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WORKING WITH TRAUMA

Trauma is hard to define precisely. There are many things you can experience as being traumatic. It depends not on what has happened to you, but on how you experienced that event. Any event that overwhelmed your mind, emotions, or body, and damaged your normal coping mechanisms, can be considered as traumatic.

 

Emotional trauma can be acute (caused by events that happen once) or complex (caused by recurring experiences). Some examples include:

  • Divorce

  • Job loss

  • Abuse (verbal, emotional, physical)

  • Child neglect

  • Bullying or discrimination

  • Loss of a loved one

  • Living in fear or in high stress environment

  • Medical trauma

  • Being in an accident or a natural disaster

  • Witnessing or experiencing violence

Experiencing trauma can cause different symptoms, both emotional and physical, such as:

  • Denial and numbness, feeling of detachment

  • A feeling of helplessness, being overwhelmed

  • Anger, mood swings

  • Being unable to concentrate

  • Feelings of grief or guilt

  • Anxiety, fear and vulnerability

  • Depression

  • Reliving the past, memory flashbacks

  • Pulling away from relationships

  • Sleep problems, nightmares

  • Headaches, chronic pain, muscle tenseness, feeling exhausted

  • PTSD

A person struggling with emotional trauma. He is sad and his eyes are closed.

The most important thing to recognize is that healing after trauma is possible, and trauma does not have to control your life and your future. Trauma can either become a pivotal event that changes your world to "before" and "after", or can become your experience that you own and move on. If you experienced traumatic events, you can ask for help. Do not hesitate to contact me to discuss your situation and we will define the next steps together.

 

I mostly use the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) methodology to help my clients. A foundational principle of the Acceptance and Commitment therapy was very well formulated by Russ Harris, one of the founding fathers of ACT: "The more we try to avoid the basic reality that all human life involves pain, the more we are likely to struggle with that pain when it arises, thereby creating even more suffering". This methodology facilitates people to take two deceptively simple yet very powerful actions:

  • Accept that life comes with some struggle and learn how to be happy with it.

  • Define your core values and live value-focused life instead of goal-focused life.

 

It works very well with trauma, as it allows my clients to accept and find peace with what it outside of their control, and instead define and commit to actions that enrich their lives. This open approach helps clients to process their traumatic experience and come back to normal life, where can be good days and bad days, but it is not full of misery, anger and sadness.

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