Trauma Therapy in Augusta, GA
You’ve tried to “get over it,” but deep down you know pain from your past and childhood wounds are somehow still holding you back.
Do you feel like you’re doing “mostly fine,” but sometimes pain from your past still sneaks up on you?
Do you ever feel guilty for being negatively impacted by your upbringing, even though you “had a good childhood” and your parents did the best they could?
Are you afraid people would see you differently if they knew what you went through?
It’s not always the big traumatic events that ‘eff us up. Sometimes the small, everyday experiences leave the deepest wounds.
Life when you were growing up was mostly good, but you didn’t make it through childhood without at least a few scars.
When you feel pain from your past, you catch yourself thinking “I should just be grateful” and stuff your emotions back down.
You feel like you “shouldn’t” complain about anything from your upbringing because others “had it so much worse than me.”
Sometimes you’re even a little confused about why this stuff still bothers you… “I’m an adult now, shouldn’t I just be over it?”
Whether you experienced Big-T traumas or little-t traumas, working with a trauma therapist that serves Augusta and the surrounding CSRA, can help you finally put the past to rest.
Trauma isn't always obvious.
When we think about trauma, most of us think about the big kinds. Things like childhood sexual abuse, neglect, deploying from Fort Eisenhower to fight in combat, physical assault, or being in a natural disaster (hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis). If you lived in the greater Augusta area in September 2024, you probably vividly remember the damaging effects of Hurricane Helene.
If you haven’t lived through these types of trauma, you might not realize that the past can still be impacting you.
Little-t traumas are events that aren’t necessarily life threatening, but still cause deep emotional wounds that shape who you are now. Bullying, frequent criticism, extreme social rejection or isolation, painful breakups, difficult parental divorce, or growing up in a household where your emotional needs weren’t met are all examples of little-t traumas.
Little-t traumas can still cause serious damage.
The specific type of trauma you experienced isn’t as important as HOW that trauma impacted you.
When you experience trauma, changes happen in your brain and nervous system. It’s very common for your body to actually get stuck in survival mode. This means you are often on high alert, watching everyone very closely, and never feeling like you can truly let your guard down until you’re alone. You might prefer animals to people.
When you interact with others, you might be very aware of their body language and notice any subtle shift. You might often wonder if people are being truthful with you.
You might frequently feel anxious, jumpy, and on edge. Or you might feel detached, depressed, and disconnected.
You could find yourself wanting to avoid anything that reminds you of painful memories. Avoiding places, people, and even attempting to avoid your own thoughts or emotions about it.
If you feel like your past is still influencing you, working with a trauma counselor can help you heal and move forward with a new sense of inner peace. Trauma can impact anyone, regardless of whether you grew up in downtown Augusta or in West Lake Country Club.
Trauma Therapy can’t erase what happened to you, but it can help you leave it in the past.
When you experience a traumatic event, your brain stores that memory in high definition. These memories are different from your everyday memories because they have more detail to them. Your brain remembers all the things…where you were, what you were wearing, the song playing in the background, how your palms were sweating, the smell of the room.
Because traumatic memories are so intense, you can get pulled into them very easily. The same song playing on the radio can take you back as if you are living that moment all over again.
If you feel like you’re always in fight-or-flight, trauma treatment can help you get out of survival mode. While it can’t remove traumatic memories, it can help you reprocess them so they are stored in low definition, which makes them less intense and more manageable.
It can also help your nervous system learn the difference between burnt toast and the house being on fire! When trauma isn’t running your life, you can find joy taking in an Augusta GreenJackets game at SRP Park or strolling down the Augusta Riverwalk.
What to Expect in Therapy Sessions
Before the first session, you’ll be asked to complete new client paperwork through my online portal. This paperwork covers your history, present difficulties or struggles, and what you want to focus on in therapy.
During our initial meeting, my focus is to get to know you as a person and understand how trauma or difficult life experiences have impacted you. Together, we’ll create a treatment plan to address trauma.
The goal of trauma counseling is to help the parts of you that were the most wounded by your past experiences be seen, heard, and felt, so that they can truly heal.
Throughout sessions, we will monitor how your body is responding to what we are talking about. If your body (nervous system) signals us that we need to slow down, we will always follow its guidance. Therapy will teach you how to self-monitor your body’s reactions and how to teach your body when it’s safe.
My Treatment Approaches
I am a holistic and non-religious therapist that treats trauma by integrating a mind-body-spirit approach with evidence based practices, including:
Internal Family Systems (IFS) helps us connect with the parts of you that were the most impacted by traumatic experiences. We allow these parts to tell their stories so that they don’t continue to be burdened by the past.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) helps you identify and reframe unhelpful thoughts or beliefs you developed about yourself or the world because of your experiences.
Body-Based Awareness helps you connect to what is happening in your body when memories from the past surface.
Polyvagal Theory (PVT) helps us understand how trauma is impacting your nervous system so that we can move through trauma therapy in a nervous system friendly way.
Reiki Energy Healing (optional) is an energetic approach that helps you clear out heavy emotions that are stuck from your past. Reiki can be offered as a standalone service, but can also be integrated into an in-person therapy session at my office in West Augusta.
Any combination of these approaches can help release the load that trauma has put on you.
The idea of talking to a therapist about trauma might feel uncomfortable and it’s normal to have questions before starting trauma treatment.
1. Will I have to go through my trauma(s) in detail in order to heal?
No. In trauma counseling we are more focused on the impact of trauma rather than the specific details of it. As a counselor, my goal is to help you understand what changed about you because of the trauma (i.e., your beliefs, thoughts, emotions) and that doesn’t require you to relive every detail.
2. What if I’m worried that talking about my trauma means I’ll be “trauma dumping” on my therapist?
As a counselor, I have been trained on how to hold space for you as you process through your trauma. I am also a Reiki Master (energy healer), which means I am able to protect and clear my own energy field without absorbing the energy or trauma of others.
3. If I had “good parents,” is it still okay to talk about ways my childhood negatively impacted me?
Absolutely. Regardless of whether you grew up in Hammond’s Ferry of North Augusta or the Summerville Area near Augusta University, you’re allowed to have hurt feelings based on your experiences even if your childhood was good overall. Therapy can help you hold space for two truths at once. Your parents were probably doing the best they could AND they still could have hurt you, even if it was unintentional.
Healing can happen when you turn toward the parts of you that were wounded instead of pretending they don’t exist.
If you’re tired of the weight of the past impacting you in the present and you’re ready to start trauma counseling, you can Schedule a Session here.
If you have questions or would like to book a 15-minute complementary phone consultation, you can use my Contact Form.
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