become encoded in your body and practice specific strategies so that you can shift your physical patterns to find more ease in your body and mind.  Learning strategies to update and integrate your encoded trauma symptoms will provide more peace in your relationships and more choice in how you respond to old triggers when they arise in the present.

At your own pace, we will work to develop a safe, non-judgemental, boundaried professional relationship that will provide you with a sense of security in the world and a place you can come back to when you need to refuel. Ideally, this new feeling of security and being appreciated and understood accurately will lead you to value yourself more. In this valuing of yourself, you may start to seek out safe people who can love you for just being you and who can respect your boundaries. You will learn in our connection how to handle the normal ups and downs of relationships and feel more competent in these moments in your own life. Instead of running your life, your history can be metabolized emotionally. As you integrate the past, you can find the freedom to be who you were meant to be and to appreciate all the strengths and resources you have gained in your life.