Trauma Therapies
Our approach to addressing trauma is to use body-mind oriented therapies. Traumatic events impact both mind and body—when a person experiences trauma, they are likely to be disconnected from their bodies. At Reconnect, we teach clients specific tools and techniques that help them to feel their bodies so that deeper healing can occur.
Somatic Therapies
At Reconnect, we utilize two types of somatic therapies.
Somatic Experiencing, developed by Peter Levine, is a body-awareness approach to trauma currently taught throughout the world. It is based upon the realization that human beings have an innate ability to overcome the effects of trauma. Somatic Experiencing aims to help people move past the place where they might be “stuck” in processing a traumatic event.
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, developed by Pat Ogden, is a somatic cognitive approach for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and attachment disturbances. It is built upon traditional psychotherapeutic techniques, but approaches the body as central in the therapeutic field of awareness.
EMDR
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), developed by Francine Shapiro, is a form of psychotherapy that has become a powerful tool against trauma. EMDR works by unlocking the nervous system and allowing the brain to process the experience and visualize disturbing material in a new, less distressing way. With EMDR, the process appears accelerated. Symptoms consistently are brought down to a level that they are less intrusive and easier to manage. To date, EMDR has helped an estimated half-million people of all ages relieve many types of psychological distress.
Brainspotting
Brainspotting, developed by David Grand, is a powerful form of psychotherapy that can access parts of the brain that are often hidden from our awareness. Brainspotting is a simultaneous form of diagnosis and treatment of trauma, enhanced with bilateral sound, which is deep and direct. This enhances healing in a very focused way.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a technique which cultivates an intentional awareness of the present moment. It can help a person develop greater compassion toward others and less negativity, enhancing both relationships and health. It can be practiced at any time, too.
DBT
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a type of psychotherapy which helps people regulate their emotions and improve their interpersonal relationships.
It combines some cognitive-behavioral techniques with concepts from Eastern philosophy, such as acceptance and mindfulness. DBT helps people to identify the obstacles that prevent them from achieving their goals and then work on developing skills that can help them cope more effectively with difficult situations.
The goal of DBT is to reduce suffering, enable change, and cultivate life-long skills in self-management, problem solving, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.
Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback is Brainstate Management Training, sometimes referred to as a “self-regulation” modality, that can help with a wide variety of presenting symptoms. Training with Neurofeedback helps your brain and your central nervous system communicate and execute better, dramatically reducing many presenting symptoms and thus improving your quality of life.
Neurofeedback is not a surgery, or a medication. It is just a form of training for your brain, promoting healthy function. It’s like going to the gym for your brain!
Some people with different brainwaves (EEG) may not respond well to medication, and this treatment is an effective alternative treatment.
Art Therapy
The language of visual art — colors, shapes, lines and images — speaks to us in ways which words cannot. Art therapy is a modality that uses the nonverbal language of art for personal growth, insight and transformation, and is a means of connecting what is inside us — our thoughts, feelings and perceptions — with our outer realities and life experiences. Art making can help us express fear, anxiety and other stressful emotions.
Researchers have discovered recently that traumatic experiences become encoded in the mind in the form of images, almost like a camera taking a photograph. Visual art may offer a unique way to express traumatic images, bringing them to consciousness in a less threatening way than words. One does not have to be considered an artist to express themselves in this form.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is part of a complete medical system which dates back over 6000 years. Stimulation of specific points by the insertion of very thin needles increases blood flow and at the same time triggers hormones to be released such as endorphins and oxytocin. Both hormones have an effect on relaxing the nervous system, which is why clients report feeling lower stress levels and anxiety after treatment.
Along with lowering anxiety and stress levels, acupuncture can treat pain, headaches, digestive issues and insomnia. Acupuncture is an adjunct treatment modality. Incorporating it along with other healing modalities at Reconnect Trauma Treatment Center creates a holistic healing approach.
Yoga
All forms of yoga have profound therapeutic physical and psychological benefits. Yoga produces anti-aging benefits by dramatically lowering stress, uplifting mood, and aiding in a more restful sleep. The deepened connection between mind and body that one experiences and builds through yoga reflects the goals we aim to accomplish through our intensive trauma treatment programs.
Recovery Coaching
During your time at Reconnect you will focus on therapeutic treatment that will help you address underlying trauma, so that you can reconnect to yourself and, ultimately, to your community. Many clients may need additional support during this process and after leaving treatment.
Note that recovery coaching is not a replacement for or substitute to conventional forms of therapy. Rather, recovery coaching supplements mental health treatment to help clients apply what they have learned and exercise new behaviors.
EFT ( Emotional Freedom Technique)
EFT has been described as a needleless acupuncture for the emotions. It is a form of psychological acupressure that uses a simple, gentle tapping technique instead of needles to stimulate the traditional Chinese acupuncture points. It can dramatically relieve emotional disturbances along with many physical symptoms. It often works in minutes with commonly long-lasting results, and the side-effects are almost always positive.
HeartMath
As you bring your physical, mental and emotional systems into coherent alignment, you begin to experience increased access to your heart’s intuitive guidance.
Tuning into your heart’s wisdom creates a profound shift within that helps you approach situations with more emotional balance, compassion, clarity and personal confidence.
HeartMath research has demonstrated that different patterns of heart activity (which accompany different emotional states) have distinct effects on cognitive and emotional function. During stress and negative emotions, when the heart rhythm pattern is erratic and disordered, the corresponding pattern of neural signals traveling from the heart to the brain inhibits higher cognitive functions. This limits our ability to think clearly, remember, learn, reason, and make effective decisions. (This helps explain why we may often act impulsively and unwisely when we’re under stress.) The heart’s input to the brain during stressful or negative emotions also has a profound effect on the brain’s emotional processes—actually serving to reinforce the emotional experience of stress.
In contrast, the more ordered and stable pattern of the heart’s input to the brain during positive emotional states has the opposite effect – it facilitates cognitive function and reinforces positive feelings and emotional stability. This means that learning to generate increased heart rhythm coherence, by sustaining positive emotions, not only benefits the entire body, but also profoundly affects how we perceive, think, feel, and perform.
Resilience Toolkit
The Resilience Toolkit provides lifelong resourcing and skill building practices that begin with awareness of the body’s stress and relaxation cycles. It is a system of skills that supports the unwinding of deep seated chronic tension/stress and works with the body’s natural responses for bringing the nervous system back into a state of balance.
The Resilience Toolkit empowers individuals through various mindfulness and gentle movement techniques that reduce stress, build strength & tap into an individual’s healing body that will support them through their therapeutic treatment and daily life challenges. This technique includes therapeutic tremor.
