Trauma treatment and recovery

How Can You Process Trauma?

Everyone processes trauma in their own way. No two traumatic experiences are exactly the same. Some people are able to process distressing events much more easily than others. 

It may also be the case that you have either intentionally or unintentionally stopped yourself from processing trauma. This means you pushed it to one side because you didn’t want to have to deal with all your thoughts and feelings related to the traumatic event. Sometimes, it’s so long in the past that you can’t even remember the event clearly, but the memories still have a way of popping back into your mind. You just keep trying to suppress them.

What Are the Different Stages of Processing Trauma?

You process trauma in three stages:

1. Stabilizing
   The first step is to stabilize the situation. You’ll learn the best way to manage your current feelings related to the trauma.
2. Processing
   In this stage, with the help of a therapist, you’ll process what’s happened.
3. Integration
   You’ll give the event a place in your daily life. 

How long you’ll spend in each stage depends on the severity of your trauma and your personal situation. 

Which Factors Influence the Way Trauma Develops?

Trauma can lead to PTSD, but not everyone who has experienced something traumatic will end up with PTSD. Some people find it relatively easy to process trauma. 

Whether or not you have the ability to process trauma well depends on several different factors:

1. The type of event
   Was there some kind of childhood sexual abuse or were you involved in a car accident? Different types of trauma may result in different symptoms. 
2. The duration of the event
   How long did the distressing events take place for? Was it a one-off incident or did you experience years of abuse or neglect, for example?
3. Your personal resilience
   Each person has their own level of resilience. This determines what you are and aren’t able to process. Resilience is partly hereditary, but it’s also related to your upbringing. If you grew up in a nice, stable environment then it’s likely that you’re more resilient.
4. Social support
   Are you able to talk about what happened? Is there anybody you trust enough to confide in? Is there somewhere you can go when you want to pour your heart out and be taken seriously? If you answered “yes” to all these questions, then this will have a positive effect on your ability to process trauma.
5. Biological factors
   Women are more likely to get PTSD than men, and genetics also seem to play a role when it comes to susceptibility to post-traumatic stress. 

What Can You Do to Help Yourself Recover from Trauma?

• Talk about your feelings
  Find someone you can trust and talk to them. It will come as a huge relief.

• Eat healthily
  Try to eat more healthily – even if it’s only a small improvement. Every little helps. Eating healthily and taking care of your body helps to improve your resilience.

• Make time for relaxation
  Do something that you find relaxing. Whether that’s reading a book or taking a bath. Do some drawing or write about your feelings. Anything that relaxes you. Make sure you’re taking the time to do this, it’s really important.

• Get enough exercise
  For example, go hiking or ride your bike. Exercise can help to clear your mind and it’s a great way to counter stress.

• Structure your day
  Try to eat at fixed times. Go to bed early and get up at the same time every day.

• Ask for help
  If there’s nobody around you can talk to – at least not about the thing that’s happened – then it’s a good idea to get in touch with a psychologist.

How is Trauma Treated?

Trauma treatment needs to be tailored to you and specific trauma symptoms. No two people are the same and every traumatic experience is different, so a customized approach is always required.

How is treatment structured?

In order to treat trauma, it’s important for the psychologist to have a good understanding of what’s going on. What’s happening in your mind and what are your symptoms? You’ll need to tell your psychologist the full story during a consultation. You’ll also need to discuss your medical history and family background. There may also be a psychiatric evaluation. From all this information, a psychologist can come up with a diagnosis and figure out an appropriate treatment strategy.

Types of Trauma Treatment

There are several different types of therapy that can help you to process trauma. Trauma can be treated using:  

EMDR

EMDR is short for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It’s a type of therapy where a psychologist aims to dull the emotional charge associated with a particular memory. The psychologist will ask you to focus on a distressing memory, bringing it from your long-term memory into your working memory. The therapist will then move their finger back and forth in front of your face. You’ll follow these movements with your eyes while thinking about the memory. Your vision will start to blur because your working memory now has a lot to process. This reduces the emotional charge associated with the memory. 

Exposure therapy

In exposure therapy for trauma, you take your thoughts and memories and look at them in the context of your entire life. You’ll discuss your thoughts and memories related to a traumatic experience with your psychologist. You’ll also discuss other significant events in your life, both positive and negative. For each memory, you’ll talk about the feeling or emotion you associate with it. This will give you a good idea of which events and memories have a major influence over the way you feel. This can help you to process trauma.

Imagery rescripting

Imagery rescripting means rewriting your memory of the traumatic event with the help of a psychologist. You’ll imagine a different outcome to the event, which will change your memory of the event.

PTSD

When symptoms of trauma persist for a long period of time, we refer to this as PTSD. The treatment for PTSD differs depending on what has caused the symptoms initially. How did your post-traumatic stress disorder come about? For example, was it a one-off trauma: based on a single event? Or maybe you need treatment for ongoing or complex trauma, because it’s the result of traumatic experiences that have accumulated over many years? The approach for this will be different. A psychologist has the knowledge and skills to tailor your treatment specifically to your symptoms.

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