by Gail B | Jul 15, 2020 | Can one ever overcome trauma?
“Yes, talking therapies that focus on processing previous traumatic experience can help to process it. Examples of trauma processing therapies are as follows.
EMDR-Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing-in this therapy the therapist reviews with you your recollection of the traumatic event. When eye movements are initiated, the therapist asks you to think of this narrative and also reflect on your emotion, sense of self statements and visceral feelings that you had in response to a traumatic frame. The eye movements help to draw (in an accelerated manner) all of those experiences to facilitate memory consolidation (especially into anterior regions of the prefrontal cortex).
Hypnotherapy Age Regression-the hypnotherapist asks you (while you are in the hypnotic state) to go back into time and to identify the time of the trauma. While in the hypnotic state the trauma memory is easily elicited along with associated sense of self statements and emotions. The hypnotherapist would need to develop a suggestion to share this elicited trauma memory with all of its disturbing emotion and senses of self with the awakening state. This can be troubling and overwhelming to the person if it is not done in increments.
Prolonged Exposure-the therapist and patient review the traumatic experience and then consciously examine different aspects of the traumatic experience over and over again until the person is desensitized to sensory aspects of the trauma.
Redecision Therapy-the therapist uses the current implicit metaphor of the trauma and then uses conscious age regression to go back into the time when the traumatic relationship or event had been experienced. Accessing the metaphor helps to elicit the emotion that had been associated with the trauma and to develop the trauma narrative.”
by Michael F | Jul 15, 2020 | Can one ever overcome trauma?
“A person never gets over a severe trauma. Trauma is branded in your brain like a bull is branded by a rancher. I spend more time thinking about the past traumas in my life than I do thinking about all the happy moments. I have several happy memories. Time doesn’t heal all wounds. You must ask a therapist about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I’ve had many kinds of therapy. CBT is the ONLY therapy which forced me to face my traumas. I was forced to ask: was this trauma my fault? I told my traumas I was letting them go. I own my past but I don’t have to let it control me this moment. I know what happened but I live this moment. I don’t live in the past and I’m not promised I’ll HAVE a tomorrow. You never get over a severe trauma. You can learn how to laugh and experience joy. I offer myself as evidence.”
by Suzanna A | Jul 15, 2020 | Can one ever overcome trauma?
“As a result of working through my own complex trauma, I don’t believe we ever “overcome” trauma. There are many different types and causes of trauma. My psychology prof taught us that everyone is traumatised, because being born is traumatising. But here’s what my personal experience has taught me. I believe we make friends with it. Fist by recognising the pain it caused, then by grieving for what we “lost” as a result (in my case it was my innocence, trust and childhood).
And when we can look back at part of the experience without flashbacks or that gut-wrenching sting, we are lucid enough to start doing the cognitive work that will allow us to understand what we have gained as a result. We can appreciate how it has allowed us to experience things that have given us a wisdom beyond out years, for example, or an understanding of some aspect of human behaviour that those around us struggle with.
We can reach the stage where we are grateful for the trauma. We wouldn’t want anyone else to experience it, but we are glad that we did because we know how much it has enriched us!
And every time we get to this stage of acceptance with some aspect of our trauma, the decisions we make are determined less and less by our trauma, and more and more on the strengths our trauma helped us develop! And that’s a truly great place to be.”
by Rachel B | Jul 14, 2020 | Can one ever overcome trauma?
“It depends on so many different factors. The type of trauma. What parts of your life it affected. What parts of your emotions it affected. Your coping mechanisms. How much you hide it from other people. How much you talk it out. How much you let other people help to ground you when your emotions from that time separate you from the current now. How much you accept your reactions as valid and try to work through them.
I am by far not an expert. I know my own experience only. Mine was PTSD from emotional relationship trauma x2. It took a few years and a couple psychologists and my now-husband to work through it. He’d say something in the same tone of voice as one of the previous two guys, and it would fly me back to that time. I’d flash back and mix up who he was and curl up in a ball. It was horrible. But whenever it would happen, I’d talk about it. I needed that external grounding. That reminder that my flight or fight response was no longer necessary because it was in the past, not now. I had to repeat that over and over. It became soothing – “that was 5 years ago, not now, not now, not now. This is a different house with a different person and different job and different life. And I don’t need to be that scared girl any more, because I’m safe.” Over time, the memories started to fade, and so did the reactions. Sometimes, they still come back. But the grounding is easier. It’s almost easier to believe it wasn’t real, because there’s nothing but pain there. I worked through the emotions and pain till I could safely put them in a box and forget. Pretty sure that if I saw either of the guys again, that box would open for a while. But I’d talk it out, find my grounding, and put it away again.
Again, that doesn’t work for everyone, it’s just one data point. But for me, that trauma was real and palpable. Now it’s a faded memory. So I’m going to call it possible.”
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