Trauma Therapy in Arizona
Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) helps people who may be experiencing post-traumatic stress after a traumatic event to return to a healthy state. Talk to us about trauma therapy in Arizona. We’d love to give you more information.
Trauma therapy is a type of mental health treatment used for addressing the psychological repercussions of traumatic experiences and severely stressful events. There are different types of trauma therapy.
What Is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic experiencing is a type of therapy focusing on physical sensations to address trauma and symptoms associated with trauma. It helps individuals overcome the effects of experiencing highly stressful events. This therapy is known for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but can also be used for other physical and mental health challenges.
Here are some examples of somatic or physical body awareness:
- Noticing how the heart feels when it beats.
- Focusing on muscles and determining if they feel tense or relaxed.
- Feeling different bones, organs, and parts of the physical body.
Flight, Fight, or Freeze Response
The body and mind respond when a person goes through a stressful or painful situation. The primitive, reactive portion of the brain responds by inducing a person to flee (flight), defend themselves physically (fight), or freeze to protect themselves from imminent harm.
Somatic experiencing is based on the theory that traumatic memories can become stuck in the body and cause symptoms years after the threat of the traumatizing event has passed. It is believed that by increasing body awareness, traumatic memories can be processed and let go, easing symptoms.
Somatic Experiencing Steps:
- Recognize body sensations. Concentrate on different body parts and how they feel (e.g., are there any tense muscles?).
- Draw links between the sensations and stress. Think about the feelings or sensations felt when stressed (e.g., unsettled stomach or lump in throat).
- Concentrate on something pleasant in the environment, and try to maintain positive thoughts.
- Feel a release or decrease of symptoms. This is a subjective experience for each person and may happen naturally or with practice (e.g., a sense of peace, relief, or as if a weight has been lifted).
What It Treats
Somatic experiencing therapy is generally used to treat trauma-related symptoms or the effects of highly traumatic experiences. It is frequently used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, to be more precise. It can also be used for symptoms such as stress and anger in individuals not diagnosed with PTSD.
Somatic experiencing therapy may help with PTSD and other challenges, such as:
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Disability-Related Physical Pain
- Extreme Fear of Movement That May Cause Pain
- Grief
- Insecurity
- Mood Challenges
- Physical Pain
- Self-Doubt
- Stress
- Trauma
- Unwanted Thoughts
How It Helps
The link between the mind and body is at the core of somatic experiencing therapy. The theory is that healing comes from focusing on the mind and body together. There are a lot of different techniques that fall under the category of somatic therapy or that can be applied in conjunction with it. Yoga, for instance, is sometimes considered somatic therapy because it emphasizes the relationship between the mind and body for physical and emotional rehabilitation.
Check out these techniques used in somatic therapy:
- Breathing exercises are often used as part of somatic therapy to help soothe the body and mind and increase awareness of bodily sensations.
- Mindfulness-based practices increase awareness of one’s surroundings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. They can be used to establish links between feelings and stress.
- Similar to breathing exercises, meditation is often used to develop awareness and soothe the body and mind.
- Somatic psychotherapy combines talk therapy with a focus on the body. It entails communicating with a provider and being conscious of one’s body.
- Conscious awareness of one’s body and mind allows one to focus on ideas, feelings, and bodily sensations. This could be used during the somatic therapy procedure.
- Body movement can occasionally be used to boost awareness, spot stress-related areas, and process stress for healing.
- Once stress has been identified, it can be relieved by using positive imagery to soothe the body and mind.
Benefits of Somatic Experiencing
The effectiveness of somatic experiencing varies since it is used with various populations of people who have different problems. Both physical and emotional symptoms have been demonstrated to be improved by this treatment.
Examples
People who have tried somatic experiencing reported having fewer of the following symptoms:
- Depression
- PTSD
- Physical Pain
- Stress
Individuals who have tried somatic experiencing have also increased:
- Mobility: Being able to move parts of the body that were restricted physically.
- Mental Resilience: Being able to adjust to, deal with, and overcome stress and hardship.
- Quality of Life: Being able to participate in activities and enjoy life more with fewer symptoms.
The suitability of this approach for you and your circumstances can be determined with the assistance of a skilled mental health professional, such as a therapist or psychologist.