My first recommendation would be Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR). However, in order to begin EMDR you have to be in a place where you have emotional control and confidence in your ability to tolerate distress and strong coping skills. Typically, when treating trauma, I begin by working on teaching calming mechanisms through cognitive behavioral therapy and Cognitive Processing Therapy, which is a form of CBT that helps you begin to identify and challenge unhelpful, negative beliefs that are directly linked to the trauma. We then focus on stress tolerance using DBT strategies and on increasing your self-confidence. This sets you up to have the most success when utilizing EMDR to process your trauma memories.

As an adult, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy) is the best way to treat childhood trauma. EMDR helps you process specific traumatic memories, emotions or PTSD symptoms, and reduce the emotional intensity that you experience when you are reminded of your past. When you are doing EMDR, it often pairs well with Somatic Therapy interventions, as it helps you recognize what happens in your body, what your experience is, and what you need to heal. It is a way to increase your stress tolerance and rebuild trust within yourself and even your environment, which is particularly important because trauma survivors often struggle with trusting themselves and the world around them.

People can experience trauma in many different ways as a child. The first childhood trauma that comes to mind is physical abuse (which is when someone physically hurts you in any way. Sexual abuse, according to me, is any unwanted touch, exposure (whether it is their own body or pornography), or when someone took advantage of you sexually (this could have been done by manipulating/ tricking you, or straight up forcing you to do things you didn’t want to do, for their own gratification, or pleasure. Emotional abuse, which could mean they humiliated you or were critical of you. This also includes gaslighting, which is when someone tried to make you feel like you can't trust your own memory or senses. Gaslighting was their way of lying to you that made you doubt what you knew to be true, often to make you confused or to make them feel in control. Emotional abuse to me could also be emotional neglect, not showing emotion, love, or appreciation. Physical Neglect, which is when your basic needs were not met, such as food, clothing, or safe shelter. If you lived with a family member or family members who had a substance use disorder, and it created an unpredictable and scary environment, you likely experienced the childhood trauma of Household Dysfunction. Growing up with a mentally ill or suicidal household member could also lead to childhood trauma and is considered part of the household dysfunction as well. Parental Separation or Divorce can trigger childhood trauma, which results in feelings of abandonment, or it could have created feelings of instability for the family.

As an adult who has experienced childhood trauma, you may have noticed that you have intense mood swings, you carry overwhelming guilt or shame, you have persistent anxiety, and or emotional numbness. You may notice that you have difficulty trusting others, that you constantly worry about abandonment, and that you engage in people-pleasing behaviors or exhibit attachment issues. Oftentimes, adults who have experienced abuse find they have substance use issues as they are trying to escape their uncomfortable feelings or calm themselves down, or engage in self-destructive behaviors (gambling, impulsive shopping, cutting, poor money management, seeking out risks). You have probably noticed that you are impulsive, hypervigilant, and/or, in an effort to keep people happy and avoid confrontation or criticism, you seek perfectionism.

We cannot force you to remember things or target memories that are not there. That being said, we can heal the emotions that are affecting you. We can use EMDR to target the emotions and the behaviors that result from them, helping decrease the impact of what you are experiencing.

No, many people function as usual during their trauma treatment. In fact, some see that as they work on their trauma, other areas of their lives become easier to navigate and manage.

You want to talk with that therapist; you want them to be trained in therapy models such as EMDR so they know how to guide the process in a proven way. You want to know how many people they treat on average with childhood trauma and what their process is for treating childhood PTSD and trauma.

Absolutely. Therapy is wonderful in that you can decide what is best for you to address when. It is never too late to heal what weighs heavily on your mind and to revisit things when you have a PTSD flare-up from childhood that you may have treated in the past.