Trauma & PTSD

Traumatic memories can be both big and small. In therapy, we refer to smaller traumatic events with a lowercase t, and larger traumatic events with a capital T. Traumatic events can be experienced firsthand or witnessed by another person. Larger traumatic events can cause terrifying distress in a person’s life. We often think that it’s only the big traumatic events that lead to suffering and disturbances, but even smaller disturbing memories, such as feeling nervous in front of the class in middle school and everyone laughing, can have a significant impact on later related events with negative underlying cognitions.

If not processed around the time of the event, both small and large traumatic events can get “stuck,” and re-activated with flashbacks and distressing symptoms whenever similar memory networks are activated. Trauma symptoms can include anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, guilt, dissociation, flashbacks, sleep disturbances, mood issues, hyper-vigilance and intrusive memories.

I am trained in EMDR, which was developed for clients suffering from trauma, and I specialize in helping clients heal from trauma by adaptively reprocess negative memories. I have experience working with first responders, including firefighters and police officers, at a treatment center in Newport Beach. You can read more about EMDR under the treatment method section of this website.