For some people, trauma is a one-time event; for others, it can be an ongoing cycle of abuse. Regardless of the severity or frequency with which you experience trauma symptoms like nightmares, flashbacks and dissociation, it’s important to seek treatment for them. If you’re ready to start healing from trauma and begin living your best life again, here are some ways that therapy can help:
Trauma can range from a childhood memory to a recent accident.
Trauma is a response to an upsetting event or series of events that can range from a minor childhood memory to a recent accident. It’s not just limited to physical trauma; it can also be caused by an accident, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect or other upsetting experiences.
Trauma can affect people in different ways depending on their personality and circumstances. Some people may experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while others won’t feel any lasting effects at all. If you think that you’re experiencing symptoms of trauma after experiencing a traumatic event—or if you’ve been feeling this way for some time—it’s important to seek out help as soon as possible so that the symptoms don’t get worse over time and begin affecting your daily life more than necessary
When passing time does not heal trauma, there are methods therapists can use to help you. Trauma work is highly personal and specific to each person.
- Trauma is not something you can just “get over” or “get through.” It is an experience that has changed you, and your body is the storage of those experiences.
- Trauma work involves the body, emotions, and mind in its healing process.
- Emotional trauma can be physically painful; post-traumatic stress disorder involves not just mood swings but also physical symptoms such as headaches, nausea, and digestive problems (and many more).
Traumatic stress symptoms include: anxiety; anger; depression; memory loss or flashbacks to traumatic events; sleeplessness or nightmares about them; feeling numb or detached from other people and life in general.[1]
And, there are many different types of therapy for trauma-related issues.
EMDR stands for “eye movement desensitization and reprocessing,” and it’s an effective form of therapy that has been used to treat trauma since the late 1980s.
The process involves having clients focus on their traumatic memories while moving their eyes back and forth, quickly scanning left to right. The idea is that this will help them process their experiences in a way that specifically addresses the emotions surrounding those memories.
EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, is one method that has become more popular in the last few decades.
EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, is one method that has become more popular in the last few decades. It’s used to treat PTSD and trauma by helping the brain process negative emotions.
Empirical evidence suggests that EMDR can help people with a variety of issues including depression, anxiety disorders and addiction problems.
EMDR works by having the client focus on their traumatic memory while following the therapist’s fingers back and forth with their eyes as they move them side-to-side, up-and-down, or in another pattern of motion.
EMDR is a therapy that helps the brain reprocess certain memories and emotions. The client focuses on their traumatic memory while following their therapist’s fingers back and forth with their eyes as they move them side-to-side, up-and-down or in another pattern of motion.
The theory behind EMDR suggests that when you experience trauma, your brain may process the event in fragments, similar to how it would if you were watching a movie of several different scenes at once (like this scene from “Pulp Fiction”):
In order for EMDR to be effective in healing from trauma, you must focus on specific aspects of this fragmented memory—in other words, what happens when Samuel L. Jackson gets shot?
EMDR is believed to help your brain reprocess certain memories and emotions so that they lose their power over you.
EMDR is a type of therapy that helps people who have experienced traumatic events to reprocess certain memories and emotions so that they lose their power over you. It’s not just for people with PTSD—it can also be used to treat anxiety, phobias, depression, and other mental health conditions.
The treatment works by having your therapist ask you to focus on an image or memory related to the trauma while moving back and forth between two different stimuli (e.g., tapping your finger on one side of your head while looking at something). During this process, it’s believed that something called neuroplasticity occurs: you brain changes physically as it rethinks previously stored memories in order to process them differently.
While EMDR isn’t a quick fix—the healing process takes time—it has been shown effective in treating PTSD symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety about doing daily tasks and more
The American Psychiatric Association has endorsed EMDR for PTSD treatment after substantial research showed its effectiveness as an alternative treatment method.
The American Psychiatric Association has endorsed EMDR as an alternative treatment method for PTSD. The APA has endorsed EMDR as a treatment for PTSD, citing substantial research that it’s very effective in treating trauma.
Most people who have experienced only one traumatic event in their lives see results from EMDR after only three to five sessions according to the creator of the therapy, Dr. Francine Shapiro. For more complicated traumatic events, the therapy can take longer.
EMDR is a therapy that can help you overcome trauma. It stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, and it uses eye movements to help people heal from painful memories. The person who needs EMDR treatment sits in a chair while their therapist moves their finger back and forth in front of the client’s face. This causes the brain to associate this movement with good feelings, which helps the person process their traumatic experience differently than they did before.
There are several types of trauma that EMDR can treat: car accidents, sexual assault, military combat or exposure to war zones, natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods; witnessing violence against someone else (for example seeing your friend get mugged); being bullied at school; being physically or emotionally abused by someone you trust (such as an adult family member).
Some people only need three sessions while others may need 5-10 sessions depending on how severe the trauma was and how long ago it occurred.
Conclusion
EMDR is only one type of therapy that can help you heal from traumatic experiences. EMDR is believed to help your brain reprocess certain memories and emotions so that they lose their power over you. The American Psychiatric Association has endorsed EMDR for PTSD treatment after substantial research showed its effectiveness as an alternative treatment method. Most people who have experienced only one traumatic event in their lives see results from EMDR after only three to five sessions according to the creator of the therapy, Dr. Francine Shapiro, but people with more experiences might take longer.