“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus

Understanding Trauma 

Some traumatic experiences are very intense, causing acute distress. But traumatic conditions might also be ongoing, causing chronic distress. The traumatic experience itself can involve physical danger, and/or relational abuse. Regardless of the type of trauma you experience, the effects can be lasting. Whenever a current situation triggers a traumatic memory, you may re-experience the distress of the original event. This can undermine your ability to stay emotionally regulated. You may need to restrict yourself from situations that carry the potential to trigger you. A part of you may even feel “broken” by your past.

Trauma Can be Managed

Usually, the priority for someone with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) is to be become able to calm their nervous system whenever it is dysregulated by a traumatic memory. There are multiple therapeutic tools to help with this. Dialetic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) offers a variety of emotional regulation skills. Strength-based Therapies can build your ability to counteract trauma-related distress. And EMDR and Brainspotting are tools that help reprocess traumatic memories to disconnect their power to dysregulate you.

Trauma Can be Healed

Fortunately, we all have a natural emotional healing process that allows us to recover from traumatic events. This process involves identifying, experiencing and releasing suppressed feelings. You can witness this process in action when a child gets hurt. They run to someone who they feel safe with, and express their feelings without inhibition. If they are received and understood, they recover and return to their play. But if they are shamed, distracted or invalidated, they learn to suppress their feelings rather than process them.

Unfortunately, this natural process can become blocked by the accumulation of unprocessed emotion. New feelings are automatically suppressed because opening yourself to experiencing them risks becoming overwhelmed by all the past emotions. A therapist can help by providing a safe, nonjudgmental space where you can work through the backlog of suppressed feelings. This helps gradually increases your ability to handle new experiences confidently, free from the fear of getting triggered.

The Window of Tolerance

Recovery from trauma can be a scary path. It is important to pace yourself. You are the ultimate authority on whether, at any moment, you need to protect yourself from overwhelm, or whether you have room to welcome potentially dysregulating feelings. Your therapist can help you by supporting you to develop both the capacity to manage triggers without processing them, and to process triggers without managing them. This allows you to stay within your “window of tolerance”. You challenge yourself at a pace you choose, so that you do not overwhelm yourself, nor neglect your desire to grow and heal.

Trauma-Informed Therapy

Therapy is “trauma-informed” when it recognizes both the healing power of processing trauma and the real risks of triggering too much all at once. Trauma-informed therapists help clients identify and respect their window of tolerance, and build both trauma-management and trauma-processing skills. This helps a client enjoy a healing path that does not upend their lives in the process.