According to “How to Manage Trauma” from the National Council for Behavioral Health, 223.4 million (70%) U.S. adults have experienced trauma. Trauma is a common part of life, like grieving the loss of a loved one. Despite the prevalence of trauma, many people can recover and go on with their lives. Yet, when left unaddressed, trauma can be detrimental to your psychological and physical well-being. The presence of trauma-related conditions can impede multiple domains of life including relationships, daily tasks, and life goals. Thus, access to comprehensive treatment modalities can help you address your trauma-specific challenges to healing.
At The Guest House, we provide holistic, experiential therapies because we know the impact trauma can have on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When left to fester, trauma can contribute to self-defeating thinking and behavior patterns, which can make individuals vulnerable to substance use disorder (SUD) and mental health disorders. Therefore, it is important to address and process your experiences with holistic trauma-specific treatment modalities.
However, trying to cope with trauma and a co-occurring condition can feel overwhelming. You may question how holistic treatment modalities can help you address and manage your symptoms to heal. Understanding how trauma functions and impacts you is an important first step toward long-term recovery.
What Is Trauma and How Does It Impact Well-Being?
Trauma can come in a variety of forms and contribute to complex and unique health outcomes. In general, as Mental Health America (MHA) notes in “Understanding Trauma and PTSD,” trauma is an emotional response to one or multiple distressing events or situations. Yet, what is considered a traumatic event or experience? Trauma can result from direct experience, witnessing a threat to your life or security, or indirectly hearing about another person’s trauma.
Some traumas are more obvious or well-known, such as sexual abuse and physical abuse. However, trauma can come in many other forms, including:
- Physical neglect
- Emotional abuse and neglect
- Natural disasters
- Human-caused disasters
- Working as a first responder
- Media coverage of trauma
- Loss of a loved one
- Physical injuries
- Dealing with a chronic or life-threatening health condition
- War
- Exposure to discrimination-based trauma
- Intimate partner violence (IPV)
- Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)
- Neglect
- Untreated parental mental health disorders
- Unaddressed parental SUD
- Loss of parent to death, separation, or divorce
- Incarceration of a parent, caregiver, or other important family member
These traumatic experiences impair your sense of security in yourself, others, and the world. Further, traumatic experiences often manifest as mental health disorders and other challenges. Some of the trauma-related conditions that can develop when trauma is left unaddressed include:
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Acute stress disorder (ASD)
- Anxiety disorders
- Depression
- SUD
Trauma coupled with challenges with SUD and other mental health disorders can have a significant impact on functionality. As noted in “The Association Between Type of Trauma, Level of Exposure and Addiction” by Yafit Levin et al., different types of traumas can have various kinds of psychological effects and health outcomes. Listed below are some of the other ways trauma can harm your well-being:
- Increases risk of feeling insecure in your body or the world
- Can make you gravitate toward self-isolation
- Decreases self-esteem
- Can cause difficulty in building and maintaining healthy relationships
- Impairs communication
- Decreases relationship satisfaction
- Increases conflict
- Impedes perceived level of alliance
- Decreases mutual trust
- Can make you unable to manage responsibilities and obligations effectively
Despite the harm trauma can cause to your physical and psychological well-being, healing is possible. Through holistic treatment modalities, you can find the support needed to address trauma and co-occurring conditions.
What Are Holistic Treatment Modalities?
A holistic approach to care means treating you as a whole person rather than treating merely the symptoms you are struggling with. As the Indian Journal of Palliative Care states, holistic care is structured in holism, which recognizes that the whole is greater than the sum of your parts. Moreover, holistic care is a part of a comprehensive model of care that acknowledges well-being is influenced by multiple domains. Each domain is interconnected and interdependent, thus the mind, body, and spirit are deeply intertwined with each other. Through their interdependence, each domain can positively and negatively impact each other.
Within holistic treatment modalities are trauma-specific approaches. Trauma-specific treatment modalities are designed to address the challenges in disorders like SUD and PTSD that are rooted in trauma. Although everyone’s experiences and needs for recovery are unique to them, several holistic modalities can support trauma recovery. Some trauma-specific treatment modalities include eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), brainspotting, somatic experiencing, equine therapy, and adventure therapy. Through these trauma-specific therapies, holistic treatment programs work to go beyond treating symptoms.
With holistic treatment modalities, you can address a broader range of challenges that are rooted in trauma. According to a publication by Garima Yadav et al., trauma-focused psychotherapy like EMDR, uses cognitive, emotional, or behavioral techniques to process traumatic experiences. Through trauma-focused therapy, a variety of treatment modalities can address the physical and psychological complexities of trauma.
Exploring Mind-Body Treatment Modalities
In addition to SUD and other mental health disorders, trauma can also impact your physical body. When trauma gets stuck in the body, it impacts how your nervous system functions. Trauma can activate your fight-or-flight stress response and leave you stuck in survival mode.
Your nervous system comprises two parts, the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. Within the central nervous system is your brain and spinal cord. Through your brain and spinal cord, you can control and process your thoughts, memories, emotions, and behaviors. The peripheral nervous system controls internal body processes like blood pressure, breathing, and muscles, and sends signals to the eyes, ears, mouth, and skin.
Understanding the basic components of the nervous system is important as it highlights the interdependent nature of the mind and body. When trauma overtakes your nervous system, it disrupts your physical and psychological response to stress. You become overwhelmed by real and perceived stressors, which makes functioning in your daily life feel impossible.
Therefore, a greater awareness and understanding of the mind-body connection provides insight into the impact of trauma. Not only does the mind-body connection seen in the nervous system showcase the impact of trauma but it also speaks to the tools that support trauma recovery. Treatment modalities like EMDR and brainspotting have been commonly linked to the treatment of trauma. Yet, how do mind-body interventions address and heal trauma? Mind-body, nature-based, and animal-assisted interventions are particularly valuable to a wide range of people.
As stated in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology, body-focused and animal-assisted interventions are approachable and non-threatening. Furthermore, mind-body, nature-based, and animal-assisted therapies foster present-moment awareness to dismantle stuck trauma. With more insight into the components of each trauma-specific therapy, you can understand how they can support your recovery.
EMDR and Brainspotting
In recent years, EMDR therapy has become a staple in treatment programs addressing PTSD. Because of EMDR’s ability to capture the mind-body connection of trauma, you can learn how to reconnect with yourself and dismantle the impact of trauma. However, what exactly is EMDR therapy? Developed in 1987 by Doctor Francine Shapiro, EMDR came out of Doctor Shapiro’s work with distressing memories. She discovered that, through eye movements, there seemed to be a reduction in the intensity of distressing thoughts and memories.
More specifically, EMDR therapy uses bilateral eye movements or other rhythmic forms like tones and taps to sweep across your field of vision. Further, as noted by the Cleveland Clinic in “EMDR Therapy”, EMDR therapy is reliant on the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model. Doctor Shapiro developed the AIP model to understand how memories are processed. Through AIP it is recognized that the brain stores typical and traumatic memories differently, which impacts functioning. Your brain can smoothly process and store typical life events as memories.
However, when the system is impaired, stressful events are then stored in a raw, unprocessed, and maladaptive form. Thus, with traumatic experiences, there is a disconnect between what you experienced and what your brain stores in your memory. Therefore, as stated by Frontiers in Psychology, then traumatic dysfunctionally stored memories are the root of future maladaptive responses. Understanding traumatic experiences as the root of maladaptive coping makes addressing memories an important step in EMDR therapy. During an EMDR session, you may be asked to think about or talk about a memory, triggers, or negative emotions related to your trauma.
While thinking or talking about the memory, trigger, or emotion, you will use your eyes to focus on your clinician’s moving finger. Additionally, your clinician may use external stimuli like the tactile sensation of alternating hand taps or sound moving from ear to ear. Thus, you will be able to focus directly on the dysfunctionally stored memory to reduce distressing symptoms to change maladaptive emotions, thoughts, or behaviors. Through specific rapid eye movements, which are controlled by the nervous system, you can reprogram traumatic memories with a new positive belief. Similar to EMDR, brainspotting is a body-focused trauma-specific treatment.
According to the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, in 2003 brainspotting was born out of David Grand’s EMDR work and somatic experiencing training. Much like EMDR, brainspotting utilizes eye movement but focuses on different targets. In EMDR the target is the traumatic memory, while in brainspotting the target is the visual point of activation. More specifically, brainspotting focuses on observing your bodily responses to describing traumatic experiences. By observing a specific or resonating spot within your visual field, you can connect to where the trauma is stuck in your body.
Further, brainspotting recognizes that the brain and body work interdependently through the nervous system to function. Thus, when the mind-body connection is disrupted, the nervous system malfunctions, and coping becomes maladaptive. When you recognize the role of the nervous system in your overstimulated stress response, you can tap into where previously inaccessible traumatic material has been stored. Specifically, as noted in “Brainspotting” from Southeastern Louisiana University, the subcortical brain is where unresolved traumatic memories are stored. The subcortical brain which is a part of the central nervous system is the region that controls and processes memory, emotion, behavior, and learning.
Your traumatic memories are dysfunctionally stored and difficult to access directly, especially when you are overwhelmed by the fight-or-flight stress response. Thus, during a typical brainspotting session, your clinician will help guide you with a pointer across the field of vision to a specific eye position. Locating the appropriate eye position will activate a psychophysiological response to a traumatic memory. With a greater understanding of the mind-body connection of trauma, you can then see the significance of body-oriented treatments like somatic experiencing.
Somatic Experiencing
Much like EMDR and brainspotting, somatic experiencing is a body-focused therapy commonly used to address trauma-related conditions like PTSD. Specifically, somatic experiencing is a body-oriented therapy that focuses on physical sensations and how you feel in your body. Trauma often manifests as stress in the body, which can be seen in somatic symptoms from disorders like anxiety, PTSD, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Listed below are some of the somatic symptoms that can stem from unaddressed trauma:
- Racing heart
- Shortness of breath
- Rapid breathing
- Muscle tension
- Chest pain
- Stomach pain
- Headaches
- Sweating
Looking at some of the somatic symptoms of trauma highlights the interconnected relationship trauma shares with the nervous system. Every system from physiological processes like breathing, digestion, and muscle control to negative thinking patterns is interdependent. Therefore, somatic experiencing works to help you recognize your internal bodily sensations through a bottom-up processing approach.
Yet, what is a bottom-up approach? You may be familiar with the term top-bottom processing in which you perceive things based on prior experiences and knowledge. Thus, you make sense of the world and new experiences based on what you already know. Whereas, as noted in the European Journal of Psychotraumatology, a bottom-up processing approach focuses on the body and the body’s memory. As a result, you process trauma by connecting to the subcortical brain centers like the brain stem and limbic system.
When you are aware of your body’s sensations and recognize their connection to stress, you can change the way your body responds to that traumatic memory. Then you can learn how to focus on positive sensations, thoughts, and memories with techniques like guided imagery. With more awareness of the mind-body connection, you can find value in other mindful treatment modalities like equine therapy and adventure therapy.
Equine Therapy and Adventure Therapy
Animals have a special place in many people’s lives as companions, family, and support. As the United States Census Bureau (USCB) notes, 49.6 percent of occupied households have at least one pet. The prevalence of pets can be tied to the special bond humans and animals share. In particular, the bond between humans and animals can be seen in human’s long history with horses. Horses are remarkable creatures with a great capacity for empathy and trust.
In this way, equine therapy can be an incredible therapy to help heal the loss of trust and security that comes from trauma. Yet, what exactly is equine therapy? In general, equine therapy incorporates horses into the therapeutic process. Thus, equine therapy can encompass activities and interventions for individuals and groups like horseback riding. However, even horseback riding is diverse in the ways it can support well-being through riding, grooming, and learning how to care for horses.
Through body-to-body contact and non-verbal communication, a connection is formed. You can form a physical and emotional bond with your horse that gives you the non-judgmental space to rediscover belonging and trust. The sense of connection and healing found in physical engagement can also be seen in adventure therapy. Adventure therapy typically includes a set of programs or services that use outdoor activities and experiential learning exercises like ropes courses to cope with psychological distress. Working in tandem with others on a physical activity gives you the space to organically connect.
Equine therapy and adventure therapy highlight the value of nature to healing in mind, body, and spirit. The development and use of trauma-specific treatment modalities are significant because trauma is difficult to think and talk about. There is an overwhelming level of physical and psychological distress that impedes processing trauma. As a result, trauma gets stuck in the body and manifests itself as somatic and psychological conditions as a maladaptive coping strategy. Therefore, holistic treatment modalities like EMDR, brainspotting, somatic experiencing, equine therapy, and adventure become invaluable to healing.
Healing Trauma With Trauma-Specific Treatment Modalities at The Guest House
At The Guest House, we believe in a holistic approach to treatment because everyone heals in different ways. There is no one-size-fits-all treatment program, so you deserve treatment that considers your individual needs. Further, each domain of you and your life is integral to who you are and your well-being. With holistic care, healing the whole of your parts is made possible for long-term recovery.
Trauma can have a significant impact on your well-being, from mental health disorders like PTSD to SUD. However, holistic treatment modalities like EMDR, brainspotting, somatic experiencing, equine therapy, and adventure therapy can help address the complex and interdependent nature of trauma-related challenges. Treatment modalities like EMDR are particularly effective as trauma-specific treatments as they consider the mind-body component of trauma-related conditions. Trauma often gets stuck in the body and manifests as physical and psychological distress that impedes functioning in your daily life, work, school, and relationships. With holistic care, you can connect to your inner self and unlock stuck trauma to heal. Call The Guest House at (855) 483-7800 to learn how holistic care can support you.