Complex PTSD Recovery Online Therapy

Break Free of Relationship Trauma & Complex PTSD Through Online Video Therapy

• Are you stuck recycling painful memories and grief from repeated or prolonged traumatic events, especially childhood abuse?
• Do you feel chronically anxious or depressed as a result of being mistreated – emotionally, verbally, physically or sexually – by family or loved ones?
• Are you an adult survivor of family scapegoating or narcissistic abuse?
• Were you abused or neglected as a child, and struggle to recover your sense of self worth and identity as an adult?
• Are your relationships suffering due to choosing the wrong partner or friends, or avoiding closeness altogether?
• Do you feel on high alert and monitoring for signs of danger, even when the worst is over?

Trauma & Recovery

Trauma occurs when there has been an extreme shock to the mind and/or body, making it difficult for the mind to process and integrate the shock in a healthy way.   This shock can be caused by a single incident, a series of traumatic experiences over a life time, or be the result of childhood neglect or abuse.  Traumatic experiences can cause serious psychological problems such as chronic anxiety, panic, insomnia, anger, depression, feeling ‘spaced out’ or numb, and can negatively impact relationships.  Unresolved trauma has also been linked to heightened physical pain, and the development of autoimmune disorders such as fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic inflammatory conditions.

A ‘normal’ response to trauma involves making sense of the trauma, working through emotions, and gradually coming out of the shock. Trauma turns into post traumatic stress (PTSD) if you remain stuck in psychological shock. Post traumatic ‘re-enactment’ occurs when a person experiences frightening emotions, memories, dreams or sensations from the past, in the present moment.  PTSD can also manifest as a freeze response, such as numbing, going blank, spacing out, not knowing how you are feeling in a moment of emotional challenge, or losing a sense of time

Post traumatic stress reactions can be physical – such as your heart pounding or nausea; emotional – such as intense fear or anxiety, or feeling empty and disconnected from oneself ; or in your thoughts or memories – such as flashing back in your mind to the traumatic incident and feeling like you are living it all over again.  Traumatic re-enactment can occur while dreaming or awake.  It can be a disorienting or scary experience that may cause you to believe that you can’t function and may not ever recover.  The common factor in post traumatic reactions is a heightened stress response – resulting in being over or under-activated – after the event has occurred.  In this way PTSD can be understood as a memory disorder, whereby the mind ‘believes’ that past traumas are reoccurring in the moment, making it extremely difficult to process non-traumatic stressors and to regulate emotions effectively.

A major problem with traumatic stress is that it becomes ‘locked’ in both the body and mind, where it remains active. When this happens, a traumatized person can either feel like they are re-experiencing frightening emotions, sensations and memories from the past, or shut down emotionally, or go back and forth between both states. In this situation, your mind can’t tell the difference between the past – when the trauma occurred, and the present – when the threat is over. So trauma can cause the sufferer to feel like the original trauma – such as abuse, neglect, assault or an accident – is happening in the present moment, long after the trauma has ended. This causes serious disruptions to a person’s ability to feel in control of their emotions, and keeps the sufferer stuck in reliving the pain.

PTSD vs Complex PTSD
The Signs and Symptoms of Childhood Attachment Trauma & Complex PTSD  

If you were raised in a household where you experienced inadequate, poor or abusive parenting, then you are more vulnerable to attachment trauma and habituated traumatic stress responses.   Developing children require consistent, supportive care and positive mirroring from parental figures in order to become secure adults.  Neglected and abused children often feel abandoned, panicky and trapped, especially if they have no outside adult supports, which in turn can lead to complex traumatic stress responses.

The experience of relentless mistreatment and unmet emotional needs leads to the development of hard wired stress responses, specifically fight, flight, freeze or collapse, and feelings of deep insecurity.  Under these circumstances, the developing brains of abused children become flooded with stress hormones, which dramatically interfere with the brains’ ability to regulate normal stressors in an adaptive way.

Later in life, these traumatically stressed kids may grow up to be anxious, distressed adults, who suffer from low self worth and feelings of hopelessness, as they lack a foundation of secure attachment and self identity that leads to feelings of emotional safety, interpersonal connection and belonging in the world.

They may suffer from a condition known as Complex PTSD (C-PTSD).  The symptoms of C-PTSD include feelings of false shame and guilt, difficulty managing emotions, periods of losing attention and concentration, isolation, intrusive thoughts, memories or feelings, and relationship difficulties.

What Is Trauma Therapy?

Whether you are suffering from Attachment Trauma, PTSD, or Complex PTSD, you know how overwhelming and hopeless it can feel. The good news is that you don’t have to stay trapped in the pain.

Trauma therapy can help you recover and regain control of your life. Counseling to overcome traumatic stress combines talk therapy with anxiety reducing strategies such as Hypnosis, Progressive Desensitization and other Somatic (body based) approaches.

Trauma therapy focuses on overcoming fear based beliefs, containing stress triggers, and calming and regulating your nervous system and emotional brain, so they stop responding traumatically in the present moment.  Over time, the front brain learns to process the trauma that’s locked in the emotional brain, leading to a reduction or elimination of symptoms.

Attachment Trauma Therapy for the resolution of Complex PTSD involves overcoming toxic shame and reclaiming an accurate sense of self identity and self worth, so you can create a positive, reality based narrative for your life.

Trauma Counseling  Focuses On:

• Conquering distorted negative beliefs that make you feel hopeless
• Learning to stop spacing out, feeling overwhelmed, going blank or experiencing flashbacks, intrusive memories or nightmares, so you can achieve long term emotional stability
• Overcoming chronic anxiety and/or depression
• Dealing with the grief of traumatic loss in a healthy way
• Increasing confidence in the ability to create and maintain healthy relationships
• Rebuilding relationships that have been harmed by trauma

Complex Trauma Therapy Can Help You Heal From Relationship Trauma By:

• Overcoming toxic shame, a negative self image or poor self identity
• Dealing effectively with triggers and dissociative psychological states
• Increasing self worth & confidence
• Developing securely attached relationships based on respect and healthy interpersonal boundaries
• Coping effectively with challenging family dynamics
• Grieving and moving on from the losses associated with family abuse, abandonment and betrayal
• Achieving your potential

Complex Trauma is a frightening experience
With the right help, you can get off the emotional roller coaster, heal and recover your peace of mind

Online Counseling is available by Video  around the world  

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