Trauma & PTSD Counseling in Madison, WI

Trauma and Loss

Unresolved Trauma and Loss causes us to not reach our potential, not know what we want from life, not know who we are as a person, not have a consistent sense of self, not know what behaviors are healthy for us, and not know who is healthy for us to be in relationship with. It causes us to feel like nothing we ever do is enough, we are broken, undeserving of love, we see ourselves as a failure or a phony.  

Relational Trauma

Relational Trauma, meaning trauma occurring in the guise of a loving relationship, teaches us that love is rejection. When the people who we are supposed to be able to trust and who are supposed to love us most repeatedly engage in rejecting/abandoning behaviors, we learn that love is rejection. This makes it impossible for us to maintain loving emotional connection with ourselves or others for any length of time, leading to chronic feelings of isolation, loneliness, and abandonment.  It can feel hopeless as if there is no way out and you will never feel better.

Trauma Can Lead to Shame

There are many types of trauma and they all cause us to blame ourselves. Shame is the natural emotion that every human experiences after they undergo an unpredictable, out-of-control, traumatic event. Shame is also the emotion that blocks the mind and body from healing from the trauma. Shame leads to energetic stuckness and emotional repression. The repression of emotions causes a wide range of mental health and physical health issues, such as addictive behaviors, self-harm, panic attacks, depression, eating disorder behaviors, mood swings, tics, sleep issues, reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, and many more.

Often when clients come to therapy, they want to heal one of the issues that are caused by chronic emotional repression. To heal from trauma, we need to feel the repressed emotions associated with the traumatic event in an atmosphere of love and attentiveness, which will also heal the more overt mental health issue.  

Trauma Therapy Helps You Move forward

We can help you identify the root cause of your mental health issues and then begin to investigate how these traumatic experiences have shaped your life. Then we will train you in how to identify, feel, express and let go of painful emotions and their associated uncomfortable body sensations. During the process of healing, we put a strong emphasis to developing self-love for your emotions and your body sensations. Once you are able to regulate your emotions in the context of love, we will guide you through your own painful history, teaching you to give yourself the love and support you did not receive in your past.  

The good news is that there is hope. You can learn to love yourself and others, maintain healthy emotional connections, access what you want in life and fulfill your potential.

Contact Our Madison Therapy Team

To schedule a free 20-minute consultation, click the button below to reach our contact form. We’ll schedule a time to talk, where we can answer your questions and see if we’re a good fit for each other.