Not All Trauma Healing Has to Look The Same: Finding a Counselling Approach That Fits You

If you've spent any time on TraumaTok, googling trauma healing endlessly or scrolling through reels about recovering from PTSD, you may find yourself a little overwhelmed with approaches!

There are so many ways to heal trauma, PTSD and CPTSD, and each of them has a lot of research backing it up. So how do you choose??

Let's explore some of the different approaches to healing trauma in counselling, so you can feel better equipped to choose what's right for you!

What Do We Mean by “Trauma”?

Trauma is anything that overwhelms your ability to cope and leaves a lasting impact on your nervous system. It can come from big events like accidents or assaults, or ongoing experiences like childhood neglect, emotional abuse, systemic oppression, or growing up in an environment where you didn’t feel safe.

Recognizing that trauma impacts everyone differently, counsellors realized that there needs to be many forms of healing, ones that align with the various causes of trauma, PTSD and CPTSD, and which symptoms a person is experiencing most.

Counselling Approaches That Help with Trauma Healing

Below are a few therapeutic styles that can support you through healing. As you read through them, remember the best approach for you is going to be the one that you "click" most with! This could be a feeling of curiosity for one approach, feeling like one feels less scary or maybe feeling aligned with who it helps most.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)

What it is: EMDR helps your brain “unstick” painful memories so they don’t keep showing up with the same emotional intensity. This approach understands that nightmares, flashbacks and triggers often happen because a traumatic memory is not stored in the long-term memory system properly.

How it works: Using guided eye movements or tapping, EMDR supports your brain in reprocessing traumatic memories, shifting them from raw and overwhelming to something more manageable or neutral. This happens because EMDR helps place traumatic events in our long-term memory, so that they don't "pop forward" as easily in nightmares and flashbacks. This approach is very protocol-based, meaning that there are clear steps and phases your counsellor will guide you through.

Why people choose it: It’s well-researched and often offers quicker immediate relief than traditional talk therapy. You don’t have to go into every detail of what happened if you don’t want to, which can be helpful for some people. Lastly, it can be reassuring for some people to have a clear process you are following and to move through the phases.

If you'd like a more in-depth exploration of EMDR, click here!

Somatic Practices

What it is: These body-based therapies focuses on where trauma lives in your body, not just your thoughts. Somatic practices understand that the trauma impacted all of you, not just your mind and works to regulate the nervous system. This approach looks to understand where the trauma is stored in your body and how it shows up (i.e. in chronic pain or a racing heart).

How it works: Instead of retelling your story, somatic practices help you slowly notice body sensations—like tightness, numbness, or restlessness—and supports your body in completing the stress responses that got stuck during the trauma. This process is a lot about noticing the body's needs and drives and then staying with them until completion.

Why people choose it: If talk therapy has felt like it wasn’t enough, somatic work can offer a more grounded, embodied way of healing. Some people also find it gives them a more holistic, all encompassing approach to their healing. It's a very attuned approach, allowing whatever is rising in the moment to be the focus of the work. It can be very metaphorical in nature, focusing more on process than content.

If you'd like a more in-depth exploration of Somatic work, click here!

Parts Work (like Internal Family Systems or Ego State)

What it is: Parts work recognizes that we all have different “parts” of ourselves—some that are hurt, some that protect, and some that feel stuck. Parts work sees each Part of ourselves as serving a role, but understands some roles started during the trauma and are no longer needed.

How it works: You build a relationship with all your Parts, learning to understand and care for them with curiosity and compassion rather than shame or avoidance. You learn to help Parts that are stuck in a trauma-based role to accept a new role that serves you better in the present.

Why people choose it: It can be especially helpful if you feel like you’re constantly battling yourself or if certain reactions don’t make logical sense but feel hard to control. It's a very gentle approach, one that honours all Parts of who you are! It allows you to understand all the various impacts from a specific situation/time and address each in turn.

If you'd like a more in-depth exploration of Parts Work, click here!

Attachment-Focused Therapy (like Emotionally Focused Therapy or Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Therapy)

What it is: This type of therapy looks at how early relationships may have shaped how you show up in your current relationships and life and helps repair those patterns. If you've experienced a lot of attachment wounds in your history, this approach helps see how these wounds are still influencing and impacting you.

How it works: By exploring emotional needs and past wounds, this therapy strengthens your ability to connect with others in a safe, secure way. Often, the relationship with your therapist becomes a place to practice building healthy, boundaried attachment. This work often involves inner child work, allowing you to re-parent yourself and met your own needs that have been long neglected.

Why people choose it: If your trauma has roots in relationships, like betrayal, abandonment, or neglect, attachment-based therapy can be especially healing. It allows you to process and grieve what happened (or didn't happen that should have) in a way that helps meet the needs. Then, it helps you build relationships that better serve you now.

How to Choose What’s Right for You

You don’t have to pick the “perfect” modality because there isn't one! Instead, here are a few things to consider:

• Check in with yourself: Are your trauma symptoms showing up more in your body (like tension, pain, or shutdown)? Or in your mind (like racing thoughts, panic, or flashbacks)? Do you see them in your relationships (struggling to connect) or internally (like a very critical Part)? How your symptoms show up may be a good guide to which approach is for you.

• Explore your options: Read a little about the different therapies and notice what sparks curiosity or feels less scary.

• Meet the therapist, not just the method: A lot depends on the person you’re working with. Try a consult. Ask questions. See how it feels in your body. And remember, most professionals are trained in multiple of these models, so you may not have to just choose one!

• Start somewhere: Healing doesn’t require the “right” therapy to work—it just needs a safe-enough place to begin.

• Know you can shift and so can your therapist : Many counsellors are trained in multiple of these models. You can shift which you use in counselling, as your needs change.

  
  

Final Thoughts

There are so many approaches to healing trauma and each has research showing it works! Try choosing an approach that intuitively feels like a good fit and starting there!

If you are looking for a trauma/PTSD/CPTSD counsellor for counselling in Kamloops or online, reach out today, we'd love to explore which approach is best for you and help you process your trauma!