How therapy helps trauma?

About 70% of people experience trauma in their lives but experiencing trauma doesn’t guarantee a trauma response from the events. Twenty percent of people who experience trauma have an adverse reaction to it. This reaction may lead to mental health diagnoses, trigger substance use, and other emotional problems. Problems that result from trauma may appear throughout life and may or may not warrant a formal diagnosis.

The problems encountered after a traumatic experience vary, and may appear soon but can include:

• Anxiety
• Heightened startle response
• Fear in triggering situations
• Avoiding triggers
• Difficulties with boundaries
• Intense emotional triggers and responses
• Feelings of shame
• Difficulty with communication skills
• Depression
• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• Conflict avoidance or difficulty with conflicts

These issues can make day-to-day life difficult. Therapy is a very commonly recommended and utilized treatment for trauma and the symptoms that are a result of its potential adverse effects. There are multiple modalities of therapy that are helpful with treating trauma. Each involves evaluation of your issues, involve talking about impacts of the trauma on your daily life and thinking, and setting goals for therapy, although the means for getting to your goals may vary depending on the approach.

These include eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or EMDR, cognitive behavior therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and other talk therapies. Which therapy is most appropriate depends largely on your presenting issues, and you and your therapist will work together to determine what will be the best approach for you.

Many people are concerned that entering therapy to work on things, often things they feel are better left in the past, may cause their symptoms to worsen. Treating trauma and its symptoms may involve using medication combined with therapy, depending on circumstances. Trauma therapy has a solid success rate, with around 70% of people who attend regular sessions, and are actively engaged have an improvement of symptoms.

If you or someone you know are struggling with trauma or its aftereffects, getting support is vital to long-term wellness. The wounds that are left by trauma are rarely healed on their own with the passage of time but benefit from supportive care from a therapist and your own dedication to healing.