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Trauma Clinic
When trauma exposure involves early, repetitive, interpersonal maltreatment (e.g. continuous child abuse or neglect) or/and when there have been multiple and lasting traumas in adulthood (e.g. torture, war, or ongoing domestic violence), the consequences may involve not only post-traumatic stress (see definition below), but also social and relationship difficulties, mood swings and overreacting, dissociation, substance abuse, and a variety of other emotional and behavioral features. These, so called, “symptoms” are in fact relatively common among complex trauma survivors, and at the Trauma Clinic they are treated as trauma responses rather than personality defects or dysfunctions.
The programs at the Clinic include a combination of cognitive-behavioral techniques and a modern psychodynamic approach. The goal is to remove all the interferences that keep the client from having a functional and healthy life at the same time that we facilitate the natural recovery mechanisms.
Post-traumatic Stress Disorder may present with some or all of the following:
- Recurrent distressing memories and dreams of the event
- Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience, illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes)
- Intense psychological distress when exposed to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
- Physiological reactivity on exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event
Also:
- Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
- Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma
- Inability to recall important aspects of the trauma
- Lack of interest in activities that the person used to enjoy prior to the event
- Feeling of detachment or estrangement from others
- Emotional numbness
- Sense of a foreshortened future (e.g., does not expect to have a career, marriage, children, or a normal life span)
And:
- Difficulty falling or staying asleep
- Irritability or outbursts of anger
- Difficulty concentrating
- Hypervigilance
- Exaggerated startle response
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. After successful treatment with EMDR, affective distress is relieved, negative beliefs are reformulated, and physiological arousal is reduced. EMDR is the most researched psychotherapeutic treatment for PTSD.
EMDR has a broad base of published case reports and controlled research which supports it as an empirically validated treatment of trauma. The Department of Defense/Department of Veterans Affairs Practice Guidelines have placed EMDR in the highest category, recommended for all trauma populations at all times. In addition, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies current treatment guidelines have designated EMDR as an effective treatment for PTSD as have the Departments of Health of both Northern Ireland and Israel (see below), which have indicated EMDR to be one of only two or three treatments of choice for trauma victims. The American Psychiatric Association Practice Guideline (2004) has stated that SSRI's, CBT, and EMDR are recommended as first-line treatments of trauma.
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Contact us or go to www.emdr.com for more information .We will be glad to come to your agency for a free presentation.