PTSD Treatment

Experiencing PTSD can feel like being stuck in a loop. Traumatic memories play on repeat. The disturbing thing that happened feels like it never ended and is being lived over and over.  Images flash in your mind, sensations in your body pop up out of nowhere or never seem to leave.  Certain sounds or smells can make you jump out of your skin. You are constantly on the lookout for danger. Searching rooms before you enter, scanning for the exit--just in case. You don’t talk about it because you doubt anyone will understand. You are living in your own private hell, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Treatment can help heal the past so you can live fully in the present. 

Signs and Symptoms of PTSD

PTSD has many symptoms. Here are some of the most common ones:

• Recurring and intrusive thoughts, feelings and sensations

• Being triggered by sights, smells or sounds

• Making efforts to avoid reminders of upsetting event(s)  

• Feeling “on edge,” hypervigilant, constantly worried something bad will happen

• Feeling numbing, detached from emotion, even pleasant ones 

• Reactive, easy to startle 

• Experiencing flashbacks and/or nightmares

• Irritability

• Difficulty sleeping, concentrating

• Intense feelings of shame, guilt, grief and loss

EMDR Therapy for healing and PTSD Treatment

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is an extensively researched and effective therapy for PTSD. It is recognized widely as the best evidence-based psychotherapy for the treatment of PTSD and other traumatic and stress disorders by the Department of Veterans Affairs, World Health Organization and the American Psychological Association, among others. 

Using EMDR Therapy I have helped combat veterans, rape survivors, adults who were abused as children, and people involved in car accidents  process horrific experiences. Through our work together, they have gone from fearing they would forever be haunted by what happened to them to being able to make sense of the unthinkable and find a sense of peace. 

EMDR works with your brain’s natural capacity to heal. When a traumatizing event occurs, the nervous system becomes flooded. The brain’s fight or flight response gets triggered, signaling the body to do whatever it takes to in order to survive. In this moment, all of the things that are happening--the sights, sounds, emotions--become crystalized and stored in the memory network. This is your brain’s way of making sure you don’t forget what happened. It may be good for survival, but it’s not a good way to live. 

EMDR is a process that keeps one foot rooted in the present and you go into the past. I will guide you to recall the upsetting events, including any feelings, body sensations and beliefs. As you focus on the memory, stimuli, such as eye movements or tapping, are introduced to facilitate reprocessing the event. Moving though this process can reduce the “charge” around an event by giving you a chance to fully make sense of it. After the session, you will still remember the event, but it will feel less “charged.”