Top Four Modalities to Process Trauma

ByStephanie Van Voorst, LPC

Top Four Modalities to Process Trauma

You want to process your traumatic experiences, but not really sure where to start. You’ve tried talk therapy, but it has not been effective. You’re needing something more!

I’m glad you found this blog post!

Top 4 Trauma Therapies

I recommend to people in no particular order of best to worse:

  1. EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is a method that involves using bilateral stimulation (e.g. moving your eyes a specific way, using tapping or using noises) while you process activating memories. EMDR’s has protocols to process anxiety, overeating, substance use, themes of negative thoughts, and recent events (e.g. car accidents).

READ MORE HERE: https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/

https://harmonyoaksrecovery.com/what-is-emdr-therapy

  1. Brainspotting: Brainspotting came from EMDR and is processing from the subcortical part of the brain where unprocessed trauma is stored. It is “where you look affects how you feel”. When doing traditional talk therapy you can only access part of the brain that deals with language, brainspotting helps you process from a “deeper” part of the brain. (Brainspotting can be helpful for anxiety, depression, trauma, OCD, addictions, etc.)

READ MORE HERE: https://brainspotting.com/

https://brainspotting.help/what-are-the-differences-between-brainspotting-and-talk-therapy/

  1. Somatic Experiencing: Somatic experiencing is a type of therapy that helps you reprocess events by slowing things down to allow enough time for your body or nervous system to complete the stress response of fight, flight, freeze, or fawning in order to heal from the event. This modality allows you to understand your nervous system better, build emotionally capacity, and provides healing from activating events.

READ MORE HERE: https://www.somaticexperiencing.com/somatic-experiencing

https://themovementparadigm.com/how-to-map-your-own-nervous-sytem-the-polyvagal-theory

Below shows the way your nervous system responds in life threatening events.

  1. IFS (Internal Family Systems): IFS is about working with different parts that have come up in the event of trauma to support and protect the authentic self. Parts can show up in many forms including child part, protective part, wounded part, etc. This modality seeks to meet the needs of each part and work toward integration of the authentic self.

READ MORE HERE: https://ifs-institute.com/

TAKE NOTES

When looking to process your trauma you want to ask your therapist the following questions to make sure they have the training you need to process your experiences and heal:

(most therapists will offer a free 15-20 minute consult to make sure client and therapist are a good “fit”).

  1. If you have attachment “wounds”, you want to make sure to ask the therapist if they have any training in working with attachment trauma or developmental attachment and what that training was?  If they don’t, it may be helpful to find someone with training in attachment wounds.
    1. Attachment wounds can be anything from parental neglect, sexual abuse, divorce, emotional abuse as a child by a parent/caregiver, there may be another child that needed more attention than you did growing up, parents using substances, or mother using substances while you were in the womb, or sometimes even adoption can be an attachment wound.
    2. This can be treated with all modalities above.
  2. Was this a single event trauma?
  1. Single event trauma: Could be a car accident, bike accident, sports injury, skiing accident, being robbed, etc.
  2. This can be treated with EMDR, brainspotting or using SE (see more information below).
  3. Is there a theme in your trauma?
  1. Often times people can have themes or negative cognitions of “I don’t feel good enough” or “I’m too much”, etc, these are helpful to process at one time and “clear” the events.
  2. This can be treated with all modalities listed above.

At CRS we have therapists trained in each of these modalities. If you have more questions about any of these modalities, feel free to reach out to intake for a free 15 minute consultation with any of our therapists.