What is Trauma?

Trauma is anything that is negative and unexpected which makes you feel overwhelmed, confused, and powerless - which resulted in lasting negative impacts and is often the reason behind our symptoms.

As counsellors, we use an attachment and trauma-informed lens. We believe trauma is not just the "big T" traumas such as an assault or a car accident, but "little t" traumas such as your friend moving away, your high school teacher telling you that you will never measure up, your mother not paying attention to you, or your class laughing at you during a presentation.

EMDR, OEI and LI (see below) are evidence-based trauma therapies that not only reduce your symptoms, but help completely alleviate them. We want to see change that last longer than a week or until the next time you are triggered - we want to get rid of what is causing you to be triggered in the first place. Many of our counsellors are trained in the following modalities. If you are noticing you are quick to react, easily angered, and upset "for no reason" - you would benefit from these trauma therapies.

Evidence-based trauma therapies

Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

What is EMDR? It stands for Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.

It is an evidenced-based trauma therapy that was developed by Shapiro in 1987 and was originally developed for PTSD. However, it has been proven to help with a variety of symptoms, such as anxiety, panic, phobias, sleep disturbances, flashbacks, nightmares, and depression. EMDR does not require talking in detail about the trauma, but focuses on the emotions, thoughts, and behaviours that have changed due to the trauma. Our brains have the ability to heal itself, and EMDR resolves unprocessed traumatic memories. REM sleep (when you dream), processes things throughout the day, which is why you wake up feeling differently about something the next morning than you did the day before. Trauma disrupts REM sleep, which stops the reprocessing of that event, which is why people still get triggered and upset when thinking about the event. EMDR almost “recreates” REM sleep, and helps your brain reprocess the memory. EMDR helps get the traumatic memory from a 10/10 on a scale of disturbance to a 0/10 – making the memory neutral, and as a result, can alleviate the negative symptoms originally caused by trauma. This does not negate the traumatic experience but provides freedom from the pain and negative impacts that trauma has on one’s life. Things that once were triggering become neutral, and symptoms completely dissipate. Lindsay has seen many people completely healed and cured of anxiety, have better relationships with others and themselves, and are able to start living, not just surviving.

Observed and Experiential Integration (OEI)

Do you ever feel like there are two parts of you that have opposing views? Maybe one part of you thinks one way about a situation, and the other part is telling you something completely different? OEI (which stands for Observed and Experiential Integration) can help integrate those different parts. The parts of our brain that store traumatic memories can be accessed through our eyes and get stored up as “slivers”. It was developed by Dr. Rick Bradshaw and Audrey Cook in the 1990s. OEI evolved from EMDR and helps access both hemispheres to reduce trauma. By accessing our emotions, thoughts, perceptions, and memories, OEI has been found to help integrate unprocessed traumas. Dr. Rick Bradshaw, by whom Lindsay had the great privilege of being taught, mentored, and supervised explains in more detail above.

Lifespan Integration (LI)

Do you ever notice that when you get angry, you sometimes act as if you are 9 years old again? There are so many reasons for this, but one reason is that there is part of you that is stuck at that age. Logically you know you are an adult, but the part of you that is reacting is stuck in a different age. That's because there was not a neural integration between the age of the trauma or negative event and now. Lifespan Integration is a type of trauma therapy developed in 2002 by Peggy Pace that connects the wires in your brain to fire properly. Maybe you find when you think back to your childhood, you struggle to remember it at all. Lifespan can help you form those networks that were lost and gain back those lost years. Together, we will create a time-line and help integrate those "stuck years" to the present. Watch this 10-minute video for more information!

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