What is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma therapy is specialized to heal emotional and physical distress activated by painful events or situations. One should seek a mental health professional with specific training in trauma. I have trauma certification from the Arizona Trauma Institute and am certified in EMDR by the international organization EMDRIA.
Why is this important?
Trauma specialization is important to (a) find the most appropriate therapy for a client, (b) understand the client’s window of tolerance or how much emotional distress they can withstand while revisiting a painful event during session and (c) deliverable education about trauma triggers and coping mechanisms and (d) providing a supportive, non-shaming environment for healing.
Types of Trauma Therapy
I have used narrative trauma therapy, inner child work, post traumatic growth exercises and EMDR.
Narrative therapy is for the client to tell their story in written, pictorial, and verbal modes while the therapist provides empathy, validation and direction for healing.
Inner child work is a series of exercises for the wounded inner child to get their story told and help develop a closer relationship with the adult self which promotes healing and resolving of past trauma injuries.
Post traumatic growth is a type of therapy that focuses on how to look forward and use the strengths and resilience factors gained from our painful pasts. This can encompass building a framework of core values, strengths and a roadmap to reaching life goals.
EMDR is an effective therapy using bilateral stimulation (through eye movement or tactile sensations) to reprocess past trauma and “undoing” negative core belief(s) that those experiences embedded into our brain and body.
With all these types of therapies, teaching the client about their common triggers, instinctual responses, somatic signaling of a trigger and how to relax their body are all important aspects to help heal and manage physiological symptoms.
In summary, a great gift from a therapist is hope; hope that you will heal from trauma. If you are interested in learning more about trauma therapy Phoenix or more specifically EMDR therapy Phoenix, please contact me.