Healing Trauma

by Kevin Strickland LPC-Associate

It’s easy to think of trauma as the big bad things that happen to people, like life-threatening situations. Those can definitely be traumatic, but trauma can also come from smaller, daily life occurrences as well. Something is traumatic when it overwhelms someone, resulting in a piece of that experience getting “trapped” in the nervous system. These experiences are subjective and can be different for everyone. These traumas lead to reactions later on that are bigger than the situations that trigger them, whether an emotional, mental, physical, or behavioral reaction. 

Over time, our nervous system collects more and more trauma clusters, causing many different mental health symptoms. These clusters don’t only have part of the experience trapped in the body, but there's a part of ourselves that gets stuck in that experience too. Many times the part of us that gets stuck stays the same age as when the traumatic event occurred. For example, if a child asks an adult a question and the adult yells and shames the child for asking, maybe calling the child “stupid” or “annoying,” that experience could stick with the child. As a teenager or adult, that person might now have trouble asking others for help and feel anxious, possibly without knowing why. This is why sometimes people have “childlike” reactions that don’t seem to fit the situation, because that childlike part that is stuck in that situation within the nervous system gets triggered. 

You may have heard about the “inner child.” This follows the same idea: a childlike part of us gets stuck at a certain age and in a specific situation because of something traumatic that happened. When we are stuck in a bad situation, our brains are good at adapting to the situation to help us survive it. This is good for the moment, but over time some of these survival adaptations continue even though we are now safe. These adaptations make sense, but aren’t the best way of handling situations in the present. 

The good news is that the nervous system and brain are able to heal and rewire themselves. How? There are many ways of doing this, with different therapists preferring different methods. This healing occurs in a process called memory reconsolidation. Memory reconsolidation occurs when we reactivate the trauma and provide disconfirming information. Basically, we go into the “wound” while experiencing something positive to show our body and brain that the original traumatic event is over. 

This is different than coping with anxiety or other difficult thoughts and feelings. Coping skills are wonderful, and everyone should have some in their emotional toolbelt. Memory reconsolidation goes a step further, going into the painful memories, as slowly and carefully as needed, to heal the pain at the source. 

This healing can look many different ways. As an individual, you can focus on the “inner child” or other childlike parts; you could try EMDR or other modalities. For couples, this may look like having difficult conversations while showing vulnerability and compassion for the other. Being vulnerable while having difficult conversations gets us into the wound, while the compassionate presence of your partner and the therapist help provide the new information to the brain that rewires it. These processes can take time, but can also be surprisingly quick, depending on the person and situation.