Trauma Healing Therapy
I work with trauma in two primary ways - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy called EMDR, and Family of Origin, Inner Child work.
EMDR is a powerful, somatic therapy that helps to release traumatic memories that are locked in our body or stored as traumatic memories. These "stuck" places prevent people from living their lives fully. Bilateral stimulation is practiced to link up the left and right hemispheres of the brain while processing a traumatic memory. This is said to be a more efficient manner to healing trauma than typical "talk therapy."
Many clients have Complex PTSD, which means their trauma happened over time in myriad a big and small ways. Some events are remembered and others affect us in ways we were not aware of at the time, but cause disturbances in relationships with others. Blocked trauma can cause ego states that interrupt the healthy flow of our lives. In this case EMDR is practiced differently so that we can directly heal traumatized ego states and develop healthy coping patterns.
In Family of Origin, trauma therapy we work to uncover the dysfunctional patterns, which underly your adult issues. The origin of most adult problems can be traced back to some type of trauma in one's past. You'll complete an in depth questionnaire about your childhood and relationship with each parent. While our parents did the best they could, in most cases, they were not "perfect." Parents bring the legacies of their own childhoods with them, and this affects how they parent. While in some cases the trauma could have been a form of overt physical, emotional or sexual abuse, other trauma is more covert and called "relational abuse." Relational abuse happens when a child is enmeshed or physically and emotionally neglected by a parent.
I have had extensive training with Pia Mellody, RN who is one of the founders of The Meadows treatment center in Wickenberg, AZ. In the 1980's, Pia discovered this model while searching for ways to help patients there for addiction treatment. Most years I run a trauma workshop in the Boston area, which is experiential and offered a couple of times a year.
For more information on this, please see information about
The Trauma Intensive on this site.
Something will shift permanently in us. Our ancient habitual patterns will begin to soften, and
we’ll begin to see the faces and hear the words of people who are talking to us.
If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness,
our protective shells will melt, and we’ll find that more areas of our lives are workable.
As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others…becomes wider.”
we’ll begin to see the faces and hear the words of people who are talking to us.
If we begin to get in touch with whatever we feel with some kind of kindness,
our protective shells will melt, and we’ll find that more areas of our lives are workable.
As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others…becomes wider.”
Pema Chodron