Let’s Make it Better

• Distressing memories from the past keep coming up
• Seemingly small things from the past are still upsetting today
• You are easily irritated or have a tendency to over-react
• You find yourself shutting down or complying when you don’t want to
• Overwhelming guilt or shame
• Treatment-resistant fears and phobias
• Unhealthy or codependent relationships

While these symptoms may have other causes, often there are unprocessed events in our history that continue to impact how we see ourselves, others, and our current experiences. 

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Single Incident Trauma

• e.g. a shooting, rape, natural disasters

Domestic Abuse

• e.g. spousal physical, emotional, or spiritual abuse

Complex Childhood Trauma

• e.g. neglect, child abuses, bullying, a child regularly witnessing domestic abuse

I Can Help

“Little-t” trauma is any event (or series of events) or prolonged unhealthy relationship(s) that occurs but remains unresolved and unprocessed in one’s memory.

Related to an Event

• The distress of the event continues to be experienced as upsetting long after the situation is over. Often, people would not consider the event(s) itself to be traumatic, but it remains upsetting when they allow themselves to connect with the memory of it.

Related to Unhealthy Relationships

• The learned interactional patterns continue to negatively influence the way a person interacts with and connects with others, particularly significant others.

Though little-t traumas generally go undetected consciously, they continue to influence the way a person thinks and behaves in the present, especially when stressful or upsetting situations occur. Often it is surprising and confusing to the person why they react the way they do in these situations. 

I Can Help

While it can be scary to face or even admit there may have been trauma in one’s life, having a skilled therapist help you understand and navigate through your trauma and bring you to resolution can be comforting, freeing, and empowering.

You no longer have to live in the distress or dysfunction of your history.

PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) is a psychological disorder that can be diagnosed by a psychiatrist or psychologist related to specific types of trauma when the effects of the trauma get to the point of being highly disruptive to one’s current functioning. 

I Can Help

Even the most distressing traumas can be carefully and safely processed and desensitized so that they become a calm memory of something terrible that happened in the past but is no longer affecting you today. 

This happens through first learning how to cope with distressing emotions, and then through a structured process of desensitization that continually monitors and maintains your safety as you go through it.

In the first two phases of our work together, we will actively work to create safety for you within the counselling environment and within yourself.  This is required to be able to safely process and resolve past traumas.  There are a number of things we will explore to equip you in this phase. 

We will also be taking a detailed history of possible events or relationships that may have deeply impacted how you see yourself, others, and the world.  We are looking for things that as you let yourself connect with them, are still upsetting today, or things that would typically result in protective or defensive reactions.

Once a list of potential targets is established, we will begin desensitizing and reprocessing them.  I do this primarily through Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a highly researched and effective trauma treatment. 

When EMDR is not a good fit for a client, I will use other modalities to gently and more slowly help you to process your trauma as you build emotional tolerance to face your pain.  These include Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy, Sandtray Therapy, somatic techniques, and guided imagery. 

As targets are resolved, clients report not only relief when they think of the initial event, but more significantly, they experience their current life differently!  You will find yourself responding in healthy ways to situations that otherwise would have been triggering to you, without needing to consciously will yourself to respond well. 

Trauma therapy, in general, and EMDR, in particular, changes how you hold your past so that it no longer determines your present and future!