Trauma treatment is not about telling stories from the past. Trauma treatment is about helping people to be here now, to tolerate what they feel, right in the present. 

— Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Trauma, or survival responses, are also learned motor behaviors. — but they’re much, much deeper. The thing is, once you’ve learned it, it stays with you until you find the way to unlearn it.

— Peter Levine, PhD

Trauma sometimes shows up with a capital “T” — a singular traumatic episode that overwhelms the system. Trauma can also be present with what we call small “t” traumas — ongoing events or life experiences that eclipsed our capacity to cope.

Trauma is not what happened to us, but what we had to do in response to a situation that temporarily overwhelmed our capacity for resilience. For instance, these experiences may lead one to feel on edge or shut down, insecure, highly self-critical, or to experience difficulty trusting one’s self or others. These experiences may lead us to be overly accommodating, or to feel numb and checked out at the thought of conflict.

Outside of our conscious awareness, our nervous system is capable of automatically deciding in any given moment if we are safe or in danger. When we are faced with a situation that pushes on us beyond our capacity, our nervous system mobilizes and moves us instinctively towards survival. This survival instinct is required when we feel we are under threat, but this energy can remain after the threat has passed. It can be frustrating when we intellectually know things are okay, but our body continues to send cues that things are not okay. We may feel anxious, angry, impulsive, or emotionally reactive. We may feel the overwhelming need to do something, but we don’t know what that something is. We may feel disconnected and unworthy, isolated, withdrawn, immobilized, or apathetic. Because some of this is happening outside of conscious awareness, we usually get very little traction by implementing thinking strategies. This can lead us to believe there is something wrong with us — we want to change how we feel, but no matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to make headway.

EMDR, along with bringing a sustained awareness to the quality of our thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, has been shown to be effective in addressing the issues that get in the way of feeling our best. Working through the alarms and triggers and the ways they show up in the nervous system can allow those survival responses to no longer feel necessary or to show up to the same degree. 

We can’t change the past. We can hold awareness around how the past shows up in the present moment, sustain awareness of the activation to allow the pieces that are holding it in place to have the opportunity to discharge and possibly resolve.

I am a certified EMDR therapist through EMDRIA (EMDR International Association) with additional and continuing training in Natural Processing, a modality that utilizes EMDR with an emphasis on tracking resilience. I provide EMDR sessions in-person and online. 

Please feel free to use the contact button to reach me to discuss more fully.