How does this differ from "regular" counseling?

 

Regular counseling or therapy can be very helpful and for many people, is sufficient for their needs. Therapists may focus on helping you change your thoughts or behavior, develop better ways of coping, resolve crises, strengthen relationships, or improve your family's situation. However, therapists cannot possibly keep up with research and advances in all areas, or to obtain training in every new technique that comes along. Having encountered first hand the limitations of treating trauma as a general practitioner, I decided to move into the specialized field of trauma treatment.

In "regular" therapy, the therapist is using their left prefrontal cortex to talk to your left prefrontal cortex, which uses only a very limited, conscious portion of the brain. Trauma, however, is limbic, not cognitive. It is stored deeper in the brain, outside conscious awareness. Trauma cannot be thought or "willed" to go away because it is embedded in processes that ensure survival of the species. Evidence now indicates that simply talking about or expressing emotion related to the traumatic experience can make the person worse by igniting unconscious processes that burn the traumatic event even deeper into the brain.

Specialized treatment aims to integrate change and create transformation. A specialist folds "talk therapy" into a wide variety of techniques based on contemporary research in neuroscience, trauma, developmental and attachment theories, somatic therapies, and more. The client and specialist are literally working with the mind-body connection to produce a felt sense of surviving the traumatic event.

The emphasis is on healing core issues at their source. Rather than having to manage symptoms, the symptoms resolve.