PTSD Symptom Checklist and Trauma Therapy

 

 

 

 

When you have a traumatic experience, the experience itself is usually partially or completely repressed in order to

cope with the shock, pain, or overwhelming feelings caused by the experience. This is a natural and healthy response.

The next step is to address your trauma.

However, if you are not able to address the trauma right after the event, in time, the repressed feelings can affect your life significantly creating some numbness and disconnection from your immediate experiences making you feel a distant, absent-minded, or removed from your life and your immediate experiences.

Some people describe this experiences as if they were stepping back, living in the background, and watching themselves from a distance as if watching a movie.

  

Here is the PTSD symptom checklist,

• Overwhelming feelings of guilt and shame
• Feeling like your mind is in a fog
• Having difficulty thinking clearly, remembering, or going blank
• Having unwanted flashbacks of traumatic events
• Being on guard for danger
• Hopelessness about the future
• Feeling numb, having difficulties to feel your feelings, emotions or bodily sensations
• Being on edge
• Trying to control your external environment or sticking to a routine to calm down your anxiety and fear
• Feeling removed from your experience
• Isolating yourself and avoiding placed and people that remind you of the traumatic event
• Alcohol or drug use
• Exhibiting violent behaviors
• Having difficulties in maintaining close relationships
• Having Intimacy problems
• Having sleeping problems and nightmares
• Being easily angered
• Being anxious
• Feeling depressed

Although repressing your trauma was a healthy response to begin with, having these PTSD symptoms / signs for a long time is an indication of having neglected the trauma.

To get your life back you need to address your trauma and find ways to overcome those traumatic experiences.

This may feel very scary or worrisome; yet, there are ways to make you feel safe and secure during this process.

Although it may be hard to believe, trauma therapy doesn’t have to feel bad. It can actually be a friendly and warm environment where you can look forward to it instead of dreading it.

  

Treating different types and levels of Post Traumatic

Stress Disorder: The best therapy for PTSD patients 

  

The best therapy for PTSD patients identifies the type of PTSD you may have according to your signs/symptoms, treats the specific PTSD causes using the latest understanding about trauma treatments, and while treating you it helps you get in touch with your inner potential. This is,

  

A Comprehensive Transpersonal PTSD Treatment in Trauma Therapy

  

This approach to PTSD treatment trauma therapy focuses on two main fronts: The traumatic event itself, and the developing of inner resources/potential. By increasing your inner resources and your capacity to draw from them, you are able to face your trauma from a strong, safe, confident, and empowered place. It has been discovered that dealing with trauma from a place of strength, instead of from a place of feeling defeated or weak, leads to much better results.

In addition to that, the latest research on PTSD treatment and trauma therapy has found that trauma is stored not merely in the mind, but in the body and nervous system itself. This means that often the body needs to be included in the healing process of trauma and that talk-therapy is often not enough.

PTSD can be occur on three levels: common causes of PTSD, existential PTSD experiences and micro trauma, and traumatic spiritual experiences.

  

(1) Some of the common causes of PTSD are the following events:

• Life threatening accidents or events
• Child abuse
• Growing up in a difficult household being often exposed to anger, anxiety, depression, or violence
• Rape
• War, combat, injuries
• Being in a natural disaster
• Domestic violence
• Assault
• Vicarious trauma: witnessing someone else’s traumatic experience (this can occur to children living in difficult household, it can often occur to law enforcement officers, medics and nurses, and it can often occur to mental health professionals when they treat trauma).

  

(2) In addition to these, transpersonal PTSD counseling can also look at a different types of trauma that is usually addressed less frequently in our culture: existential PTSD and psychological micro trauma. Existential trauma has to do with trauma around death. Some examples of existential PTSD are:

• The discovery in your childhood that one day you will die (many people forget the shock of this discovery and the trauma is rarely addressed or processed)
• Witnessing the death of a loved one: Grief trauma
• The trauma of caregiving for a terminally ill loved one: Grief trauma
• Thanatophobia (excessive and irrational fear of death) and nacrophobia (fears of dead things or things related to death). These may be due to past traumatic experiences that the person may not be aware of.
• It may include fear of the dark (traumatic experiences that occurred at night, which may be associated with death or afterlife and may interfere with sleep)

Psychological micro trauma may not necessarily cause PTSD, but can still significantly affect one’s life. Most people have some micro trauma but are so used to it that they think that’s just who they are. Micro trauma is often caused by child rearing and difficult experiences in childhood and at school. Some examples of psychological micro trauma are the following,

• Being consistently exposed to invalidating or unsupportive messages while growing up. These messages, sometimes difficult to remember, are stored in your inner critic or the voice you hear in your head criticizing yourself: “You are not good enough,” “You can’t do anything right,” “You are worthless,” “You are bad,” “Get it together,” “I will never be able to do this,” I will never be…,” “I am always…,” “I am stupid.”
• Consistent lack of affection, touch, reassurance, love.
• Difficulty succeeding in school, being bullied, peer pressures, not fitting in.

All of these can be very painful experiences that can cause PTSD or be a smaller level of trauma that can create behaviors, habits, difficult feelings, or thinking patterns that may affect you negatively: stifling your emotions, affecting the way you relate to people, difficulties to being emotionally vulnerable in an intimate relationship, fear of commitment, low self-esteem, make your heart and mind feel guarded around people, or causing difficulties in focusing or concentrating, or taking risk to being successful in life.

  

(3) But there is more, if the following applies to you or have interest, transpersonal trauma therapy can include trauma linked to spiritual experiences that can be caused by,

• Traumatic spiritual experiences classified as spiritual emergencies
• Intergenerational trauma (the latest research on behavioral epigenetics suggests that trauma can get passed on genetically)
• Womb and birth trauma
• Religious or crisis of faith traumatic experiences
• Any type of traumatic experiences that has to do with spirituality

These experiences can be traumatic and leave a psychological scars, which if not addressed and overcomed can hinder one’s spiritual progress or relationship to the God or the divine. Please refer to this link spiritual crisis for a detail discussion about spiritual trauma or spiritual PTSD, or to spiritual development and spiritual integration to learn more about spiritual growth therapy.

Transpersonal PTSD treatment therapy addresses the PTSD symptoms, the type of PTSD you may have, and the specific causes that may be common, existential PTSD experiences, or spiritually related PTSD experiences.

  

You may have concerns about trauma therapy,

PTSD treatment, or your PTSD symptoms / signs…

  

• I am concerned about going to therapy. I have never been to therapy before, and I wonder if I really need it, if it is for me, if it will really help, and if the therapist will be a good fit for me. After all I’d be talking to a perfect stranger about personal things. Going to therapy may feel really strange if you have never been before, or if you had previous negative experiences. It is perfectly normal to feel strange about it. Yet, research has shown that therapy can help with, and even resolve, PTSD. Of course, if you are satisfied with your life and your PTSD signs/symptoms are improving, you probably do not need therapy. However, if you feel stuck, know that therapy can really help. The thought of talking to a stranger about your challenges may make you feel uneasy. This is normal. Yet, many people who have tried it have often found easier to talk to an expert (who is a stranger) who is familiar with different types of PTSD, than to talk to a partner, or a friend, who may not have to skills to help you or be able to fully understand what you are going through. If you are concerned about us being a good fit, you can call me, try the first therapy session with no financial obligations, and you can also watch a video of me to get a sense of who I am.

• Will I have to relive my trauma in during PTSD therapy? Is PTSD treatment in trauma therapy Painful? Every person is different and every person has his or her own way to heal from trauma. In therapy, usually people retell their story and may have some feelings about it. However, not necessarily. Sometimes, the stress of the trauma can be released through bodily movements that do not involve feelings, emotions, or much talking. Other people process their trauma more emotionally when they meet a compassionate person who can listen to the pain of their story. PTSD therapy varies from person to person.

• What does PTSD treatment look like? First and foremost, when you share your trauma with me in therapy, I will make sure to keep you safe. I will create a supportive and comfortable atmosphere where you can feel safe, supported, open, and at ease. I will help you develop the ability to listen to your body and feelings to find a personalized way to healing your trauma. This is because, often, our feelings and our body know how to heal ourselves better than our minds do. I will employ and teach you different tools to help you differentiate between real external threat and your past traumatic experiences. In time you will be able to live a more peaceful life with less anxiety and fear, and get your life back.

• I have PTSD, there is no way I will ever be able to surmount this obstacle and be completely happy. PTSD is a painful challenge to endure and live with. There is no doubt about it. Yet, psychology has made significant progress in its treatment with new understanding on trauma and its resolution. Through this type of transpersonal PTSD therapy, I have personally helped people overcome PTSD, feel whole and find their sense of purpose in their life again.

• I am not sure I have PTSD. I have some of the PTSD symptoms/signs you mentioned, but I do not think I really have trauma, can you still help me? There are different levels of trauma and there are also challenging feelings that may not be related to a traumatic event. My approach is client centered. This means that I address your challenges no matter if they are PTSD related or not. So, yes, I can help you face different types of changes.

A real life example of PTSD Counseling

 
Jordan (the name and all identifiable factors have been changed) came to see me because she suffered from PTSD. Since her traumatic event her life had changed significantly. She was edgy, feeling numb, and had difficulties in her intimate relationships and at work.

In therapy we addressed her trauma. Part of the therapy involved developing inner resources to make Jordan feel safer, more in control, and less reactive around people. I also used tools that helped her release her trauma stored in her body and nervous system. By using specific interventions appropriate to her type of trauma, and by teaching Jordan new tools, Jordan was able to overcome her PTSD.

Today, Jordan has her life back. Her PTSD signs/symptoms have been resolved. She feels in control of herself and her environment and does not have to avoid the places that once made her feel unsafe. She has began a new career a feels confident about her future. 

 

 

Call me today for a free consultation or try a therapy

session with no financial obligations

  

I can help you manage or overcome your PTSD. In therapy I create a warm, supportive, and safe atmosphere where you can be open about your trauma, share how it makes you feel, the personal difficulties that it causes, instead of having to hide it or feeling ashamed about it. The fact of just sharing the burden is often very relieving.

On a technical level, I use psychological and neuroscientific tools to address your trauma directly, and I use the wisdom of Eastern and Western philosophical and spiritual traditions to help you learn and develop different types of mindfulness techniques. The combination of the two is very effective to healing PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Please refer to these links if you want to learn more. 

Together we can find the best way to healing your trauma.

You can call me for a free consultation (the phone number is at the very top and bottom of this page), or click the green button below “Get Started Today” to find out about trying the first therapy session with no financial obligations. You can also learn more about me, or email me to ask questions or to set up and appointment.

Regardless if you choose me as your therapist or not, I strongly recommend to read the Free Report “The 3 Keys for Choosing the Right Therapist for You” (you can download it here). This Free Report aims to empower you as a client by helping you evaluate your therapy and therapist. People have found it very helpful to learn specific ways on how to determine if their therapist is a good fit for them and can really help them, or if they are actually wasting their time because some therapy key-factors are missing and they actually need to change therapist.