Rates:

Video Conferencing and Telephone Sessions - $200 per 50 minute session 

In-Person Session - $200 per 50 minute session 

Trauma Counselling

Trauma lives in the body and brain. Trauma is the response to a deeply disturbing or distressing event or events. The visual stimuli are stored with the traumatic memory in the brain. When the trauma is triggered by a smell, seeing a simple action, a picture, a thought, or other internal or external factors the body may return to the state it was in when the trauma occurred. This state can become debilitating in daily life preventing you from participating in normal daily activities. This state is what is called the trauma response. The mid brain takes over which induces your animal instincts of fight, flight, freeze. When the midbrain is active the ability for logical thought is temporarily offline.

There are 3 types of trauma:

• Acute trauma is a response to a single stressful or dangerous event. This may include an accident, an injury or a single attack.
• Chronic trauma is a response to repeated or lengthy acute stressful events. Such events may include domestic violence, child abuse or bullying.
• Complex trauma is exposure to multiple traumatic events such as abuse or profound neglect.

Childhood Trauma

Children have less life experience and resultantly have less knowledge of coping mechanisms. This makes children at a higher risk for experiencing trauma. When adults are under heavy stress or recently suffered substantial loss, or have been previously traumatized, they are more likely to have symptoms of their previous trauma surface that may inhibit their ability to function at their normal level. Childhood trauma can result from anything that makes the child feel as though their safety was in jeopardy. This can have a long-lasting negative affect that is carried into adulthood.

Trauma

When trauma is experienced as an adult, the adult can understand the threat to their safety at a higher level. The interpretation of the traumatic event and how the individual recalls the event can change the severity of the traumatic symptoms. The threat to one’s safety has a severe impact on the psyche and may manifest with physical and psychological symptoms.

Incidents of trauma can result from:

• An unstable, unpredictable, or unsafe environment
• Separation from a parent or guardian
• Serious illness or injury
• Intrusive medical procedures
• Violence that may include sexual violence, physical violence, or verbal abuse
• Domestic violence
• Neglect

What Can Trauma Feel Like?

• Have a shattered sense of safety leaving you feel helpless in a dangerous world
• Have a difficult time regulating emotion
• Memory loss during the traumatic event, or a chunk of time surrounding the event
• Flashbacks of traumatic memories or flooding of memories that are intrusive and cause distress
• Feeling panicked with a racing heart, difficulty breathing and sweating
• Being distant and not present in the moment
• Feeling numb and depressed which may result in withdrawing from social settings
• Using substances to forget, dissociate or, feel numb
• Having disrupted sleep hygiene due to intense nightmares and night sweats

Benefits Of Trauma Counselling

Trauma exists by reliving traumatic events when you are triggered by internal or external stimuli. Together we can work toward you being in your optimal arousal. You will learn to control aspects that induce your mid brain or animal instincts so that you can think of the trauma and not have the trauma response. The goal of trauma therapy is to separate the negative feelings about the trauma from the trauma itself so that when you think of the trauma, you do not feel despair. Together we will take slow steps to identify what makes you feel safe and identify your boundaries as you learn tools for self regulation. 

This is your journey!