What is Psychological and Emotional Trauma?

Psychological trauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds our ability to cope, or integrate the emotions involved with that experience. A traumatic event involves an experience, or a repeated experience during which our nervous system becomes overwhelmed.

Symptoms of Trauma

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Emotional detachment

• Emotional reactivity

• Flashbacks or obsessive thinking

• Addiction

• Codependence

• Problems with emotional regulation

• Nightmares or sleep disturbance

How I Treat Trauma

Talking through and unpacking traumatic events, relationships or family histories helps resolve trauma. When a person is traumatized feelings associated with the trauma need to be processed and released. I create a safe container with my clients in which to do this work.

My long time therapist and mentor Jo Sopko likes to say “the metaphor is always safe.” I work with trauma using this metaphorical approach and my clients often find this approach very very safe and effective. A “metaphorical approach” means that we may work with art therapies and Jungian sand tray to address trauma. These methods work so well because they gently create a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious mind, allowing healing to happen naturally and sometimes spontaneously. I employ these methods wether we are meeting in person or remotely.

Below is an example of a sand tray and of some of the many images I have to work with.