Trauma Therapy
Are You Struggling To Move On From A Traumatic Experience?
Do you find yourself unable to move on from a traumatic event or situation you’ve experienced? Have you noticed any of the following negative symptoms or patterns:
- Uncontrollable sadness, anger, anxiety, or iterability?
- Mood swings, emotional outbursts, or panic attacks?
- Emotional distance or social disconnection?
Perhaps you’re a survivor of domestic violence, sexual abuse, health issues, grief or loss, natural disaster, or war. Or maybe you’re not exactly sure where your symptoms are coming from but feel how they negatively impact your life.
Unresolved Trauma Can Spill Over Into All The Other Areas Of Your Life
You may be experiencing recurring dreams or nightmares or difficulty falling or staying asleep. As a result, you may be turning to unhealthy or destructive coping mechanism such as drinking, endless social media scrolling, or uncontrolled emotional outbursts.
Or you may be detaching yourself from others completely, which leaves you disconnected from your family and friends. Perhaps you’re looking for some outside support and perspective from someone experienced in treating the lingering symptoms of trauma.
The aftereffects of trauma can linger long after you’ve experienced it, negatively impacting other areas of your life. At Alaska Counseling Services, we can help you recover and heal from your trauma in a way that is both gentle and effective. By working through your symptoms in a safe and supportive setting, we can help you process and heal your trauma at your own pace.
The Experience of Trauma Is More Common Than You Might Think
Although we tend to view trauma in terms of dramatic, isolated incidents, the experience of trauma can also be subtle, pervasive, and long-term. Many don’t even realize they’ve experienced trauma until long after the fact, and some may never realize it.
Thus, trauma is actually quite common, and most people will experience it in some form at some point in their lives. However, despite how common the experience is, trauma also far too often remains unprocessed, unaddressed, and untreated.
Many Accept Or Normalize Their Trauma Without Seeking Treatment
A lot of people normalize their trauma as “just how life is” or rationalize to themselves that others had it worse. Others may be hesitant to seek treatment out of fear of the difficult emotions that can be brought up. Still others aren’t even aware that what they experienced was trauma or how it continues to affect their daily life and functioning.
Therapy can help you find relief from the symptoms of trauma while building toward sustainable, lasting healing. At Alaska Counseling Services, we can help you along your healing journey at a pace that feels right, healthy, and manageable for you.
Therapy Can Help You Move Through Your Trauma
When you’ve avoided dealing with your trauma or simply come to accept it, it can feel overwhelming to revisit those difficult thoughts and emotions. But often, the more you avoid processing something negative or traumatic, the more it affects other areas of your life.
Therapy can allow you to reprocess your trauma without having to actively relive it. In our sessions together, we will work to get to the root cause of your issues, working toward not just short-term relief but also long-term healing and peace.
An Eclectic Approach To Trauma Therapy
Our view on the treatment of trauma is holistic: we want to help you recover in mind, body, and spirit. Although trauma impacts everyone differently, we’ve seen firsthand which modalities lend themselves best to comprehensive trauma healing.
We will incorporate multiple modalities to address your symptoms, including:
- Mindfulness Therapy – As an alternative form of therapy, mindfulness practices can help alleviate the mental and physical symptoms that follow the experience of trauma.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) – An evidence-based form of psychotherapy, CBT can help you reframe the negative thoughts and beliefs reinforcing your trauma.
- Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) – An increasingly widespread therapeutic modality, IFS can help better integrate the trauma you’ve experienced into the various parts of your personality.
- Somatic Experiencing (SE) – Complementary to mindfulness practices, SE can help you release trauma stored in your body.
- Brainspotting – A highly effective form of therapy for traumatic experiences, Brainspotting can help you process trauma without having to actively relive it.
We want you to know that trauma can happen to anyone, whether it happens suddenly or slowly over the course of years or decades. Most of the time, we don’t have much control over the trauma we experience—but we do have control over how we choose to deal with it afterward. Therapy can’t change what happened to you, but it can ensure that you choose to process and recover from it in the healthiest way possible.
You May Still Have Some Questions About Trauma Therapy…
I’m worried about the confidentiality of therapy.
All therapists are legally and ethically bound by confidentiality, with a few important exceptions (such as an imminent harm to self or others, child or elder abuse, or court orders). At Alaska Counseling Services, we take your privacy very seriously and we continually engage in training to stay updated on best practices and ethical guidelines.
I’m concerned about the cost of trauma therapy.
We understand that therapy can be expensive, although we encourage you to see it less as an expense than as an investment, one that can positively impact your entire life. Therapy can help you build emotional resilience, improve your relationships, and break habits and patterns that have been holding you back—all skills that will last a lifetime.
I am worried about potentially taking medication.
In some (although not all) cases, medication may be advised to reduce symptoms and thus allow you to go deeper into the therapeutic process. We work with experienced and trusted nurse practitioners and psychiatrists to ensure that you receive the best medication care and management possible—however it is still always your choice whether you want medication to be part of your recovery journey.
You Can Integrate Your Past And Build A Better Future
If you are struggling with the fallout from past or ongoing trauma, therapy with Alaska Counseling Services can help you heal and move forward with your life.
Please call us at 907-830-8262 or use our contact page to get started.
Have any questions? Send us a message!
Blog Posts on Trauma Therapy
Understanding the Difference Between PTSD and C-PTSD
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) are mental health conditions that can result from traumatic experiences. While both conditions share similarities, there are key differences that are important to understand for anyone experiencing or treating trauma-related symptoms.
How PTSD from Emotional Abuse Affects You Later in Life
Emotional abuse doesn’t always leave visible scars, but its impact can be deep and long-lasting. Over time, repeated invalidation, manipulation, criticism, or emotional neglect can overwhelm the nervous system and lead to symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
What Is Complex Trauma? Understanding Long-Term Trauma
When people hear the word trauma, they often think of a single, shocking event, like an accident, assault, or natural disaster. But for many individuals, trauma isn’t one moment in time. Instead, it’s ongoing, repeated, and deeply woven into one’s daily life and routine