Stop Suffering! Start Trauma Therapy
Healing Paths, Inc. is a leading provider of trauma recovery therapy in Utah. Many common mental health problems people are struggling with today are the result of trauma. It is not uncommon for many people you know to be walking around, interacting personally, and seeming to be functioning normally at work, yet fighting the effects of PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder).
Results of Trauma
If left untreated, this state of emotional and physical disruption can lead to more severe problems in relationships and puts a person at high risk for different types of addictions.
If you are suffering from behavioral addiction, substance abuse, conflicts in your marriage, or have some other significant personal difficulty adjusting to life, you need to meet with a trauma counselor.
The Good News
This is completely treatable! In the last few decades, trauma researchers have made enormous strides in understanding emotional trauma, PTSD, and finding innovative methods of treating these conditions without hope. Where veterans of wars suffered for years, never dreaming of overcoming the effects of their disturbing memories, people who are struggling with trauma can understand what they have experience and find peace.
Finding the Right Therapy Team
Our team of well-trained licensed clinical therapists, working with you and your family, are trained to diagnose and treat emotional trauma. They can often find an event or series of events that are preventing the type of healthy emotional growth you are looking for in adulthood.
PTSD can be a factor for people who have experience obvious adverse events, like those in war. But there are smaller traumas, which if experienced over time, repeatedly, like sustained physical or sexual abuse, can cause PTSD symptoms, sometimes more painful and severe than those seen in war wounds of soldiers. Sometimes people who sustain trauma over a lifetime in different ways are being referred to by mental health professionals as Complex PTSD (abbreviated either as c-PTSD or CPTSD )
These symptoms can affect your ability to experience meaningful intimate relationships. Trauma shows up in your physical health in serious ways. It has physical symptoms, which can affect your everyday behavior and cannot always be hidden from others.
Do You Offer Online Therapy Options for Treating Trauma?
Yes. We can support you in your recovery using a HIPAA compliant telehealth platform. Meet privately with a trauma treatment expert or join a therapy group with people from all over the country in the convenience of your home. If you’re interested sign up below.
Contact Us for a Free Trauma Therapy Evaluation
Why Work with a Clinic Licensed by IITAP?
Our clinic is licensed by IITAP (International Institute for Trauma & Addiction Professionals). This organization was founded by Dr. Patrick Carnes, who first raised awareness of sexually compulsive behavior and addiction. All of the mental health workers at our clinic train to become CSATs (Certified Sex Addiction Therapists), which gives them strong evidence-based training in trauma and addictive behavior. We believe this gives our whole team of counselors a strong foundation in helping every client that walks in the door, regardless of whether they are being treated for addiction or not, helping to identify and treat trauma in need of recovery and healing.
You’ve Heard of Mindfulness!
Most people know about the concept of mindfulness. It’s become trendy to talk about being aware of the present moment. But there’s a lot more to this important concept.
Jackie Pack, the owner of Healing Paths, gives an overview of the concept of awareness, one of the 12 principles or steps of addiction recovery, relevant to all of us healing from any kind of trauma.
1. Become aware of our emotions.
2. Learn to become aware of our body—the sensations we feel physically.
3. Become aware of our thoughts. What is our inner monologue? How is that affecting the other two levels?
Smaller Traumas Causing Severe Pain
It’s not hard to identify big traumas in your life. War combat, a car accident, abuse, death, and divorce all carry the weight of something that can leave a lasting impact in your life. Many of our Utah clients seek therapy when they face these life-changing events.
It can be harder to recognize the seemingly smaller events that leave a mark–Painful relationships, subtle rejection, or chronic neglect can be traumatizing as well.
Often the pain of these types of occurrences is not intense, but it goes on for a very long time and can have just as much of an impact as one or two of the “big” traumas.
Does it feel like the impact of the past is overwhelming the present? If you’re feeling this way, it’s a good indication a significant event has occurred, which needs to be treated by a trained clinician.
Recovery from Trauma in Utah is Possible!
Some of the classic signs of PTSD can include:
- Extreme fear, helplessness, or horror in response to witnessing an event.
- Reoccurring thoughts about the traumatic event, or worries about what might happen that you can’t shut off, without a sense of recovery.
- Acting or feeling like the traumatic event is still happening.
- Sensitivity to things that remind you of the traumatic event.
- Persistent efforts to avoid anything related to the original trauma.
- Difficulty falling or staying asleep.
- Changes in appetite.
- Increased emotional agitation and anger.
- Hypervigilance (always being on the lookout for the next horrible event).
These signs aren’t just occasional occurrences that you can shrug off. They can interfere with what is important to you. They can occasionally knock you down for a while after you have a flashback.
Sometimes the effects of trauma are subtle but get more intense as time goes on. What started as a small fear can grow into a paralyzing terror that keeps you from living your life. Relationship dynamics that you never thought twice about can take on a whole new dark meaning and feel very disturbing. These strange symptoms are not happening because you are crazy–They’re occurring because your nervous system is in overdrive and starting to struggle to keep up with what your life demands. Survival Mechanisms
Reactions to trauma are the ways we survived as a human species. They were needed to be safe and maybe even stay alive.
When these adaptations to traumatic events started creeping over into other parts of our lives, however, they started to hurt us as a species instead of help us.
If you are struggling with the symptoms of trauma, it’s time to get help. Trauma and PTSD don’t just live in the mind; they take root in the body and actually alter how the nervous system responds to everyday experiences.
EMDR Treatment
Our Utah clinic is one of the very best trained service providers of EMDR, one of the most cutting-edge treatment methods for trauma. It can seem like Science Fiction when you hear about how it works. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) replicate the brain’s natural mode of processing information and healing. Rather than reliving the trauma, your mind can reboot, and adequately handle the traumatic event through this innovative new treatment method.
Other Safe Trauma Recovery Options
EMDR isn’t the only therapy modality we have for treating trauma at Healing Paths in Utah. We have many other treatment options we offer our clients here at our Utah clinic. Consult with a trauma expert to see what may be right for you at your level of healing.
Healing trauma can be difficult to manage and isn’t always safe on the nervous system. LISTEN TO our podcast to learn more about the safe recovery from trauma.
Healing from trauma can also cause emotional discomfort at times. At Healing Paths, we don’t want the therapy process to be so painful, it shuts you down, preventing meaningful progress, which can be common with many types of talk therapy. If you’ve gone the treatment and you found you couldn’t tolerate it for some reason, give us a call. We may have the right option for your situation.
Start Today
Contact our Utah Utah therapy clinic with two convenient locations in Bountiful and downtown Salt Lake City. Start the healing process from trauma and PTSD. Recovery isn’t just possible. With well-trained professional help, it is a scientific reality.