PTSD Therapy

Has PTSD Robbed You of Your Ability To Enjoy Life?

Do you find yourself endlessly reliving a painful experience from the past?

Are you suffering from flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive thoughts?

Do you wish you had more supportive relationships to help you manage your emotional pain?

Maybe you experienced assault, abuse, or another form of violence that left your world shaken to the core. Perhaps you find yourself going out of your way to avoid certain people, places, and situations that remind you of what happened. After a while, these avoidance behaviors could make you feel lonely, as if you’re missing out on life. As a result, you may be considering a therapist who treats PTSD.

PTSD Can Make You Feel Numb, Hypervigilant, And Unable To Regulate Your Emotions

If you’re dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, it’s normal to experience any of the following symptoms:

Hypervigilance
Dissociation or feeling “outside of your body”
Emotional dysregulation
Night terrors and insomnia
Amnesia of past experiences
Physical symptoms like nausea and muscular tension

In this way, PTSD can impact every area of your life and affect your ability to work, sleep, socialize, and do all the things you normally love.

The truth is that PTSD symptoms generally don’t occur when you have the right support from those around you. The mind and body have an innate capacity for healing. Caring, loving, and trusting relationships allow you to fulfill this healing ability. My approach to PTSD treatment gives survivors like you the opportunity to heal in the context of a compassionate therapeutic relationship.

PTSD Is A Normal Reaction To Traumatic Events

In fact, PTSD is your body’s way of trying to keep you safe in the wake of a dangerous experience. Your nervous system stays on high alert so that you don’t get traumatized again. Unfortunately, this protective mechanism often spirals out of control when you have PTSD. It makes you relive your trauma over and over, even when there’s no danger present.

Although PTSD is most commonly associated with soldiers in combat zones, it can also happen to anyone who experiences or witnesses abuse, assault, a natural disaster, a car accident, or another life-altering event. According to the Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, roughly 6 out of every 100 Americans have PTSD (1). This means that if you take 20 people, there’s a good chance that at least one of them is actively suffering from PTSD symptoms.

PTSD Thrives In Isolation—And Our Society Is More Isolated Than It’s Ever Been

If we zoom out to look at our evolutionary history, our species was tribal for hundreds of thousands of years. We lived in small, indigenous communities that banded together for self-protection and belonging. We loved and cared for each other in a remarkably close-knit way.

Only comparatively recently has our tribal experience been lost. As civilization has progressed, we have been fractured from shared communities into isolated homes and oppressive political structures. Without the same level of supportive relationships, we are at increased risk for trauma.

It is precisely because of the loss of tribal relationships that PTSD survivors must struggle so much on their own. Yet if modern society has exiled us from our tribes, therapy is a chance to recreate the sense of care and belonging that our tribes once provided. It’s an opportunity to come out of exile and reconnect with the healing power of relationships.

PTSD Treatment Can Help You Access Your Innate Healing Abilities And Craft A Legacy Of Transformation

With the loss of tribal communities came the loss of wise elders and community healers. In therapy, I seek to model the role of a healer and elder with my clients. While you and I cannot turn the clocks back to when we lived in tribes, we can build a tribal connection of warmth, support, and belonging.

My formal clinical training and my own experience of overcoming trauma permit me the compassion and understanding to help survivors. You and I are both the walking wounded, yet we are both endowed with the ability to heal others through our own brave journeys. It’s my mission to help you tap into your own innate healing abilities and use them to craft a legacy of transformation.

What To Expect In PTSD Counseling Sessions

In therapy, you and I will explore the events that led to your PTSD and develop new coping skills for managing your trauma reactions. We will work on building up your natural strengths so that you can respond to trauma in healthier ways.

Using breathwork, yoga, visualization, and other mindfulness techniques, I’ll teach you to connect with your body and create safety within it. After all, trauma disrupts your body’s ability to feel safe, so it stands to reason that therapy must involve both physical and emotional healing.

I am trained and certified in Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), an approach that seeks to clear out the emotional impact of trauma so that you no longer experience PTSD when you remember what happened. I also provide therapy for Internal Family Systems, which explores all the different parts of yourself—your shame, your fear, your sorrow, your hope, your capacity for love—so that you can become inwardly balanced and coordinated for achieving your goals in therapy.

Ultimately, the approach I use depends on what works best for you. I draw from a wide variety of experiential, person-centered, and spiritually-informed methods to address trauma. No matter how hopeless you feel right now, I believe that you can empower yourself to increase your mental energy, improve your self-compassion, and reconnect with the deepest parts of your identity. I’ve seen healing happen with hundreds of my clients and I would be honored to help you experience the same thing.

You May Have Some Questions And Concerns About PTSD Treatment…

I’ve tried medication and therapy and neither has helped. How do I know that this will work

While I can’t provide guarantees, I do provide a fuller approach to healing than medication or talk therapy allows for. That’s because I work with the whole person—mind, body, and spirit. I seek to integrate all the parts of yourself that trauma separated or fractured, helping you improve every facet of your life. It is possible to recapture a sense of joy, even in the wake of trauma. I encourage you to hold out hope that you can still be surprised by joy!

I’m not sure I want to receive PTSD treatment online. Is it really that effective?

Yes, research has demonstrated that online therapy can be just as effective at treating PTSD as in-person therapy (2). There are many additional reasons to consider teletherapy. It’s very convenient, it reduces travel costs, adds extra privacy, and allows you to feel safe in the comfort of your own home. It’s also more accessible for people with disabilities and just as safe and confidential as standard in-person therapy.

I have done things that I’m ashamed of. I don’t know that I can face that shame in therapy.

“Moral trauma” occurs when we feel deeply guilty and ashamed about hurting others in the past. We may feel unforgivable, as if we don’t deserve to heal. I’m here to tell you that I don’t care what harm you have done to others in the past—what I care about is what you’re doing right now. I will be honored and humbled that you are showing up bravely and honestly with me in the present.

Let Me Help You Connect With Your True Healing Potential

If you want to put the pain of the past behind you and experience deeper relief in your mind and body, I encourage you to pursue PTSD treatment with me. To get started, you can email me or call 614-859-5994.

https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-61816058