Specialties

Complex Trauma and Childhood Abuse

When we hear the word trauma, often what comes to mind is something that an individual or a group of people experiences that is scary, horrifying, and often life threatening. An event that rocks the foundation of safety and security. Trauma can best be defined as an experience in one's life that overwhelms the Central Nervous System to such an extreme that we cannot safely or effectively process and recall memory. The experience affects our cognitive ability, sense of identity, our views of life and spirituality, as well as our sensory and emotional experiences. The trauma can begin to interfere with one’s ability to connect to others and their feelings of purpose in life. When we turn our attention toward complex trauma, we see an individual who experiences chronic traumatization over the course of extended periods of time; days, months and even years. This may include sexual abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, or physical abuse. Complex trauma is interpersonal in nature, which means the core of the abuse surrounds being in total control of another human being and the abused individuals inability meet some of their most basic human needs. Complex trauma is commonly seen in childhood, when a child is living solely at the mercy of their caretaker who is abusive and fully in control. This leaves the child feeling a prolonged sense of being trapped, overwhelmed, alone and fearful that the abuse will never come to an end. This is also common in abusive relationships when an adult has spent a prolonged period of time in a controlling and abusive relationship. The cycle of abuse is accompanied by periods of love bombing and manipulation, followed by fear and an inability to protect themselves from the abuse.

Survivors of Complex PTSD may experience the following:

Troubles with emotional regulation - Difficulty experiencing, controlling, understanding or labeling emotions. May experience emotional flashbacks; an experience when emotions feel disproportionate to a situation but feel equally as intense as they were at the time of the trauma.
Interruptions of consciousness - Forgetfulness around traumatic events; reliving traumatic events through flashbacks or memories triggered by experiences in the body; traumas that are recollected out of chronological order and may be missing info; dissociation (feeling detached from your body or mental process).
Difficulty with self perception - Unstable and negative self image that may take shape in the form of hopelessness, shame, guilt or stigmatized. May view self as an “other.”
Distorted perceptions of perpetrator - Turmoil within perceptions of the perpetrator; Maybe I was special and my abuser would never intentionally hurt me, they had total control, wanting revenge against them and many more contradicting beliefs that shape differently over time.
Challenges in relation to others - Experiences of extreme isolation, withdrawal and fears of abandonment. Struggle to trust others and may find themselves in co-dependent relationships or even repeat patterns of searching for a rescuer and reenact traumas.
Disruption and alterations in one’s meaning making system - Complications in the value of belief systems and values. Struggle to find sustaining faith and may feel overwhelmed by hopelessness and despair.

“The traumatic stress field has adopted the term “Complex Trauma” to describe the experience of multiple and/or chronic and prolonged, developmentally adverse traumatic events, most often of an interpersonal nature (e.g., sexual or physical abuse, war, community violence) and early-life onset. These exposures often occur within the child’s caregiving system and include physical, emotional, and educational neglect and child maltreatment beginning in early childhood.— Bessel A. van der Kolk

Ruptured Childhood Attachments

Childhood ruptures in attachment are commonly seen when there is a disruption in the relationship between the child and the caregiver. In healthy relationships, caregivers will repair ruptures by taking accountability and apologizing when they have done wrong or injured a child. The repair can happen by validating the child, acknowledging where they made a mistake, hugging or physically supporting the injured child and working to fix the rupture. In some cases, we see that ruptures in childhood between caregiver and child happen continually without repair. Attachment ruptures can occur in a variety of ways such as abuse or neglect on the part of the caregiver or continual lack availability from the caregiver both physically or emotionally. These ruptures can be seen through the death of a parent, parental separation or alienation, demanding careers, and even a caregiver struggling with an undiagnosed/untreated mental illness.

Repeated ruptures can create a variety of cumulated traumas that make connection to a caregiver very hard and often very painful. Children experience feelings of confusion and shame that often lead them to feeling as though they were "not good enough" to be loved by the caregiver. If these ruptures continue through childhood and no repairs are made, the trauma, pain and perception of inadequacy will follow that individual into adulthood, creating strain on many of the relationships they hold as they move through life. Through therapy, individuals with ruptured childhood attachments can learn to become more aware of their emotions, behaviors, and attachment patterns, as well as how these influence their relationships.

Signs of avoidant attachment issues may include:

Avoidance of physical contact like hugging.
Difficulty seeking comfort from others when upset or distressed.
Lack of trust in others.
Tendency to minimize or suppress emotions.

Signs of anxious attachment issues include:

Strong desire for closeness and intimacy in relationships, often leading to a fear of rejection or abandonment.
Difficulty trusting others, and often feeling insecure in relationships.
Need for frequent reassurance and validation from close others, such as partners.
Overanalysis of social interactions.

Signs of disorganized attachment issues typically include:

Difficulty regulating emotions, including extreme mood swings, dissociation, and numbness.
Feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from one’s own feelings and needs.
Problems forming close relationships and trusting others.
Use of self-destructive behaviors and unhealthy coping strategies, such as risky sexual behavior.

Grief Therapy

How do we cope with a loss that feels unimaginable? How do we move forward when everything we once thought was true, is now lost and the path forward seems invisible? Grief is our biological response to loss and is a very natural response that we all will experience at some point in our lives. Grief is the anguish response to a significant loss surrounding a variety of topics such as death, psychological distress following a trauma, loss of a significant relationship, and much more. Grief is different for everyone, not only in how we experience grief and what creates our grief, but how we move through our grief and into a state of healing. The path to grief is not linear but having sources of support and safe spaces to process the feelings that accompany grief is the first place to start. Therapy can provide some education on the presentation and process of grief and a safe place to work through grief and into healing.

Christian Counseling

Faith based counseling will provide you with a combination of Christian faith and the principles of psychology to provide mental health services that blend healing with a biblical perspective. Often, Christians struggle to seek mental health support because the thought is that "God should be enough right?" YES, of course! He absolutely is enough but God put people on our earth to provide earthly support and healing. He never intended for us to live alone. We are encouraged to seek Godly counsel in times of need and Christian counseling can be part of that counsel. We come together to reconnect and reunite the whole person as body, mind and spirit by integrating biblical principles and scripture into healing. We find healing through God's wisdom, instructions, and guidance through his word and with prayer.

"Where there is no guidance the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory."

Proverbs 11:14

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