Trauma Counselling

Recovering From Trauma and Attachment Wounds Is Possible

If you’ve been struggling with trauma, or dealing with attachment wounds and you’re ready to get support, the therapists at Thrivewell Counselling are here for you.

Living with emotional trauma, PTSD, and attachment challenges is hard, and we want you to know that there is hope and there is help available. Our counsellors are trained in specific ways to help you process trauma and overcome attachment wounds. It doesn’t matter how many years ago this pain began, there are ways to move forward and start thriving in your life.

What Is Trauma?

Emotional trauma occurs when distressing events shake your sense of security, making you feel helpless and vulnerable. This isn't just about feeling upset; it's a deep, often physical response to experiences that have felt too intense or frightening. If you're feeling overwhelmed by certain events in your life, struggling to cope, and noticing changes in your mood, sleep, or overall well-being, you might be experiencing emotional trauma. If this sounds familiar, it's important to know that help is available, and reaching out to a professional can be a crucial step towards healing.

What Are Attachment Wounds?

Attachment wounds stem from significant disruptions or disappointments in important relationships, especially during childhood. These wounds can leave you feeling insecure, struggling to trust, or having difficulties with forming close relationships as an adult. If you're often anxious about your relationships, fear abandonment, or find it hard to connect with others on a deeper level, these could be signs of attachment wounds.

Recognizing these patterns is the first step towards healing, and therapy can offer a supportive space to explore and address these issues.

Certain Forms Of Therapy Can Be Especially Helpful For Trauma and Attachment Wounds

Trauma and attachment wounds are mental health conditions that can be managed, treated, and even healed, but it’s important that your therapist has the skills to provide the care you need. Below are a variety of mental health modalities that are helpful with trauma and attachment. ThriveWell counsellors are trained in some or all of these.

Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

CPT is a specific type of cognitive-behavioral therapy that helps you to re-evaluate and change unhelpful beliefs related to your trauma. It's particularly effective for processing traumatic events and can aid in healing attachment wounds by addressing the thoughts that interfere with your ability to form secure relationships.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

EMDR can help you to more fully process traumatic memories, which in turn provides more possibility to heal from the emotional distress those memories carry. By using bilateral stimulation (which is alternating stimulation on either side of your brain and body - either with sound, sight, or tapping), EMDR helps your brain reprocess traumatic memories (even those from early childhood), much like occurs in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep. With this, traumatic memories can become less distressing and less likely to interfere in your life today. This can lead to more positive thoughts, healthy attachments, and improved relationships with yourself, and those you are close to.

Somatic Therapy

Somatic therapy focuses on the connection between the mind and body. You know that “gut feeling”? Somatic therapy is about tuning back into the wisdom of your body, learning to listen (and express) your body’s truth - because your body never lies.

This form of therapy can help you to understand and release physical tension and the emotions that remain in your body as a result of trauma. It supports healing by fostering a deeper sense of bodily awareness and safety.

Ego-State Therapy

Ego-State Therapy honours that our personalities are composed of many different parts, or ego states, each with their own feelings of power or weakness, emotions, defenses, skills, and other personality traits. As we grow, our states tend to grow with us. With trauma, however, states might get ‘stuck’ based on our experiences. The parts of self that might emerge most strongly, may be ego states focused predominantly on safety, survival, protection, managing problems, and absorbing emotional and/or physical pain.

Ego state therapy can help you move towards greater health and wellness, increasing communication and healing amongst parts, and strengthening a sense of internal cohesion and harmony within. Often, ego state therapy can help increase your ability to cope with challenging situations, and can be used in conjunction with a variety of other therapeutic approaches. It can be particularly helpful in the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex-PTSD (C-PTSD), and Dissociative Disorders.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)

Internal Family Systems (IFS), looks at the internal system that makes us whole. The internal system is made up of the Self, and different parts, some of which are protective and others that are vulnerable. Parts hold past memories, vulnerabilities and feelings, often including experiences that were not safe to process in the past.

Protective parts have often helped us function, but can also be on constant alert for dangers or threats. This can impact our relationships, our day-to-day lives, and stop us from healing our younger parts of self. Internal Family Systems can help build awareness and understanding within, and ultimately can lead to a greater sense of wholeness, authenticity, and internal healing.

Narrative Therapy

Narrative Therapy allows you to re-author your life story, placing traumatic events in contexts that empower rather than diminish. It helps in reshaping your identity and relationships by emphasizing agency, and helping to heal attachment wounds by fostering a sense of control and resilience. Narrative therapy can also highlight and rewrite the hurtful narratives of ‘isms’ in our society and the ongoing microaggressions that can come from these.

Polyvagal Theory

Polyvagal Theory can help you understand how trauma and attachment experiences have affected your body, and in turn how your body continues to respond to these today. Understanding the role the nervous system plays in your past and current trauma responses, can help with healing these responses, opening up the possibility of remaining more physiologically and emotionally grounded in stressful situations. Polyvagal exercises and techniques are used as a means of developing your ability to regulate the nervous system in a way that lessens fear and anxiety, anger and frustration. With Polyvagal work, you’ll also be able to set up in advance, ways to support your mind and body throughout situations you anticipate as stressful. Maintaining emotion regulation and trust within, will help you to feel more confident and prepared to handle life’s ups and downs.

Attachment Theory

Attachment Theory helps you to explore how early relationships with parents and caregivers may influence your attachment style as an adult. Attachment-based therapy focuses on exploring the patterns of how you connect with others, tracing back to your earliest relationships and how they shape your interactions today.

When it comes to adult attachment in relationships, there are mainly three types: avoidant (where you might keep a distance from others), anxious (where you may fear being abandoned and seek constant reassurance), and secure (where you feel comfortable with intimacy and independence). Understanding whether you lean towards avoidant, anxious, or secure attachment can illuminate why you interact the way you do in work, family, and personal relationships.

By recognizing these patterns, you're better equipped to navigate conflicts, communicate more effectively, and build stronger, more fulfilling and secure connections with those around you, today. Knowing your attachment style can guide you towards healthier, more satisfying interactions with everyone in your life.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness-based therapy is a gentle approach to helping you become more aware of the present moment, using methods like deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and mindful observation to ease stress and anxiety. Imagine pausing to take slow, deep breaths when you're feeling overwhelmed, or consciously relaxing your muscles one by one after a long day. It's about noticing what's happening right now, without judgment—whether you're washing dishes, feeling the sun on your face, or experiencing a difficult emotion.

This therapy meets you where you are, especially if you have a history of trauma. It carefully builds a sense of safety and grounding, making it easier for you to navigate your feelings and experiences. By practicing mindfulness, you can learn to stay connected and calm, even in stressful situations, fostering a sense of peace and resilience in your daily life. By fostering a non-judgmental awareness of your thoughts and feelings, mindfulness supports emotion regulation and secure attachment.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Though not primarily for trauma, ACT is beneficial as a supportive therapy by promoting your psychological flexibility. It helps you accept your experiences, commit to personal values, and take meaningful actions towards your goals.

This approach can support your trauma recovery by helping you actively choose actions that move you forward in positive and life affirming ways in your life.

With Therapy You Can Move Beyond Surviving And Start To Thrive

Trauma and attachment wounds don’t have to hold you back in life. With the help of one of our skilled therapists, you can begin to address your challenges and start to feel relief, peace, and most importantly, hope for the future.