What is Trauma Counseling

In general, trauma can be defined as a psychological, emotional response to an event or an experience that is deeply distressing or disturbing. (An event that made you feel really, really bad). Examples could be a scary event, assault, disaster, war, sexual/physical abuse, witnessing violence, verbal abuse, bullying, sudden loss of a loved one. This is different for each client, what some consider an adverse event, others may not, the client gets to define what was scary (bad) to them.

Trauma counseling is reprocessing the adverse event in a safe environment allowing one the ability to tolerate the memory while reducing PTSD symptoms.

Typical PTSD symptoms could be flashbacks, intrusive thoughts, nightmares, intense distress, physical sensations (pain, sweating, nausea), sadness/depression, fear, anxiety, anger, panic attacks or detached from others (feeling isolated).

The most important piece of trauma work is keeping you safe while doing the work. This will include development of positive self-care, building a strong support system while creating a bond with the therapist to allow one to be their true authentic self. Some reprocessing techniques will include narrative work and using words and others will allow the client to process without sharing the event such as EMDR or Progressive Counting.

I will say up front that trauma work is hard. It is hard pulling things through the body and often hurts. With children I often let parents know, it may get worse before it gets better. It is the same with adults. I also share that it is worth it. Trauma can affect all areas of life, emotional, physical, spiritual, and most notable at times, our relationships. I know healing is possible because I have watched it happen so many times. I have had many people ask me why I would want to do trauma work and expose myself to the stories. I usually say it is like reading a favorite book and watching a favorite movie over and over, when you know the ending, you’re willing to re-watch the plot. I know if my clients complete the work, we will see a healed person who is ready to go live their life, and not only live, but live it abundantly. Many of my clients will write at the end of their work that if they had a choice to change anything, that they would not because it made them into who they are. I’m not sure why this surprises me each time, but it often does.

No one wishes this on themselves or others, but they are better able to understand, accept and grow stronger through the work. I often liken it to the story below:

An excerpt from my book: …and the truth will set you free

(hoping to officially publish in 2023)

When I was young, I was walking one day and accidentally stepped on broken glass and cut my foot open, glass and blood everywhere. It was a terrible thing to happen and hurt intensely. For some reason I was embarrassed that I had done this, maybe I thought I did something wrong and would get into trouble, so I tried to hide it.

I got most of the glass out and covered up my foot so no one would know. What I didn’t realize was that most of the glass was still in my foot. My foot healed and quit bleeding, but the pain of that glass continued on. I could feel it every time I walked. Sometimes if I tried to run it would hurt so bad it was unbearable. At times, it hurt so bad, I thought I couldn’t go on. But no one knew, they didn’t know why I would cry for no reason, or decline to do things they knew I enjoyed or my emotions would be over the top.

My foot hurt so bad that I began to walk differently which made my hip hurt and eventually my back. So to adjust to this I walked and stood even more differently which caused my shoulder to hurt. It hurt so bad I finally went to the doctor, they tried all kinds of treatments but nothing really worked. The reason is, the problem was not my shoulder, it was my foot. In order to get out of all the pain I was in (which had built up over years), I was going to have to tell the truth. I had to tell what happened to me when I was younger. Not only that, to truly heal, I would need to cut open that old wound and carefully pull out all of the glass.

It had grown into my foot so much I knew it would be hard and painful to pull it out and often thought, “It’s not worth it”. I tried to just let it go and heal but I realized again, I can’t, I have to heal from this. I tried to cut it open myself but it was too much, I couldn’t do it on my own so I had to get help. As each piece came out it was awful. At one point, it hurt so much to take it out that I gave up and thought I could just live with the pain, after all, I was used to the pain.

But soon, I realized, I wanted to heal no matter how much it hurt! I wanted to be able to walk and run and do the things I loved in life without pain. Not only for myself and for those around me who loved me, I decided to try again to heal. This time I got a professional to help me. We pulled each piece out, one by one and would let that part of my foot heal, then pull out another, and another, until I had it all out. I wasn’t finished there, the layers of skin had to heal, each layer, one by one. Once my foot was healed I could heal the other effects of it, my back and shoulder had to readjust which took time.

Eventually, I was back to the person I was meant to be all along before the incident occurred. I can walk, run and go about my day and rarely think about the glass that used to be in my foot. Occasionally I will step a certain way and it might hurt for a minute and I am reminded of it, but it usually goes away quickly.

Sometimes when I’m putting on my socks, I’ll see the scar and say, “Yeah, that happened”. I think back at how long it took me to heal and wish I would have told sooner but then I move onto the valuable lessons I learned along the way. Trust me, if I step on glass again, I will tell someone and get help right away!