therapy for Trauma & Stressful Life Events
Traumatic or stressful life events can impact an individual in unique and subtle ways, and it is not uncommon for symptoms of trauma to be attributed to some other disorder or ailment. A traumatic life event is characterized by an exposure to death, threatened death or serious injury. Examples of this include witnessing domestic violence or learning about the sudden/unexpected death of a loved one. The way in which a person can be exposed to trauma varies; they can have a direct exposure to it, witness it happening to someone else, or learn about a relative or close friend who was exposed to a trauma. While most individuals who experience a trauma recover naturally from the event, a smaller subset get ‘stuck’ in the recovery process and develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
Those who do develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress will often re-experience the event – such that it feels as if it is happening all over again. Re-experiencing symptoms manifests themselves as flashback (while awake) and nightmares (while sleeping). In addition, they are likely to avoid people, places or things that remind them of the event that they witnessed or learned about. This includes talking or thinking about the stressful event and refusing to return to the site (or related sites) where the trauma occurred. It’s also common to experience changes in mood and thoughts, such as decreased interest in activities and negative thoughts about oneself and the world. After a stressful life event, individuals will often be hypervigilant that the ‘bad thing’ will happen again, have difficulty concentrating, and experience significant disruptions in sleep. These symptoms can look very similar to an anxiety disorder or inattention, and it is important to obtain a proper and thorough psychiatric evaluation to rule out the presence of these other related disorders.
Treatment for post-traumatic stress involve interventions that are designed to decrease the avoidance of trauma reminders and to target unhelpful thinking patterns. For adults, the two treatments that have been shown to be most efficacious are prolonged exposure (PE) and cognitive-processing therapy (CPT). For children and teens who have experienced a significant stressful life event, trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) has been shown to reduce symptoms effectively.