Signs and symptoms of trauma

Trauma may be an underlying cause of mental health concerns, like depression or anxiety, or other compulsive behaviours like substance misuse, gambling or overspending. Spending time exploring your life experiences with your qualified psychologist can help you establish the root cause of your unhelpful behaviours or unpleasant emotions.

Other symptoms include:

• Inability to form close relationship with emotional and/or physical depth;
• Avoidance strategies, especially pertaining to conflict, specific locations or activities;
• Regular “out of body” experiences;
• Emotional numbness, disconnection, apathy or depressive like symptoms;
• Sensitive mood, panic attacks or anxiety;
• Guilt, shame or self-blame for undesirable life circumstances or unpleasant emotions;
• Fear inducing memories or flashbacks;
• Substance misuse, such as regular or excessive alcohol use, illicit drug use or prescription medication dependency.

Treatment approaches to trauma

Trauma is a common response to an abnormal event. With a properly trained therapist, you can engage in a highly effective treatment program that will help you process and heal from your traumatic experience at your own pace. The Banyans Health and Wellness offers a number of trauma specific therapy approaches, such as:

• cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT),
• eye movement sensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy,
• equine therapy, and
• expressive therapies like neurologic music therapy and art therapy.

Freedom from trauma is always possible.