After a terrible life event like a natural disaster, accident, rape, or violent experience, long-term emotional scars may form. They are often adverse reactions that cause a person to experience distress emotionally and sometimes physically.
Experiencing traumas often affects your normal way of life as you lose control of your emotions. It results in challenges in all your social relationships.
Traumatic episodes are not easy to control by yourself, which is why rehabilitation centers are handy. Mental health professionals at a rehab help you identify the trauma’s cause, learn its triggers, and how to process it better.
What Is Trauma Therapy?
Trauma therapy focuses on establishing the connection between a traumatic experience and the emotional or behavioral responses to the event. After establishing the cause-effect relationship of the trauma, a psychologist or psychiatrist will help you develop a coping strategy.
In a rehab, mental health experts may use trauma therapy as the only therapy or with a combination of other forms of therapy like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
It’s also important to note that trauma is unique to every individual. What works for one individual may not work for another. Rehabs know this and try to specialize the treatment as much as possible. You can learn more about how America Rehab Campuses does this visit website.
How Does a Rehab Implement Trauma Therapy?
Here are the steps that rehab will take to implement trauma therapy.
- When you enroll in rehab, a mental health expert conducts an extensive interview to understand the trauma’s roots. Some traumas result from childhood experiences, so it’s a time-consuming process, but it’s necessary.
- They’ll try to understand the trauma’s impact on day-to-day life.
- The next step is the identification of triggers that cause specific emotional reactions and behavior.
- Using their knowledge of trauma, they’ll help you develop safe coping mechanisms to reduce the chances of re-traumatization.
What Are the Benefits of Trauma-Focused Therapy?
If conducted by skilled mental health professionals in rehab, there are benefits to derive from trauma therapy. They include;
- Helps to re-establish a sense of safety – Traumatic experiences bring about feelings of insecurity. Therapy targeted at the trauma may resolve psychological, relational, and physical perceptions of insecurity.
- Assists in developing healthy coping strategies – You’ll often find people engaging in a harmful habit as a coping mechanism, such as drug abuse. Trauma-based therapy gives positive alternative options like talk therapy.
- Helps regulate stress hormones – Every time you have a traumatic episode, your body releases high cortisol levels. While the hormone is suitable in high-risk situations, its prolonged stay in the body is dangerous. Trauma-focused therapy will help regulate it to more manageable levels.
- Regaining control of your emotions – It’s the goal of trauma therapy. By the end of the treatment, you can identify the triggers of your trauma and better control your emotions. The result is healthier everyday life relations.
Does Trauma Therapy Work in a Rehab?
Trauma therapy works well in a rehabilitative center because of the wealth of expertise and knowledge on trauma that you’ll find. Trauma-based treatments may also take time, but rehabs have ample time and dedicated staff to resolve your issues individually.
