You’ve experienced a series of traumatic events in your life. Perhaps you had a difficult childhood, have repeatedly been let down by key people in your life or have suffered trauma after trauma. Each piece of this trauma puzzle had a profound impact on you.
Over the years, you’ve tried to forget the bad things that happen. And you’ve tried to have normal, healthy relationships. Maybe you’ve even tried therapy a time or ten. But even years later, your past is creeping up and causing struggles in your day-to-day life. Now, you’re struggling to control your emotions and poor self-esteem. This is complex trauma or complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). If you’re a trauma survivor it may be helpful to understand what complex trauma is and how it is treated.
The Difference Between Trauma and Complex Trauma or Complex PTSD
Trauma
Trauma refers to the emotional response that occurs after a very distressing or life-threatening event. And, some people who experience trauma will experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Trauma and PTSD can occur from a single experience or a series of events. Some examples include an accident, a natural disaster, and assault. Furthermore, trauma can occur from microaggressions like bullying or prejudice or witnessing horrific and terrifying things like community violence or a deadly accident.
Complex Trauma or Complex-PTSD (C-PTSD)
Complex trauma is a clinical term that is often used to describe multiple traumatic events that were often intrapersonal in nature. It also refers to trauma that is hard to treat. Often, individuals who present with complex trauma have survived childhood abuse, repeated sexual assault, or severe neglect.
This form of trauma usually occurs at the hands of a caregiver or trusted adult. It impacts an individual’s ability to form secure attachments and build successful relationships. In fact, a complex trauma survivor may experience delays and an assortment of challenges for the remainder of their lives.
Some challenges complex-trauma survivors experience include:
Trouble forming attachments with others
Attachments play an absolutely essential role in childhood development. When a child is securely attached to their caregiver, they learn how to navigate the world around them and interact with others. But, when a child is unable to form secure attachments with the people that are supposed to care and nurture them, they often experience a variety of challenges in future relationships. They may have trouble trusting others. And, they may struggle to control their emotions and may act inappropriately in certain situations.
Physical Health Concerns
Survivors often experience a variety of health concerns that stem from the trauma they experienced. When an individual is under an extreme amount of stress it impacts their immune system, brain development, and more. It can also lead to long-term health concerns including hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer.
Dissociation
Dissociation is a lack of connection between the body, brain, emotions, memory, self-identity, and the world around you. Everyone dissociates from time to time. However, complex trauma survivors do this more than most and it can negatively impact their life. Dissociation may feel like you’re looking at your life from far away, having an out-of-body experience, or feel like the world around you is fuzzy. Often, this impacts one’s ability to remember what happened during the time they dissociate and it can feel quite frightening. Rarely, it can morph into a dissociative identity disorder. Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is characterized by the presence of multiple identities.
Poor Emotional Regulation
Behavioral Challenges
Complex trauma survivors may show a variety of behavioral concerns. These vary greatly from person to person, but they often impact their ability to interact with others in a prosocial way. When people are stuck in flight or fight mode, their ability to rationalize is severely diminished. This leads to impulsive, volatile, reckless, and dangerous behaviors.
Diminished Cognitive Skills and Academic Performance
Trauma, especially prolonged trauma affects a person’s ability to rationalize, problem-solve, and take in new information. Furthermore, trauma survivors often struggle to pay attention and focus on new information. Unfortunately, these issues can lead to lifelong learning struggles.
Treatment of Complex Trauma or C-PTSD
As you can imagine, the treatment of complex trauma is extremely nuanced. Complex trauma is often challenging to treat. The approach to trauma treatment varies from therapist to therapist. But, it usually centers around uncovering the source of pain, learning distress tolerance techniques or coping skills, addressing negative self-beliefs, and setting realistic and manageable goals for the future.
Common evidence-based forms of treatment for complex trauma include cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR), and family therapy. These types of therapeutic treatments have been successful in helping clients move forward from their complex trauma and PTSD and find healing.
One thing that is very important to note is that complex trauma usually occurs from a series of traumatic events. Therefore, treatment for complex trauma and PTSD often takes longer. So it is very important that you find a trauma therapist who you connect with and will enjoy working with long-term. This may mean you interview several clinicians to find one who has a personality you like. Find someone who has a plan for treatment that you feel will meet your needs. It is okay to meet with one for a consultation and then decide you don’t want to work with them. During this time of healing, it is important that you place your needs first so you can find a therapist who is a good fit.
Begin Trauma Treatment in Roswell, GA
If you live in the Atlanta area and are suffering from trauma or complex trauma, our therapists would be honored to speak with you about the ways we can help you. We offer consultations to give you a chance to get to know us better and learn more about our approach to treating trauma and PTSD. To begin counseling in Roswell, GA, follow these steps:
- Reach out to our counseling office and schedule a consultation call with one of our therapists,
- Speak with a trauma therapist and ask any questions you may have about trauma and PTSD treatment
- Begin counseling in Rosewell, GA, and find healing.
Other Therapy Services Offered at Wellview Counseling
Wellview Counseling in Atlanta, GA offers many therapy services to help you or your loved ones find healing and growth. Our mental health services include play therapy, child counseling, individual counseling, social skills groups for kids, therapy for postpartum anxiety and depression, anxiety treatment, trauma and PTSD treatment, chronic illness counseling, family therapy, and positive discipline parent education opportunities. Reach out to our Roswell, GA counseling office to learn more about counseling or online therapy. We would love to discuss the many ways we can help you or your loved one thrive!
About the Author: Therapist Ashley Bobo, LCSW
Ashley Bobo, LCSW is an Atlanta therapist who provides individual and family therapy to help with anxiety, depression, postpartum depression & anxiety, parent coaching, and other mental health concerns.
If you live in the Atlanta area (or anywhere in Georgia) and would like to begin counseling services for your child or anyone in your family, give us a call at 678-288-6221 or email info@wellviewcounseling.com.
I’m really thinking that my sister would benefit from trauma therapy to aid in her mental recovery after seeing her struggle to deal with the fallout from a vehicle accident and experiencing her unexpected panic episodes. She has had a difficult time, and I want to assist her in obtaining the appropriate support. As you mentioned, complex trauma is frequently difficult to cure, and different therapists have different approaches to treating trauma.