Trauma and EMDR

Trauma and Trauma-Informed Therapy

Trauma is best understood as the response to a deeply disturbing event or series of events that overwhelm a person’s ability to cope. Trauma is inherently subjective. Every person’s experience of trauma is different, shaped in large part by how prior experience colors and shapes how we take in information. Because of that, all types of human experiences, be they single-incident events, developmental trauma, attachment injury, or persistent systemic harm, can be experienced as traumatic.

Experiencing a traumatic event can lead to many symptoms and challenges in daily living including flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance, numbing, anxiety, and sleep disturbance. Many people also describe problems in their relationships as well as significant physical symptoms. Most people who’ve experienced trauma are plagued by shame.

Our clinicians are trained in various evidenced-based trauma therapies, and all operate from a trauma-informed approach. This means that across treatment modalities, we work hard to ensure client safety and promote stabilization, hold a contextual and systemic understanding of trauma, support autonomy and consent in treatment, and use a strength-based approach.

EMDR

Dr. Basch and Ms. Stutz are also trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, an extremely effective and well-validated therapy used to treat trauma, PTSD, and other mental health concerns. Unlike talk therapies, EMDR is a “bottom-up” neuroscience-based approach to treating trauma and distress by supporting the brain’s ability to reintegrate distressing material and resolve the fight, flight, or freeze response. While trained to treat trauma broadly, Dr. Basch and Ms. Stutz both have specialized training in treating trauma related to the perinatal period.