Online Mindfulness Therapy For PTSD, Boulder Colorado
Trauma can arise from any experience that cannot be resolved and integrated and may include violent assault, rape, childhood abuse as well as the experience of natural disasters and, of course the intense traumatic experiences of war. Typically traumas are so foreign to our everyday experiences that the mind has no way to categorize them and integrate them into subconscious memory. Not surprisingly, children are particularly vulnerable to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whether the trauma occurred during childhood or adulthood, the central issue remains the same, which is that the individual has to complete the resolution and integration of the traumatic memory, and this is why Exposure Therapy of one form or another is a central part of the healing process. As the term suggests, ET involves re-experiencing the trauma in a controlled and safe way until the client can experience the memories and other triggers without becoming emotionally overwhelmed and without becoming reactive. The point of ET is actually NOT to simply re-experience the same painful emotions and memories, but to experience them differently, and this is a very important point to understand.
You are actually trying to establish a functional relationship with the trauma so that you do not become consumed by emotional reactivity and, most importantly, so that you can establish what I call an inner “therapeutic space” in which the emotions can unfold and change. In the reactive state, all that emotional energy is effectively frozen in place; trapped inside with nowhere to go. In this unresolved state, the emotional energy creates tremendous inner tensions and conflicts that adversely affect our thinking process, our belief systems and our outward actions and behavior.
Mindfulness is a very subtle form of conscious awareness in which you pay attention to the fine details of how you experience things. The emphasis is not so much on the content, but on the process of experiencing. Normally, we tend to condense the details of experience into abstract reactions and remain stuck at the superficial level of experience. Emotional reactions are like this; they are very abstract and intangible and this is why it is so difficult to transform and resolve anxiety and fear. As is commonly said, it is the fear of the unknown, the fear of fear itself that creates the most suffering. Therefore, in order to make useful changes, we must move from the abstract to the specific. We must focus in on specific details of the traumatic imagery so that we have something tangible to work with and change. Interestingly, when people are able to see subtle details like this, they become much less reactive and find it easier to work with their emotions without becoming overwhelmed.
When I work with clients in the office or online through Skype sessions, I teach them to refine their attention so that they can begin to have a meaningful exposure experience with their memories. We do this in a very controlled way, applying very close attention to each moment of experience and the associated feelings that accompany each experience. We don’t try to take in the whole monster at once, but start by examining the color of the monster’s toenails! Little by little, we progress from foot, to legs and so on. At each stage, you gain more successful therapeutic exposure, and strengthen your ability to relate to painful emotions while maintaining a strong sense of self.
Mindfulness Meditation Therapy is a very subtle and focused way of working with problems at the core level; not talking therapy, but experiential therapy, where we explore the actual details of how you experience emotions internally. Not surprisingly, this can be a very effective approach to making changes in patterns of emotional reactivity.
Dr Peter Strong is a Mindfulness-based Psychotherapist, based in Boulder, Colorado and provides an Online Psychotherapy and Counseling service via Skype sessions.
Email enquiries are very welcome.
