Single event-trauma

Do you suffer from unpleasant memories, anxious dreams or are you easily startled? A traumatic experience can have a huge impact on your daily life. Even long after the traumatic event has taken place, you can still continue to experience symptoms, for example:
Reliving the event 
You suffer from unwanted images, flashbacks, bad dreams/nightmares
Avoiding thoughts, feelings or situations
Avoiding places or activities that remind you of the trauma, or not being able to remember a certain part of the event. Maybe your feelings have become numb and your interest in fun activities has strongly declined.
Physical tension
Concentration problems, nervousness or difficulty falling asleep due to physical tension. You may also be irritable or suffer from anger outbursts.

The causes

Traumatic experiences often occur after e.g. a robbery, physical violence, sexual abuse or a serious car accident. Approximately 8% of the Dutch population suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Treatment 

A trauma treatment is an intensive treatment. During the intake, we will first check if there actually is a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) present. We then offer two types of treatment: Imaginary Exposure and EMDR therapy.

 
Imaginary exposure is part of cognitive behavioural therapy. In this treatment, the psychologist encourages you to relive unpleasant memories of the shocking event repeatedly and for a long time. Therefore, you will expose yourself to the traumatic experience in a specific way for longer amounts of time. The goal of this therapy is to gradually stop avoiding the memories,  which then allows you to  start processing the event. Your symptoms will diminish and you will gradually experience less anxiety when talking about the traumatic event.
 
Another form of treatment is EMDR, which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. This is a therapy in which you are asked to think back to a traumatic memory. At the same time, you will be distracted, usually by eye movements or sounds. This stimulates the natural processing of the brain. The eye movements or sounds are repeated in sets until the memory almost no longer evokes negative feelings. More about EMDR therapy.
 
For more information:
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml

Contact us

Would you like to make an appointment right away or would you like more information? Don't hesitate to contact us. We will be happy to explain what we can do for you.