Trauma Therapy

What is Trauma, Types, Signs, and Treatment

What is Trauma?

Trauma can be described as the harm or emotional response that has resulted from a very frightening or distressing event. This harm can affect the individual’s coping abilities and impacts on their day-to-day functioning.

Broadly speaking, there are two types of trauma:

1. Complex trauma or c-PTSD

2. Single incident trauma

Complex Trauma

Complex trauma (or sometimes diagnosed as c-PTSD) can result from experiencing multiple, repeated traumas, across a prolonged period of time often beginning in childhood. In addition to the traumas being ongoing, they can also usually be inescapable, and relational in nature (e.g. hurt by another person). The traumatic events can often be of an interpersonal, invasive nature - for example:

  • Physical, emotional, psychological or sexual abuse

  • Childhood abuse, repeated invalidation, neglect or abandonment (physical/emotional)

  • Ongoing domestic violence/abuse

  • Loss of Safety

  • Betrayal

  • Enmeshment

  • Parentification

  • Community violence and ostracization

It is important to note that c-PTSD is often associated with the childhood experience of chronic trauma, however, adults who have experiences of chronic trauma can also develop this mental health condition.

Single Incident Trauma

Single incident trauma occurs when individuals witness or experience a ‘one-off’ unexpected event such as sexual assault, natural disaster (e.g. bushfire),  car accident, serious illness or injury. It can also include the experience of losing someone; death of a loved one, suicide, miscarriage.

Signs & Symptoms

When people experience or witness a single-incident trauma event or multiple, repeated events, they can sometimes develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress or meet the criteria for a diagnosis of Acute Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Complex PTSD.

It is important to note that you do not have to directly experience the event to experience a post-traumatic stress response; it can also occur through witnessing it, learning about it happening to a close family member or friend, repeatedly (and/or indirectly) being exposed to it as part of your job (e.g. paramedic, police, other first responder).

Below are a broad list of symptoms that are commonly reported among those who experience both single-incident traumas (e.g. PTSD) and complex trauma (e.g. c-PTSD).

Intrusion symptoms:

  • Recurrent distressing and/or intrusive memories

  • Recurrent distressing dreams

  • Dissociative reactions (e.g. flashbacks) to the trauma

  • Experiencing intense or prolonged distress and extreme physical anxiety when exposed to the trauma reminders (e.g. people, sensations, smells, sounds)

Avoidance symptoms:

  • Making efforts to avoid distressing memories, thoughts, feelings associated to the trauma

  • Avoiding external reminders of the trauma (e.g. people, places, objects) that bring up distressing memories, thoughts, and feelings

Changes in feeling and thinking:

  • Inability to remember aspects of the trauma

  • Developing negative beliefs of self, others and the world (e.g. “I am bad”, “Others cannot be trusted”, “The world is completely unsafe)

  • Blaming (self/others) for being the cause/consequence of the traumatic event

  • Negative emotional states (e.g. depression, anxiety, fear, anger, guilt, shame)

  • Loss of interest in activities

  • Feeling confused and/or overwhelmed by your emotions

  • Feeling detached from your emotions

  • Feeling detached from others or the world

  • Struggling to feel positive emotions

Arousal/Reactivity:

  • Feeling of panic

  • Irritable/Anger outbursts

  • Feeling reckless/self-destructive (through behaviours such as drug use, eating, shopping, gambling, promiscuity)

  • Constantly on the lookout for danger

  • Easily startled

  • Concentration difficulties

  • Sleep issues

  • Feeling detached from your body

Difficulties in relationship with self and others:

  • Feeling a void within

  • Feeling confused and alone in relationships

  • Difficulty trusting others

  • Disconnection/withdrawal from self and others

  • Feeling like you’ll never get the love you need

  • Feeling that something is wrong with you, keeping you away from others

  • Feeling like you’re burdensome to others

  • Loss of meaning (e.g. faith, religious beliefs, values, hope, other people, )

Areas of impact:

  • In relationships (familial, social or romantic)

  • At work - disrupting work satisfaction or productivity

  • Sport/Performance - not able to concentrate or achieve high levels of performance

  • Daily functioning - routine tasks feel significantly tiring and un-doable

What trauma does to our brains

Trauma can create stress, which can alter your  brain’s chemistry and structure. Research has demonstrated that trauma is associated with lasting changes in key brain areas, including your:

  • Amygdala: The part of your brain that processes fearful/threatening stimuli and emotional memories. With trauma, the amygdala can become more active.

  • Hippocampus: The part of your brain that’s primarily associated with memory and learning. Trauma can lead to decreased functions in this brain area.

  • Prefrontal cortex: The part of your brain that’s responsible for executive functions or higher-level thinking (e.g. planning, decision-making, controlling social behavior). Trauma can lead to decreased functions in this brain area, which may explain symptoms like irrational fears, decreased concentration, attention, and learning.

Trauma has the ability to make subtle or significant changes in the brain in several ways. It can lead to lasting negative effects. It is important to seek help and address these issues to overcome these challenges and give yourself the opportunity to possibly reverse these negative effects.

Phases of Therapy

Psychologists at Life Growth Psychology practice the three-phased trauma framework which is considered the gold standard when working with complex trauma. Trauma can often leave individuals feeling like their sense of self has been fragmented. People often seek trauma therapy because they need help to make sense of their fragmented parts, and come to terms with their complex emotions and thoughts and to move from a space of surviving to thriving. 

What we find is that people who have suffered trauma seek out therapeutic help at different points in their growth journey. Whatever stage you find yourself at, we will work collaboratively to help you heal the trauma that is within your brain and body and find tailored strategies that align with you.

  • Phase I - Safety & Stability

    ‘Let’s support you to build your toolkit of resources’

    We will begin this phase by getting to know you as a person, not only your trauma. In Phase One, there will be an emphasis on increasing your knowledge and understanding of how trauma has impacted you. You will learn deeply about the common dynamics, impacts and difficulties of your specific trauma(s). We will support you to increase and expand your repertoire of coping strategies to better manage heightened arousal, and help you to master rather than avoid uncomfortable internal body and emotional states (e.g. depression, anxiety, shame, guilt, fear, disassociation, hypervigilance).

    Broadly, the goal of this phase is to empower you, and enhance your sense of self and how you relate to others. We will take it according to your ‘pace’. We are mindful to ensure conversations are slow, safe, and supportive, and not to ‘fast forward’ to processing any traumas until a solid base is first created to understand the impacts.

  • Phase II - Processing and Meaning Making

    ‘Let’s help you to heal the memories’

    In Phase Two, we will help you to increase awareness and mastery over the traumatic impacts you have suffered, and to review the meaning your brain has made of the experienced trauma. In this phase, we intentionally draw attention toward traumatic memories (at your pace) and the associated brain and body impacts, to increase a sense of control over the trauma. This is to help you to place the trauma in the past in a healthy way instead of it intruding in the ongoing present and future. This allows us to also construct more adaptive meanings and allows us to healthily reframe the sense of responsibility, guilt, shame, self-blame, and grief and loss.

  • Phase III - Integration, Growth, and Wellbeing

    ‘Move from surviving to thriving’

    In Phase Three, we help you to integrate the knowledge, skills, increased self-awareness and meaning made, to grow your relationship with yourself and others, and increase personal wellbeing. It is important to note that the trauma framework does not aim to return you to your previous state and sense of self before your trauma occurred, but rather places an emphasis on recognising the profound impacts of trauma and encourages you to build your personal and relational integrity so your ‘present’ and ‘future’ can be filled with post-traumatic growth.

    Post-traumatic growth is the positive psychological change resulting from challenging life experiences; increased resilience, coping skills, empathy, and self-awareness and appreciation. This change can be reflected in different domains of your life (e.g. relationship, parenting, familial, work, social).

“Trauma can strip away parts of you from yourself. Therapy may be your first opportunity to pause, reflect, process, and establish a healthy sense of self that is not marred by the legacy of your trauma; to create a self that is truly and authentically you.”

Treatment

In addition to the 3-Phase Trauma Framework, specific psychological treatments for trauma that our psychologists are trained in can include, but not limited to:

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) - shown to be effective in treating Trauma. It is designed to help people to notice and change unhelpful thinking style patterns, and thus, change is reflected in emotions and behaviours that can maintain trauma symptoms. Additionally, it focuses on the education of skills to manage trauma in an ongoing way.

Schema Therapy - The theory underlying schema therapy presumes that when our basic childhood needs are not sufficiently met (e.g. for emotional freedom, spontaneity and play, love and belongingness, connection, acceptance, secure attachment, sense of identity, healthy limits), we as individuals can develop unhealthy ways of interpreting and interacting with the world (schemas). Your therapist will collaboratively help you to identify your schemas and link them to past events and your current symptoms. Additionally, this therapy involves processing of emotions and altering your unhealthy coping styles related to your life patterns.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) - helps you to identify specific thoughts and beliefs about the self, others, and the world related to your trauma(s), and helps you to move away from avoidance strategies that maintain the trauma symptoms. By doing so, you have the opportunity to safely create a new understanding and meaning of the traumatic event, which can lead to reduced negative effects on your life.

Narrative Therapy for Trauma - helps you to build and express your chronological narrative of the trauma-related event(s) with your therapist empathetically supporting and guiding you. 

Want to Discover More?

We'd Love to Hear From You