Trauma Therapy
Kathryn Graham, Ph.D.
Are symptoms of trauma holding you back?
Do you have a hard time controlling your emotions and feel suddenly angry, worried, ashamed, or sad?
Do you ever experience flashbacks in which you feel as though you are reliving one of your worst days or feel stuck thinking about a horrible memory?
Do you often feel numb or detached from your body or from your current experiences?
Is it often hard to fall asleep or do you often wake up from nightmares?
Do you feel as though you cannot trust others or that the world is unsafe?
These symptoms can appear after you experience a traumatic event, which is when something happens that leads you to fear for your own safety or the safety of a loved one. For others, these symptoms may appear after years of experiencing adverse events in childhood, such as abuse, neglect, maltreatment, or significant stress across childhood such as a contentious parental divorce. Trauma can have long-term effects on our ability to regulate our emotions, maintain healthy relationships, and engage in self-care.
Trauma impacts more than you’d think.
A traumatic event or a series of traumatic events alters our sense of safety and therefore our perception of the world. This therefore can lead to difficulties with trust, regulating emotions, and with feeling connected to one’s body.
If you’re not sure how to move forward and are worried life will never feel normal again, therapy can help with:
Recognizing the thoughts that are keeping you stuck. Most people with symptoms of trauma experience shame or guilt surrounding the trauma or view the world as no longer safe or predictable
Feeling dysregulated or numb. Trauma can lead to difficulties recognizing emotions in the body, leading to patterns of numbness and/or patterns of sudden, intense emotions.
Difficulties in your social relationships. People that experience a traumatic event often struggle to either let their guard down again or struggle with setting boundaries, instead engaging in people pleasing.
Difficulties sleeping. Trauma often impacts the body’s ability to relax, leading to difficulties falling asleep or waking up due to nightmares.
Trauma Doesn’t Have to be Handled in Silence
My approach to trauma therapy typically begins with education about trauma to reduce any feelings of shame or guilt that you may be experiencing. We then focus on practical skills for regulating emotions, learning how to recognize stuck points, and eventually focus on making changes in your interpersonal patterns and how you think about the traumatic event(s).
I often assign homework for trauma therapy to give you skills to practice between sessions, allowing you to maintain progress in treatment. I am mindful of how difficult it can be to focus on traumatic events and we therefore go at your pace and comfort level.
Therapeutic Modalities I Use
My approach to trauma therapy uses a blend of evidence-based practices including the following:
Skills Training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation-Narrative Storytelling (STAIR-NST): a treatment designed for adult survivors of childhood trauma that focuses on how childhood trauma changes how one processes emotions and relates to others. This therapy focuses on teaching emotional regulation skills, how to set boundaries and establish healthier interpersonal relationships, and if necessary, engage in narrative storytelling to desensitize oneself to the experiences of the trauma. The therapy was designed to be flexible and provides a variety of skills and worksheets for practicing between sessions.
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT): a form of cognitive behavioral therapy designed for trauma that targets how trauma changes how you view yourself, how you view others, and the world. This modality was primarily designed for singular traumatic events and focuses on challenging the thought patterns that can keep you stuck in a traumatic cycle. It is a short-term treatment meant to be delivered in 12-16 sessions with many practical skills and worksheets.
How Therapy With Me Can Support Your Healing Journey
Following trauma therapy, my clients report:
Feeling more confident regulating their emotions
Advocating for their needs and wishes more
Recognizing their emotions and their triggers
Communicating more effectively with their loved ones
Feeling more connected with their bodies
Examining the evidence when they feel a sudden lack of safety or experience a negative thought rather than accepting it immediately
Sleeping through the night
Feeling as though their trauma does not define them
One of my primary goals in treatment is to foster greater self-confidence and allow you to feel as though your life is not defined by trauma.
About Kathryn
I provided trauma therapy to victims of sexual assault at a college student counseling center and worked with adult survivors of childhood abuse, maltreatment, and neglect in a private practice setting.
My approach to trauma therapy involves focusing on the effects that trauma has on your perceptions, feelings, beliefs, and sense of safety. We work to understand these effects through education on trauma and recognizing that your body’s initial response was designed to keep you safe. We then work to recognize your present safety and how these beliefs, especially any feelings of shame or guilt, may no longer be serving you. I believe that healing takes place when we can validate your past self rather than trying to erase it or dissociate from it, while also moving forward and making meaningful changes to develop trust in your body, your emotions, and your relationships.
Clients have said that working with me is calming and validating. I am a soft-spoken person but I am quick to highlight any negative self-talk I am hearing and encourage you to show yourself more grace. I come to sessions prepared with an agenda to focus on, but am flexible at shifting to meet your needs.
FAQs
-
While many trauma treatments were developed with exposure exercises in mind, the two treatment modalities I primarily draw from focus on targeting the effects that trauma has on our bodies, thoughts, and perceptions. Both modalities provide options for narrative work, meaning that you can share your memories of traumatic events and we work to gradually desensitize you to these memories, but neither involves engaging in exposure exercises such as revisiting the scene of an accident.
-
The length of trauma therapy often depends on how long you have been experiencing symptoms, whether you are currently experiencing circumstances that are triggering you, and whether you are able to practice techniques between sessions. People seeking treatment for childhood trauma, often experience a longer treatment duration due to how ingrained their perceptions and symptoms may have become. Treatment can therefore last between 12-36 sessions depending on your needs.
-
CPT is often the treatment of choice for singular, traumatic events in adulthood. Most people do not experience only one traumatic event though, but the treatment is designed where it can be applied if multiple traumatic events have occurred. STAIR-NST is the treatment of choice if you are an adult seeking treatment for traumas you experienced in childhood. I often apply skills from STAIR-NST in other therapies because the emotion regulation and interpersonal skills are well-developed.
-
Yes, trauma therapy does not need to be delivered in-person. If you prefer the flexibility of virtual sessions, you are welcome to schedule them this way.
-
Trauma therapy typically involves completing work between sessions. This is not meant to be a debilitating amount of work, but typically involves practicing coping skills and completing worksheets examining your own thought patterns and relationships throughout your week. Homework should take under 30 minutes per day.
Are you ready to feel less stuck? Connect with me using the button below. We will schedule a 15 minute free consultation phone call to discuss what’s bringing you into therapy and determine if we would be a good fit to work together.