Feeling heard and understood gives you hope right from the get-go, is life-changing, and improves your quality of life because you start to make decisions that are more aligned with your authentic self. None of that is possible, though, without a solid therapeutic alliance and relationship. Simply put, you need to like your therapist, feel comfortable opening up to them, and there needs to be a certain amount of rapport and trust built in order to dive into the more difficult therapeutic work of trauma resolution. Our therapists at Resilience Counseling & Wellness are carefully vetted for their clinical skills but also know how important the therapeutic relationship is to your success. We prioritize that relationship and that bond, as it’s the cornerstone of any meaningful therapeutic work. We are committed to our craft and our work with you, and this directly translates to more change and growth for you when you feel safe, heard, supported, and valued.
The therapist’s job is to set the tone for the therapeutic work by providing a safe and non-judgmental space, while also bringing in some well-timed humor or laughter so it doesn’t always feel heavy and upsetting. Therapy is hard work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t laugh sometimes or talk about positive things that are going well. In fact, talking about negative stuff the entire time is actually de-stabilizing for a traumatized nervous system, so at the beginning of the therapeutic journey it’s common to do some important stabilizing work to prepare you for the deeper trauma processing. This type of positive resourcing is vital to help stabilize someone who has suffered from some type of traumatic stress.
The period of stabilization often includes assessing resources or improving coping skills, while also getting a solid self-care routine in place. Once the client feels things have stabilized a bit in their life (or they feel it in regards to symptom reduction or less nervous system activation) then we can guide you towards identifying and processing some key traumatic events in your life. You may not even know what those traumatic events or situations are, and that’s ok; our job is to be really good at helping you figure out what you’re wanting to shift in your life and then helping you identify what might have created the roadblocks to you living authentically.
Once we pinpoint some of the barriers or themes that get in the way, (for instance the limiting beliefs such as I’m not good enough, I have to be perfect, my needs are not important, etc.) then we can start to put a plan together to get to the root cause and clear the events that created the limiting belief or theme. We may use a variety of techniques to get to the bottom of things; see our techniques pages to learn more about some of those options.
Sure, we want you to not feel so triggered and we want you to feel better overall, but the goal of therapy should not only be to decrease or eliminate symptoms. Symptom reduction is great, but if you want meaningful and long-lasting change, you need good therapy that will also shift problematic patterns and beliefs at a deeper level than what your average therapy experience will provide you.
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