Trauma / PTSD Counselling

Surrey – Langley Trauma Counselling and Trauma Therapy

Trauma affects Mind, Body and Spirit

Trauma or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can affect our health and well-being. Trauma can strip us of our vitality and joy and lead to a sense of survival and existence. Trauma is experienced as freeze responses and dissociation, or hypervigilance, anger or panic, reducing our ability to feel aliveness and connectedness. Unable to relax, we become frozen in our pain. We don’t feel fully alive in our bodies and our bodies hold onto stress and turmoil. Trauma can steal away our sense of pleasure and confidence in life, leading to a sense of disempowerment. Trauma counselling for trauma and PTSD can help.

Living with trauma is a more common experience than you may realize. Many of us have experienced trauma in the form of accidents, abuse, war, abandonment, developmental trauma, intergenerational trauma, neglect, medical treatments or parental substance abuse. It can be a challenge for people of all ages and backgrounds and can negatively affect health outcomes later in life.

Trauma is a burden that is further exacerbated as we age. Other issues and problems can arise in combination with trauma; adverse experiences can correlate with heart disease, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, relationships, premature mortality, or work issues. Trauma isn’t just a psychological experience – it impacts your heart, mind and body.

Healing the Mind and Body through the Imagination

Trauma often requires treatment that addresses the sensory-based experiences that permeate survivors. Expressive Arts Therapy uses nonverbal methods of self-expression in ways that involve action and connect to embodied experiences of trauma that are beyond verbal therapy. Healing is seen as a means of restoring one’s imaginative capacity, recognizing this as a key component to our mental and physical health. Arts based trauma counselling therapy provides opportunities for getting into action, reflecting the importance of mastery and individual choice, something most trauma survivors have lost due to their trauma experience.

How Expressive Arts Therapy and Trauma/PTSD Counselling can help with Trauma

• enhance feelings of safety
• promote relaxation
• regulate emotions
• integrate fragmented and sensory memories
• aid self-soothing of mind and body
• promote embodiment
• enhance non-verbal communication
• rescript trauma story
• recover self-efficacy
• imagine new meanings

I experienced a developmental trauma as a child and multiple medical traumas as an adult. I have spent much of my life devoted to healing myself and learning trauma therapies or treatments that are effective and provide resolution of trauma symptoms. I’ve learned what’s involved with releasing physical, mental and emotional burdens from trauma and can teach you how to release trauma symptoms and reconnect to your inner wisdom essence. My trauma tool box has been developed over the years and put into practice in my own life – tried, tested and true.

How I can Help with Trauma Counselling

Expressive Arts Therapy can help support strengths, enhance resilience and self regulation – and alleviate overactivation, hyperarousal and anxiety. Trauma counselling and trauma therapy can provide you with relief and hope. Reconnecting to a sense of safety is instrumental in finding support for trauma and PTSD. You can find safety within your body and a sense of peacefulness and calmness through treatment.

As you engage in creative exploration, you are co-creating with the therapist – I am not the sole expert and you are in the driver’s seat. Trauma informed therapy focuses on your right to playing a part in your own treatment and preferences for participation. We adopt your pacing and go at your comfort level. I listen with care and offer support and comfort in a non-judgemental environment to help you on your way to self-regulation and trauma relief.

If you are looking for an trauma counsellor in Surrey, Cloverdale, Langley or White Rock, feel free to call me at 778-389-9234 for a free 15 minute phone consultation or to email me at tgramm@gmail.com

SOURCES
Malchiodi, Cathy A. Trauma and Expressive Arts Therapy: Brain, Body and Imagination in the Healing Process. The Guilford Press. 2020. P1-58.