Trauma therapy

[lifeline]

What have your experiences been with trauma therapy?

Was it helpful?

How hard is it to bounce back after a session and go through the remainder of your day?

I've been referred and I'm nervous.

[coyote]

What kind of therapy will you be doing?

[lifeline]

I'm not sure exactly.
The Co-parenting counselor insisted

[coyote]

Just asking. Since I'm not a Dr. all I know is what I've heard. EMDR therapy is supposed to be good for trauma. CBT and REBT are a couple of more i've heard of. I would day be sure it is a therapist you feel you can click with and be sure they have some form of a therapeutic model they work from. I imagine it is different for each one of us as far as how we respond and go on through the day.

[lifeline]

I usually research the doctor recommended but haven't had time yet. I'll be back with more info lol

Thanks for the feedback coyote!

[coyote]

Good luck lifeline and keep us posted. Starting therapy is hard and I applaud you for taking a big first step.

[HeadAboveWater]

I did some EMDR sessions. It's very different from talk therapy in that you're not speaking about the entire breadth of a traumatic experience in detail. You also don't spend most of the session thinking about the traumatic incident. More of your time is spent bringing an awareness to the sensations in your body. You do, however, need to think about traumatic things that happened to you and describe them to a certain level of detail. You will also need to then think about other incidents that caused you to feel similarly to the target incident, so you might dredge up two or more difficult things in one session.

If the EMDR works as it should, you should feel that the primary incident on which you are working is less upsetting than when you started the session. Then, after leaving the session, your subconscious mind will continue to process the event, mostly during sleep, which will bring additional resolution.

To me EMDR always felt like hard but worthwhile work, a bit like a heavy aerobic workout. Personally, I found that I wanted a transition before returning to my normal routines. I'd usually have to spend some time in the restroom pulling myself together for a bit. Then I'd take myself out for a cup of tea before getting on with the rest of my day. Sometimes I would be eager to talk about a realization from the session with a loved one, other times I really wanted  to avoid the topic entirely until my next scheduled session.

[RavenLady]

To piggy-back on this, has anybody done Somatic Experiencing therapy? After reading Peter Levine's "In An Unspoken Voice" I am very intrigued.

My T is very good and very trauma informed but this technique isn't in his toolbox and I'm wondering whether I should be seeking it out.

[FrozenDarkness]

I've been doing trauma work with my therapist lately and it is a bit of a roller coaster.  I personally found it very hard to continue with the rest of my day at work while doing this, especially because my workplace is filled with a ton of triggers, and it was hard to put my demons back in their box after opening it wide.

We have been using the re-parenting technique, but I struggled with this at first, because part of trauma was the fact that all of the adult figures in my life were either part of the abuse or didn't care.  I struggled to really believe in the resolution, because my life was full of experiences that reinforced the idea that this is how things are, and then my depression made it almost impossible to try to tap into positive emotions.

I ended up having to move my appointments to after work and acknowledged that I need to take some time between each incident so that I'm not overwhelmed by the memories and emotions.

[emu_oil]

I saw a somatic therapist every week for two years. I would have seen that person for more than two years, but I moved to a new town. The therapy was very helpful, because I could understand how my body responded to stressful and traumatic incidents, and those responses helped my therapist tap into things that I was not aware of. I learned to avoid scheduling stuff immediately after therapy, because some of the sessions were challenging and I left feeling very emotional. Not all of them were like that, though. In many cases, I felt a great release after therapy and smiled all the way home

[Fightsong]

What is trauma therapy exactly?

In mine we did talk about trauma, we did processing and visualisation and inner child stuff. It was emotionally destabilising sometimes. I had to power on or go home and snuggle up depending. I felt anxious with it all coming up, and we did grounding work. Which helped.  For me therapy hasn't been easy but I feel like I'm over the worst  now (3 years!)  -  and honestly my life is so different . I've come so far in understanding and reclaiming myself. In understanding my own needs and how to meet them / get them met. And what I understand about others has changed to. It's been so freeing.  I wish you luck. My therapist used to say  they 'knew I hated this process', and they 'wouldn't wish this process on anyone'.  That  really validated my pain. I had to do it  if I wanted my life back. And I did, and I have.

This community can support you.