Services
heal psychotherapy - in-person and virtual Therapy
Trauma/Individual Therapy
We focus on healing trauma at the roots: through the nervous system (somatic) then the mind.
"Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”
Dr. Peter Levine
Services
Healing Trauma at the Roots
We follow the evidence found in research when treating prolonged trauma, in addition to the updated American Psychological Guidelines, which all show that complex trauma ought to be treated in a phasic, integrative framework, that utilizes neuroscience-informed approaches, such as neurofeedback.
Just as seen in Gerge (2020) and many other studies, neurofeedback is the ideal intervention for phase 1 of treatment (nervous system regulation), followed by trauma processing in phase 2, and reconnection to others and the world in phase 3. We use supportive therapies, such as NARM, to deepen the integration of the, often, emerging agentive, subjective, and perceptive self—a self that Lucie Ritchie, RP calls “the authentic self.” We also process trauma using Deep Brain Reorienting and Alpha-Theta training (a neurofeedback protocol for trauma and addiction).
To name a few, we use:
– Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
– NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM™)
What is Trauma?
Trauma is a whole body response to a horrific incident (acute trauma) or to disheartening events that occurred overtime, such as childhood emotional, verbal, neglectful, or physical abuse (developmental trauma/complex trauma). If you’re a survivor of childhood trauma, you may struggle with understanding your authentic self and how to express the real you. You may feel “on” all the time, as though you need to follow the learned “shoulds” and “should nots” that stem from internalized burdens of the past. This can be addressed through neuroscience and trauma-informed interventions. You’re not alone—we can help.
Not everyone who experiences trauma will be traumatized and have a PTSD or C-PTSD diagnosis. Some will have symptoms of trauma. But in either case, unhealed trauma can recalibrate the brain and nervous system to interpret the world (and others within it) as “unsafe.” As such, trauma survivors gain a heightened ability to scan for threat, which can become problematic—and even confusing—because the threat they are attuned to is the unprocessed past in the brain and nervous system, not what is factually happening outside of them. If any senses absorbed from a present-day environment are reminiscent of unprocessed/unconscious traumatic memories, the survivor may become triggered and react as though the original trauma was happening in the present, yet they have no awareness of what they are really reacting to.
Because of the above-mentioned, it’s common to seek external relief. Many may lean toward drugs, food, sex, and/or alcohol because numbing temporarily relieves the constant experience of stress (that sense of being “on”). We understand, and we can help you.
Healthy Sense of Self (default mode Network) vs the sense of self in trauma surviors
The sense of self in trauma survivors activates under threat instead of under safety, as it typically does in healthy populations. This may explain why survivors of abuse reenact their traumas; they are trying to engage their sense of self to feel alive.
This is why we integrated neurofeedback as a first-line treatment when working with this population. The brain often needs regulation, and psychotherapy supports people in making sense of the rapid changes and deep shifts.
Photo adapted from Lanius et al. (2020)
