After experiencing a traumatic event (or multiple events over time), if you don’t have support to work through your feelings, you can end up carrying that trauma with you long term. Everyday life experiences can become triggers, pulling you right back to the way you felt in the moment the trauma occurred. The emotional distress of untreated trauma can find its way into every aspect of your life, impacting your relationships, your professional sphere, and your sense of self.
Trauma treatment can help you process even the most overwhelming and difficult emotions trauma can trigger. But what kind of trauma treatment will work best for you? At Suffolk DBT, we offer EMDR, DBT-PE, and ART for trauma. Keep reading to learn more about each treatment and how it can help you!
What is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)?
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, is a well-researched, 8-step trauma treatment approach that combines bilateral stimulation of the body (through eye movement, tapping, or sounds) with reprocessing memories. Your therapist will guide you in discovering the negative beliefs associated with traumatic experiences, helping you store these memories in a new way in your mind. You’ll add positive beliefs that reflect the present-day you, and you’ll scan your body to see how EMDR changes your physical responses to trauma, giving you back a sense of self and control in the face of trauma triggers.
EMDR helps you rebuild your mental and emotional relationship with your memories, which in turn reduces their influence over your present-day life. Your therapist will support you throughout the process, supporting you with grounding exercises, emotional safety plans, and checking in each session to see how the EMDR process is working for you.
For people struggling with PTSD and cPTSD, EMDR can be the therapy approach that finally offers relief from the impacts of trauma.
What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy – Prolonged Exposure (DBT-PE)?
DBT-PE leverages the emotional regulation that is inherent to using DBT skills, coupling it with supported exposures to trauma triggers to help people break away from avoidance rooted in trauma, so they can more freely choose how to live their lives.
After completing a DBT program, your DBT-PE therapist will work with you to assess and revisit trauma memories in session in a way that protects you emotionally, working to process the thoughts and feelings that come up.
Between sessions, you’ll pursue exposures, where you do something, go somewhere, try something that trauma has taught you is unsafe. You’ll use your DBT skills to handle tough emotions and thoughts that come up, dealing with them in that moment.
You’ll discuss your experiences with your therapist, further processing the emotions and thoughts that arise for you. After working through DBT-PE, your therapist may revisit certain DBT concepts to help you further process trauma. Throughout this process, DBT will be the structure you can lean on as you work through trauma, push past avoidance, and start facing life head-on.
What is Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)?
Accelerated resolution therapy, or ART, is a newer approach to trauma treatment that helps people rapidly process the emotional distress from traumatic memories. ART is derived from EMDR, with some key differences that increase the speed of resolution of trauma for some patients.
In ART, you do not have to discuss details of your traumatic experiences. You will select a traumatic experience to process, and from there, your therapist will guide you in using predictable eye movements to help your body and mind stay partially present in the moment of the session, while visualizing the memory and noticing the physical and emotional reactions you experience.
From there, you will be guided by your ART therapist in replacing the imagery of the memory with imagery you choose. Your chosen imagery will be positive and supportive, reframing the experience for you in a way that takes your power back from the trauma, reducing its ability to impact you in the present day.
Many people experience some relief from trauma symptoms within one session, so for those who struggle to speak about their trauma and who would like to find rapid relief, ART may be an excellent choice for healing.
How to choose the right trauma treatment for you
When considering trauma treatments, think about your personality and your goals.
- Do you do really well with visualization? Are you hoping to make rapid changes? ART may be very helpful.
- Are you looking to dig deeply into core beliefs and exchange them for ones that better reflect who you are? EMDR may help you the most.
- Do you feel like your life is limited by trauma? DBT-PE may help you live your life more fully and treat trauma at the same time.
You may even find that you’d like to try different approaches for different traumas. While it is a good idea to focus your treatment on one modality at a time, there’s no reason you couldn’t pursue different ones sequentially. A practice like Suffolk DBT that offers ART, DBT-PE, and EMDR in our Long Island & Manhattan offices can give you a wealth of options, and based on your personal circumstances, can help you choose the right trauma therapy for you.
What if therapy hasn’t worked well for you in the past?
Talk therapy doesn’t always work well for healing trauma, whether it be PTSD or complex trauma, and there is evidence that it can even be retraumatizing for some people. If you have found traditional talk therapy unhelpful, it’s important you know that you are not alone, and also that there’s nothing wrong with you.
ART, DBT-PE, and EMDR take very different approaches to trauma than typical talk therapy, and the unique approaches each modality takes can make a meaningful difference that talk therapy might not manage to provide.
One of the major advantages of working with Suffolk DBT is having the opportunity to try a modality that appeals to you, and if it isn’t the right fit, you can easily switch to a different modality or a different practitioner to find the therapy that truly helps you. The sole goal of all our therapists at our Long Island & Manhattan offices is to find the best fit for therapy for everyone who entrusts us with their care.
Why are DBT-trained therapists the best choice for trauma treatment?
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a therapy approach to mental and emotional well-being that teaches people many different methods to tolerate distress, interact with others effectively, stay present in the moment (where the trauma is not currently happening), and find emotional regulation, even in the most overwhelming moments of their lives. Therapists trained in a DBT intensive approach are more in tune with emotional overwhelm in their clients, and trauma is a common source of emotional overwhelm. Because DBT-trained therapists are well-versed in working with clients on reducing emotional overwhelm, their DBT training translates well into more effectively supporting clients in need of trauma therapy.
Trauma treatment at Suffolk DBT’s Long Island & Manhattan offices is provided by DBT-trained therapists who combine the supportive, structured DBT approach to emotional regulation with additional expertise and certification in ART, EMDR, and DBT-PE therapies. When you schedule a free 15-minute call with our intake team, we can help you figure out what therapeutic approach can help you the most, and you can get started on a path away from unprocessed trauma, toward a life that feels like it is well worth living!