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Trauma Care and Recovery

Our Trauma Care Model

The three primary phases of trauma treatment and recovery include:  (a) safety and stabilization, (b) remembering and reconnection), and (c) consolidation and integration.

 

Trauma care and recovery includes helping you to:

  • Learn new coping strategies and relaxation techniques for managing distress associated with the trauma

  • Develop  effective coping stances for dealing with daily stressors

  • Identify and manage trauma related triggers

  • Access, process, and integrate memories related to original trauma event(s)

  • Incorporate mindfulness approaches for gaining enhanced  a sense of inner calm and peace

  • Reconnect  with hope

  • Transformation from survival mode to living mode

  • Identify resiliencies and strengths that provide nourishment for the continued journey

  • Facilitate connectivity (stronger intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships)

If you’ve been affected by trauma and you’re still experiencing these signs after a “reasonable” period of time, trauma counselling should be considered:

  • Constant feeling of Shock, denial, or disbelief

  • You’re prone to anger, irritability or mood swings

  • You feel guilty, ashamed or you self-blame for something

  • You feel sad or hopeless after going through a traumatic incident

  • You’re confused or having difficulty concentrating

  • Anxiety and fear are impacting your life

  • You’re withdrawing from friends, family or loved ones

  • You feel disconnected or numb a lot of the time

  • You’re experiencing Insomnia or nightmares

  • You find yourself being startled easily

  • Your heartbeat races for no reason

  • Your body has unexplained aches, pains and fatigue

Trauma

During our journey as human beings, we are bound to experience critical incidents that leave us reeling with difficult emotions, and sometimes seemingly permanent trauma symptoms.

Traumatic events can bring us together, and they can also tear us apart.

Trauma can be seen as an injury that happened to us, and we are left with the task of sorting out how to first service it, then heal and grow from it. Even though you might continue to struggle with the effects of trauma, you have survived and that took courage, strength, and resourcefulness.

There are two ways in which people come into contact with trauma, a one-time powerful incident (e.g. a single or multiple powerful critical incidents such as assault, rape, or child abuse) or from chronic  exposure to repeated traumatic events (e.g. neglect, domestic violence, military war zone, or first responders).

These critical incidents have a seriously debilitating impact on our sense of safety, esteem, identity or life, and threaten our ability to function in daily life in safe or normal ways. This can lead to depression, anxiety, addiction, aggression, regression, psycho-emotional numbness, or other dissociative disorders.

If you are a traumatized persons that remains untreated, you can experience a sharp and serious decline in your mental health condition. Emotional expression and regulation may cease to be present for you. You can become easily aggravated and/or overwhelmed by distress and unmanageable intrusions – such as nightmares, flashbacks, and disturbing memories or physical sensations.

Each person experiences traumatic events differently. Many people affected by trauma may not yet realize all that has happened to them and how they have been affected. Others may want help but may not feel quite ready to ask for it. It is important for survivors of trauma to indicate readiness for entering treatment for their trauma, and to find a therapist that has the skills and experience to be able to establish and maintain therapeutic safety.

At Counselling Connections, we bring a holistic approach to trauma care that attends to our clients from a mind-body-spirit basis, as we acknowledge and attend to the needs of our clients who present with trauma symptoms. Our therapeutic approaches are based on a creating a solid foundation of safety for those who have been traumatized. We also strive to incorporate the most recent findings from neuroscience discoveries.   

Living with unprocessed trauma is akin to that of a shaken bottle of soda. Inside the bottle is a tremendous amount of pressure. The safest way to release the pressure is to open and close the cap in a slow, cautious and intentional manner so as to prevent an explosion. (Rothschild, 2010)

At Counselling Connections, we will help you to re-establish a sense of safety in your life, give you tools for better understanding what you have experienced, make your daily walk in life regain a sense of being do-able, and nurture your sense of hope, meaning and purpose in life.

Important trauma symptoms to watch for (AND an indication of a need for counselling):

  • Constant feeling of shock, denial, or disbelief

  • A sense of unrelenting anger, irritability or mood swings

  • Burdened with guilty, shame. self-blame, or self-loathing

  • Hopeless (or deep sadness) that does not lift a reasonable time after the traumatic incident

  • Severe confusion and/or difficulty concentrating

  • Unrelenting insomnia and/or nightmares

  • Self-isolation from friends, family or loved ones

  • Inability to feel “present” a lot of the time (i.e.,feeling  “checked out”)

 

The effects of acute childhood experiences (ACES) and/or complex trauma include:

  • Attachment and relationship issues

  • Behavioral and/or interpersonal conflict issues

  • Cognition impairment

  • Physical health deterioration (body and brain)

  • Emotional reactivity and dysregulation

  • Psycho-emotional numbing and/or dissociation

  • Self-concept & self-worth issues

  • Future orientation blockage

  • Economic impact

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