It is a sobering truth that trauma is pervasive in our society, with 60% of adults reporting abuse or other difficult family circumstances during childhood. (1)
Regardless of the type of trauma, be it emotional, physical, or sexual, there is a common thread in our work: finding courage to speak about it, and the struggle for the individual to come to terms with the events that occurred. I work with my clients to achieve these two goals, while minimizing the lasting affect the events have in their lives.
In talking with long-term survivors of abuse, the conversation of healing comes up frequently - specifically, how do we know when we are healed? Given the lasting impression - the emotional scars - left behind by trauma, it is not a reasonable expectation to forget the trauma happened or expect that we will never be triggered. Instead, healing may come in the form of being able to separate the memory from the feelings associated with the trauma, so when triggers do happen - because they will - they trigger only the memory, not the emotion. This is where those coping skills come into play discussed on the [anxiety page].
Often trauma impacts more than a single individual, and it is often appropriate to work with a couple, or a family when the net of trauma is cast wide.
