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Case Study: Sam’s childhood involved severe childhood abuse. He was often terrified of his mother who was neglectful and unpredictable, often leading to emotional outbursts. He described his home environment and disgusting, with no sense of cleanliness. In addition he was not offered nutritious food and had to find his own scraps. He did not do well at school and this led to him being vulnerable to more abuse in his adult years. Using EMDR therapy, Sam was able to be address the emotional abuse he had from his mother and started to gain self confidence. When he recognised he was self sabotaging his own progress, EMDR helped him to rebuild his self worth and learn to be his best self. He is now with a loving partner and children, something he had always dreamed of. (Details have been changed to protect confidentiality.)
How does trauma affect the brain and body?
When we experience trauma, the brain’s stress response system is activated. The amygdala signals danger, the hippocampus stores trauma memories and the prefrontal cortex regulates our responses. With trauma our system gets dysregulated, leading to trauma symptoms mentioned above. The body can remain in a heightened arousal, even when the threat has passed. The chronic stress can have lasting effects on mental and physical health, increasing the risk of anxiety disorders, drugs and alcohol misuse and chronic illnesses. CBT is an evidence based therapy for trauma. It can help by identifying then challenging unhelpful thoughts, feelings and behaviours. CBT provides tools to manage distressing symptoms and change the patterns that maintain post traumatic stress. In addition, EMDR is an evidence based therapy for trauma. We believe that EMDR works on the theory that trauma memories are stored in an unfragmented and unprocessed form in the brain. These memories can get stuck – causing flashbacks, anxiety and emotional distress. EMDR helps the brain to reprocess these memories so that they are stored differently in the brain, without the intense emotional charge.
If you want any further details about therapy you can contact me on info@wendycastelino.com
Many thanks, Wendy.