Therapy versus Trauma Therapy
Therapy vs. Trauma Therapy: Key Differences Explained by a Trauma Therapist in Baltimore"
What You Need to Know from a Trauma Therapist
As a trauma therapist in Baltimore, I specialize in Brainspotting, EMDR, and Parts Work/ IFS.. This blog aims to clarify the key differences between general therapy and trauma therapy. If you’re looking to better understand these distinctions, you’re taking the first step toward making an informed decision about your healing journey.
My goal is to provide insight into the unique approach trauma therapy takes toward healing and to distinguish it from traditional therapy. By explaining how trauma-focused therapies work, I hope to help you better understand which type of therapy might best support your needs. Let’s break down how trauma therapy stands apart and why it could be the key to shifting your current experience.
What is General Therapy and How Does It Work?
Traditional therapy is a broad approach but often focuses on talking and utilizing cognitive strategies to improve emotional well-being, offer coping strategies, and help with life’s everyday stressors like anxiety, depression, or relationship challenges. Also referred to as ‘Top-Down’ (aka Brain to Body) approaches have been around longer and can be efficacious for acute problems. While talk therapy can be valuable it focuses more on changing thoughts and managing symptoms rather than healing the complex, physiological and emotional responses shaped by our unique lived experience.
What is Trauma Therapy and How Does It Differ?
Trauma therapy is specifically designed to help individuals heal from the effects of past stressful experiences. While traditional therapy addresses generally how we think and relate to our emotions/ symptoms, trauma therapy goes deeper, targeting the neurobiological and physical responses embedded in the body and brain by trauma. Modern and more encompassing perspectives of what is considered trauma have been critical to validate the substantial impact of experiences that might not meet criteria of the DSM-5 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition).
To more fully understand what stays stuck in the body and contributes to distress and negative impact, the mental heath field can expand the ‘trauma aperture’ to include the impact of adverse community experiences such as poverty, discrimination, violence, patriarchy, colonization, enslavement and genocide.
A solid trauma-informed therapist understands the significance of information stored in the body - below cognitive awareness and processing - and has the capacity to be attuned, calm and present as a person accesses, reprocesses and heals past experiences contributing to current distress and the unique imprint it has on their experience the present. Effective trauma therapy uses specialized modalities like Brainspotting, EMDR, and Parts Work/IFS - to name a few - to work with the body, target the root causes of trauma and help clients move through the emotional and physiological impacts of past distress.
How Does Trauma Affect the Brain and Body?
Trauma profoundly affects both the brain and body, often altering brain functioning, emotional regulation, and even physical responses. As humans, we are conditioned to watch out for threat and to emphasize negative experiences in service for survival. These essential elements of survival can trip up keeping a past experience in the past and instead can stay stuck in the body.
Trauma may leave someone in an ongoing dysregulated nervous system state. Powerful brain body modalities can address the ‘trauma capsules’ being incorrectly stored and allow for an experience to be processed to completion - or to a point in the present where it no longer carries the same distress and can be paired with adaptive information.
Trauma therapy, particularly Brainspotting and EMDR, works to rewire the brain’s stress response. By addressing these neurological and physiological effects, these therapies help individuals process and release traumatic memories, ultimately regaining a sense of safety and emotional regulation.
How Can Brainspotting and EMDR Help Process Trauma?
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) uses bilateral stimulation to help the brain process traumatic memories. Brainspotting targets specific eye positions, tapping into deeply stored trauma in the brain for more profound healing.
Both of these methods have helped clients achieve significant breakthroughs, reducing symptoms like flashbacks, anxiety, and intrusive thoughts. Clients often experience emotional relief as their traumatic memories lose their emotional intensity, allowing for greater healing and integration.
What Role Does Parts Work/IFS Play in Trauma Healing?
Internal Family Systems (IFS), or Parts Work, views the psyche as made up of various "parts," or subpersonalities. These parts can include wounded inner children or protective figures that hold onto the pain from trauma. In trauma therapy, these parts are accessed to understand the trauma they hold, helping to integrate and heal fragmented aspects of the self.
Parts work/ IFS helps clients address internal conflicts caused by trauma and fosters greater emotional resilience and self-understanding, leading to healing and integration of parts that may have been stuck in a state of distress for years and carry old information.
How Do I Know If I Need Trauma Therapy or General Therapy?
If your previous therapy hasn’t provided lasting relief or if you struggle with ongoing symptoms, themes or patterns, I encourage you to reach out and learn more about how a body based approach and trauma informed can support the change you are seeking.
In summary, while general therapy is helpful for emotional well-being, trauma therapy targets the deeper, root causes of trauma, offering specialized techniques that help the brain and body heal. Trauma therapies such as Brainspotting, EMDR, and Parts Work/IFS focus on unearthing and addressing the past wounds that hinder you living as your fullest, most wholehearted self.
It adds a layer of pain to our experience when we feel alone. Seeking therapy or support in any form is always courageous step toward healing. If you’re finding ongoing stuck points in current general therapy work, please reach out and I’ll see how I can help. If I’m not the best match, I’d be happy to help connect you with the right person to meet your needs.
If you’re ready to take the next step in your journey, reach out to a trusted trauma therapist in Baltimore. Schedule a consultation with me today to explore how Brainspotting, EMDR, and Parts Work/IFS can support your trauma recovery.
