Trauma & PTSD
Therapy in Arizona & Florida

Most of us think of trauma as the bad things that happen to us, but trauma isn't the events and experiences that cause or have caused us pain; trauma is the lasting "inner injury". It is the long-lasting result of what happens inside of us - the impacts, adaptations and disconnects from self we unconsciously make in response to these experiences. Trauma is also the change in the way we perceive our experiences and the world at large - we may feel unsafe, unseen, or even unwanted or unworthy.

Traumatic experiences can be any difficult or hurtful experience that leaves a lasting negative effect on you. They can be big and obvious, like abuse, assault, abduction or detainment, natural disaster, or major medical issues, but it can also be small, incremental or quite covert.  These subtler forms of traumatic experiences can occur whenever you get/got less than what you need, are forced to deal with things you are not/were not prepared to deal with, or that are/were more than you could handle… like an unexpected divorce, bullying, or maybe even the simple fact that both of your parents had to work outside the home growing up….but you craved more from them. 

Trauma is a psychic injury that is held in your nervous system, mind, and body - and is triggerable at any given moment. It is very common for trauma to impact people for many years… even lifetimes, and to show up in relationship challenges, maladaptive coping strategies and addictions, perfectionism, career struggles, or even in how you parent. Sometimes, if the traumas were early in life and not crystal clear in your memory, you’ll see them manifest as a pervasive sense of not being “enough” or in chronic patterns of depression or anxiety.  Trauma can also manifest in chronic physical aches, pains, and other medically unexplainable challenges with immunity and digestion.  

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Or, If you have endured a recent significant traumatic experience, such as the sudden loss of a loved one, an accident, or sexual violence, with early intervention we can often prevent the impact of the experience from sticking with you in the many destructive ways it tends to show up as life moves on, such as PTSD. 

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Our specialties within the the field of trauma treatment are:

• Pre-verbal & developmental (early life) trauma

• Sexual abuse/assault/violence

• Trauma-based dissociation & structural dissociation

• Complex trauma

• PTSD

• Recent traumatic events

 

Why is specialized trauma treatmetn important? You’ve no doubt already talked about it. No matter how hard it was, you talked about it. You may have shared your story, for better or worse. You have described the incident, put words to the pain. Talking about it is hard and you’ve done the hard thing. So, why is it still haunting you?  Talk therapy (what many people think of when they are thinking of therapy) is a beneficial, well-studied form of mental health treatment. While this may be true for many other mental health concerns, it may fall short for people seeking treatment for trauma. Talk therapy relies on cognition and verbal processing, functions that takes place primarily in the left side of your brain. Trauma impacts your nervous system and the deeper parts of your mid-brain. Traumatic experiences change your brain on a neurophysiological level that cannot be corrected by talking about it.

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Trauma and PTSD therapy with our experienced, highly trained trauma specialists is a comfortable, consistent, and dependable place where you can come to understand your traumatic experiences, process them, and move past them.  Among our many therapeutic tools, we lean heavily on several highly effective techniques, EMDR, Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR), Brainspotting, and ART to help you recover from trauma and move past suffering in a way that talk therapy alone often can’t. Most of our clients are shocked by how well these work and compared to many other trauma treatments and they're also less disruptive. ​

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If something in this description of how historical trauma can show up in our lives feels familiar, we can work on creating shifts so  you can achieve the life you want.