trauma Counseling
Get the help you deserve! Schedule trauma therapy with a certified and the best trauma therapist in Fort Worth, Texas. Next-day appointments are available.
Get the help you deserve! Schedule trauma therapy with a certified and the best trauma therapist in Fort Worth, Texas. Next-day appointments are available.
You are super reactive and you feel on edge all the time. Recently, you find yourself feeling anxious, depressed, angry, sad, dysregulated, have trouble sleeping and the nightmares have increased. Often, you wonder what is wrong with me and why can’t I just keep it together. If this sounds familiar, you could benefit from trauma therapy.
Stuff is coming up and it doesn’t make sense. Most of the time, it doesn’t seem like it’s related to the here and now. Your past has a way of rearing its ugly head at the worst times. You have a rocky childhood, but that’s in the past, right? Or, something happened recently that has rocked you to your core. Moreover, no matter what you do, you can’t seem to recover. These situations are really, really hard to manage. Fortunately, trauma therapy can help you navigate them.
What is Trauma?
Trauma refers to your response following an event that psychologically overwhelms you, often resulting in shock, denial, and changes in the body, mind, and behavior. The effects can be long-lasting, but healing is possible. Traumatic events can happen at any age and have lasting effects on your physical and mental well-being. Each person’s experience is unique, but there are common causes, and many people share some symptoms of post-traumatic stress, like anxiety, flashbacks, and sleep disruption.
Trauma that repeatedly occurs over time can have a cumulative impact. This is known as complex trauma. Complex trauma, as the name suggests is a more complex form of trauma that is caused by prolonged abuse and trauma. People who have experienced complex trauma or who grew up in an abusive or stressful environment often did not have the opportunity to learn emotion regulation. Abusive parents often increase negative emotional states in their child rather than offering helpful assistance.
Common PTSD Symptoms of Trauma
Symptoms of post-traumatic stress are aftereffects of your overwhelmed nervous system — your body and mind can’t fully process the traumatic events as they are happening. For people with complex trauma, experiences of sadness, fear, or anger may be more intense and last longer. Ongoing negative emotions often seriously interfere with functioning and can cause distress in interpersonal relationships.
Common symptoms after trauma include:
• Intrusive thoughts, including flashbacks or nightmares, lapses in memory.
• Avoiding things that remind you of the trauma, including people, places, or objects.
• Difficulty regulating emotions
• Hypervigilance, or being very aware of danger
• Being easily startled or “jumpy”
• Struggling in interpersonal relationships
• Low self-esteem or negative self-perception
• Being activated by triggers that remind you of the trauma, whether consciously or subconsciously
• Changes in how you see yourself, such as believing you are “bad,” or feeling excess guilt or shame
• Small window of tolerance, meaning you feel overwhelmed easily or have difficulty controlling your emotions
• Body-based effects such as chronic pain, sleep problems, chest pain, headaches and others.
Trauma Therapy Can Help
Whether it was a single event or a series of events, you can find relief and lead a happy and successful life. As trauma therapists, we are trained for this purpose. Through trauma therapy, we can help you heal trauma in a gentle and supportive way. It is such an honor to support you in your healing journey, in our work together you will:
• Learn coping skills to handle distorted or negative thoughts and feelings
• Reframe the traumatic experience and make sense of it
• Improve close relationships and connections with people
• Reduce irritability, anger, frustration, and increase peace of mind
• Eliminate or reduce triggers and symptoms of trauma
Our Approach to Trauma Therapy
Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) is the primary approach we use for trauma treatment. If you have complex trauma, you may find you have difficulty with heightened and prolonged feelings of sadness, fear, or anxiety. You may be unable to trust people or expect good things to happen in your life. Anger and rage may well up over small upsets, and it may take a long time to calm down afterward.
Given the difficulties in building and maintaining trust, complex trauma sufferers often face serious or prolonged challenges with interpersonal relationships. It may be difficult for your partner to understand your intense emotional states. Additionally, you may have difficulty naming or explaining your feelings and reactions to your partner and even to yourself.
EFT treatment goals are naturally aligned with the needs of many individuals with complex trauma. The goals of EFT are to help the client to identify, regulate, and transform negative emotions as well as to address the core symptoms of their complex trauma.
EFT for complex trauma is empirically supported. One study designed to examine the effectiveness of EFT for adult survivors of childhood abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual abuse) found that those who received 20 weeks of EFT therapy achieved significant improvements with multiple symptoms. The results of EFT have also held up over time. Over nine months after EFT sessions ended, clients were still maintaining improvements gained during therapy.
Begin Trauma Therapy
For some situations, it’s not a matter of “just moving on.” Sometimes, it takes more than that, here at The Love Seat, we get it and we are here to help you. Through our trauma therapy in fort worth, we can help you recover from what’s happened. In addition, we can teach you the skills to navigate new situations that can be overwhelming. Schedule your appointment to begin trauma treatment and learn the skills you need to rediscover joy.
In-Person and Online Trauma Counseling Sessions Available in Fort Worth, DFW, and surrounding areas.