Trauma follows from a traumatic experience that overwhelms one's ability to cope. Such experiences include natural disasters to the events on 9-11, or being a witness to a bank robbery, a bad car accident, a victim of assault, watching a loved one die, or could involve little "t" trauma: not feeling good enough to compete, failing in a class, or feeling embarrassed after a presentation.

Signs and symptoms of trauma can include panic, anxiety, depression, intense anger or sadness, along with insomnia, muscle tension, headaches, a lack of focus and difficulty concentrating; relationships can become difficult and stressful; it can become extremely hard to cope with life. Signs and symptoms of trauma are normal responses to very abnormal events. But if these feelings and signs persist over time, and if you struggle to function with normal, daily living, that is not normal, and you may need professional assistance to help you cope and manage your life.

In addition, trauma often has powerful negative, mental and emotional consequences, as the experience can become stuck and left unprocessed due to its intensity. Negative beliefs about self can arise, such as I am helpless, or a failure, or I should have known better, of feeling out of control all the time. If you have these beliefs and they persist, you may have experienced some trauma in your past that remains unprocessed today on an emotional level. The goal with trauma treatment is to take the emotion out of the experience, thus changing the content of the memory. When that happens, clients feel better.

If you have signs or symtpoms or negative beliefs about yourself that has followed a traumatic experience, call me. I can help; please read more about an exciting discovery in the field of trauma work on my website: go to EMDR therapy. EMDR is a very powerful and helpful tool to help clients process and break down traumatic experiences; the brain can learn, but it can also heal.