Trauma Counseling in Doylestown, PA
You’ve recently experienced serious trauma. Maybe it was a death in the family, a serious accident, or the loss of a friend or family member. Regardless, you’ve avoided getting therapy. Instead, you’ve decided to just deal with it on your own. After all, isn’t that what everyone does? Isn’t that what life is all about? Regardless of your reasoning, this belief that everything will take care of itself and that this will pass isn’t the best solution. Eventually, you’ll start to exhibit unhealthy, risky, and unfriendly behaviors you’re not known for until, eventually, those behaviors redefine who you are in the eyes of friends and family.
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At New Narratives Therapy in Doylestown, our therapists, social workers, family therapists, and counselors see this situation play out all the time. An individual experiences a traumatic event and believes they alone can deal with it. Unfortunately, they notice that they’re easily irritated, prone to outlandish angry outbursts, adopt risky behaviors, have anxiety mixed with bouts of depression, and always seem on edge.
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For these people, foregoing therapy quickly becomes a problem as they see how their behaviors affect themselves and those around them. That’s where we come in. Whether you need to see a therapist for a therapy session or a psychologist in Doylestown, PA, our counseling services are designed to help you deal with your trauma with the focus of showing you that you are not alone. Our willingness to work with you and get you back to who everyone remembers you to be has made us the best and most relied-upon therapy center in Doylestown.
Understanding Trauma & the Types of Trauma
As a full-service clinic, we help clients with a variety of life concerns, such as anxiety, mental health, marital issues, workplace stress, life transitions, trauma, self-expression, and balance.
There are multiple forms of trauma. It can include physical abuse, mental abuse, neglect, rape, or experiencing an assault, vehicle accident, bullying, a death in the family, or witnessing a horrific event. Trauma can include losing your best friend, having to move out of your home, losing a job you love, or even losing a cherished pet. The idea that trauma only comes from losing a family member does not apply.
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Just as there are different types of trauma, there are also different types of trauma behaviors, each needing a different type of therapy. Individuals can constantly come across as tense, easily angered, distracted, distant, sad, depressed, and anxious while also becoming reckless in their actions with no regard for the safety of those around them. It’s these risky behaviors that all but ruin an individual’s outlook on life and – in the worst of cases – lead to a serious accident.
Benefits of Trauma Counseling
There are several benefits to trauma counseling. These include having to face your trauma and coming to terms with it. It includes having someone you can speak with who helps you understand how trauma is impacting your personality, how you perceive your world, and how you interact with everyone around you. Trauma counseling and therapy can help you put an end to those risky behaviors and help you become more confident, more focused, and more aware of your feelings and those of those closest to you.
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When thinking of trauma, think about how it might have changed you. Think of how that change affected the people who love you most. Now, think about how trauma therapy and counseling can help you return to who you once were – something you, your friends, family, co-workers, and acquaintances will all appreciate.
The Healing Process
When it comes to healing from a complex trauma, it’s important to remember that the process isn’t immediate. Individuals who have experienced trauma must first feel safe. They must feel safe and secure in their environment, themselves, and their relationships.
Our therapy sessions will focus on getting you to stabilize those things in your life you can trust and feel safe with. As we progress, you’ll feel more secure with yourself and those around you.
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Once you feel safe and more confident, coming to terms with the trauma is often the next step. You will express how the trauma impacted your life, what it did to you and those around you, and what you must continue to do to move forward. This particular step may not be long, and you are more than welcome to discuss your feelings during the therapy session at any time.
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Afterward, therapy could be focused on helping you embrace new activities and new experiences while practicing mindfulness. If you are taking risks or engaging in risky behaviors, then therapy will help you find a new outlet for those behaviors.
Common Therapy Approaches for Trauma
The New Narratives Therapy team in Doylestown understands that some people may be reluctant to seek therapy. They may feel that it displays a weakness of some kind. However, it doesn’t. Experiencing complex trauma can have both psychological and physical ramifications. It can affect how you interact with others, your sleep patterns, your attitude, and your outlook, and could lead to adopting extremely risky behaviors.
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A therapy session with one of our therapists can include using trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or Eye-Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR). Both EMDR and CBT are proven psychotherapy treatment solutions that can help you process and move past trauma.
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EMDR is focused on a process often referred to as neuro-emotional integration or balancing. With EMDR, therapy focuses on specific eye movements while you process the events of your trauma. When done with a licensed therapist, EMDR has been proven to provide fantastic results. If you live in Doylestown and think you need trauma-focused therapy, call us now or book your appointment now.