Facilitating Trauma Healing
The Impact of Trauma
When we have experienced trauma, everything about our sense of ourselves and the world can shift. The speed at which our bodies respond to perceived threats is heightened, the way we interact in relationships is impacted, and even our brains develop differently. We lose the ability to respond appropriately to cues of danger and safety because our surveillance system is now hardwired to be on hyper-alert to protect us. Things that may have previously been cues of safety may now be signs of danger to a traumatized nervous system.
This can get really confusing and makes life really difficult when we are constantly flooded with intense emotions, or find ourselves afraid to do things, or when we feel like we’re moving through the world on autopilot, numb to everything. At Logos, we know how hard it is, and we believe that healing from trauma is one of the most courageous, transformative journeys you can embark on.
The Good News
The good news is, trauma is not a life sentence. There are ways you can recover and heal from trauma, and it is what we are most passionate about helping people do. We know that there are certain ways that are most effective to help you heal from trauma. We follow a model of therapy that is integrative, which means we incorporate knowledge from several proven and effective approaches to guide you towards complete healing.
Interpersonal neurobiology
One of the overarching umbrellas that guides the work we do at Logos is a framework called Interpersonal Neurobiology: this approach pulls from interdisciplinary principles from a range of fields to understand the mind and mental health, with particular attention to neuroscience, attachment theory, and a systems approach. By having an Interpersonal Neurobiology-informed lens, we are able to deepen our understanding of how the mind, the brain, and relationships are both differentiated as well as intricately linked processes that interact to create our lived experience. We know that nothing exists in isolation: we are all part of complex systems, internally and externally, and we approach our work with a systems-lens to address the multiple facets of who you are and the impacts of various factors on your life.
Experiential Therapy
Experiential therapy is a term that encompasses many approaches. For us, it means that we like to incorporate the modalities that help you heal the way your brain wants to heal. Depending on your symptoms and goals for therapy, we may utilize a variety of different experiential approaches, including Internal Family Systems (IFS), Ego State Therapy (EST), Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy, Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), Somatic Experiencing (SE), Art & Play Therapy, Psychodrama, and more.
We believe in show me, don’t tell me. Consider the following analogy: you come to me because you want to become a professional soccer player. We sit down in a room and I explain to you all the tenets of how to play soccer: I talk you through what the field looks like, where the goals are, where the players stand on the field and what their respective positions are, the rules of the game, etc. I explain all of the different concepts to you, and then I say, “okay, go play soccer!”. It is highly unlikely you will be able to become a professional this way. Instead, now imagine that, in addition to explaining some of the basic concepts, I then say, “okay, let’s go over here and I’ll show you what this looks like”. We begin by doing them together and gradually build upon the skills as you learn them, increasing difficulty over time, until you feel competent in your ability to go try them out on a real soccer field. Every time you come back, we maintain repetition of the core elements so they become muscle memory, while increasing difficulty of new skills until there’s nothing left to learn. Doesn’t this sound like a much more effective way to learn how to be a soccer player? This is exactly how we proceed in our therapy process.
In the same vein, we believe that it is important we enlist multiple divisions of your brain and nervous system to increase learning and chance for integration. If we go too quickly, we risk overwhelming your system and causing an exacerbation of symptoms. If we just stay in a traditional “talk therapy” setting, we miss addressing the important knowledge that your body holds. If we want to see true healing happen, we have to work with your brain the way that it wants to heal, and that means we have to do things experientially. Our brain cannot do what our body has not practiced. Therapy can be extremely powerful if you are able to experience healing in the presence of a trusted, compassionate partner.
There are no “right ways” to heal from Trauma but there are proven ways
We want you to know there is not just one way to heal from trauma: there are many different modalities and therapeutic approaches. This is why it is really important that you take the time to ask your therapist about their approach, make known any hesitations or reservations you have, and ask any questions that come to mind. Certain approaches may actually exacerbate your symptoms, depending on what you are coming to therapy for and how your brain has adapted to survive.
If you aren’t quite sure what you need, that’s okay! That’s what we’re here for. We will do a thorough assessment to collect information about your symptoms, history, and context so that we can craft an appropriate treatment plan, together. We may be knowledgeable about the brain and healing, but you are the expert of your story: we cannot do this without you, and your voice is essential at every step of the journey.
If you are ready to begin your journey to healing, reach out to set up a free consultation call with one of our trauma therapists and see if we might be the right fit for you!
Written by:
Cassidy Gallegos, LPCC
Clinical Trauma Therapist at Logos Healing Institute
