It's essential to get help after you've experienced trauma. You need to talk about your pain and start to process what happened in your life. It can be scary to talk about trauma and even feelings of shame can surface however it's important to begin to recognize how the trauma continues to effect your daily life and goals in life. You truly have the ability to process past events and live an empowering, fulfilled life. One of the best places to do this processing is with a mental health professional who is skilled at helping people who have been through trauma.  Remember you didn't bring your trauma upon yourself, but you can take steps to heal from it with the support of a mental health professional. 

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Psychological trauma can affect your life for many years after the event or situation that caused it. It isn't a problem that's easily resolved, especially if you try to do it on your own. However, talk therapy has proven valuable in helping people overcome the distress, pain, and dysfunction that come from having lived through the most overwhelmingly threatening experiences.

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EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Re-processing) is a therapeutic model that I utilize in my private practice in order to help clients process traumatic experiences. EMDR is a relatively new type of psychotherapy. It was created with the goal of helping people process traumatic experiences in healthier ways. It typically helps much quicker than psychoanalysis or even psychodynamic psychotherapy. It assumes that the mind is constantly moving toward mental health until trauma happens. The goal of EMDR is to remove that blockage.

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How It Works: The therapist uses some form of external stimulus to direct your attention outward. This can be eye movements, hand tapping, or audio stimulation. During this part of the session, you talk about the event, your current distress, or imagine what your future will look like while the therapist provides the external stimulus.

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The therapist tells you what aspect of your story to hold in mind as you track their hand movements with your eyes or follow some other type of instruction. As you process the memories and thoughts related to the experience, you gain insights that come from within you alone. You realize that you have the strength that helped you survive. Your experience is transformed from a horrible memory to a vision of your own power.