Trauma & Grief Counseling

Post-traumatic stress disorder (or PTSD) is your brain attempting to regain control after a traumatic (or series of traumatic) experiences. It can result from a single overwhelming event such as an accident, a natural disaster, or an assault. It can also result after multiple, long-term events, such as suffering chronic abuse or repeatedly witnessing others’ suffering. It can affect any person at any age. Common symptoms may include intrusive thoughts or images, difficulty managing strong emotions, frequent nightmares, physical reactions such as an exaggerated startle response, a sense of detachment from others, disrupted sleep, irritability, or feeling keyed up and on guard constantly. In short, your brain struggles to shut off your fight/flight/freeze/fawn response. It may feel as if your reactions are out of your control, but with appropriate treatment, like EMDR, you can find peace again.

When our emotional processing systems become overwhelmed by trauma, our natural problem-solving skills can become stuck, and we end up experiencing the trauma over and over again, without healing it. When trauma becomes stuck, it can be very difficult to overcome without help. EMDR consists of a set of standardized steps that use guided eye movement, sound, or tapping to help a person access their own healing resources. You and your therapist will develop an EMDR plan that will help you identify negative beliefs, unhelpful thoughts, troubling emotions, painful memories, or unwanted physical sensations that are rooted in your past trauma. We then use eye movement, tapping, or sound in a specific, controlled, and planful way to help you move past these limitations. The end result is you breaking free and living a more peaceful life in the present.

If you are coping with difficult memories by attempting to block them out, you are not alone. This impulse is very normal and to be expected. The avoidance approach is what humans do to move on with their lives after something terrible has happened. Eventually, however, these memories, and the corresponding emotions, tend to surface in ways that disrupt our sleep, our peace, our equilibrium - our lives. With EMDR treatment, most people are able to process the hurt of these experiences, placing them successfully in the past without having to deeply relive them.

One of the beauties of EMDR is that it is not necessary for a person to remember the trauma for EMDR to be successful.

The first step to answering this question is to talk with an experienced therapist who practices EMDR. Your therapist can help you evaluate whether EMDR is the best treatment for you and your experience. Barefoot And Balanced employs EMDR therapists who have extensive training and experience in assisting you in making this important decision.