Good Therapy: 5 Signs You Might Be Getting Good Trauma Therapy in Atlanta.
Good trauma therapist? Aren’t they all good? The answer is no, not every trauma therapist is good at treating trauma. Some therapists claim to treat trauma but they don’t have training in how to treat trauma making them ineffective and bad for you. Here are some signs for determining when you are working with a good trauma therapist.
You trust the trauma therapist with what you share.
Healing after trauma is hard enough. You won’t need to talk about every detail of your trauma but you may need to talk about thoughts and feelings you have as a result of your trauma. If you don’t feel safe to share this with your therapist, then they may not be the best fit for you. Feel safe in therapy is vital to be able to heal trauma. It’s one thing to feel ashamed of your choices but if you feel you can’t be honest and open, then therapy with this therapist may not be helping you.
My clients are allowed to decide what they share, how much they share, and when they share it. They are able to trust that our sessions are a safe place for them to receive support as they share difficult aspects of their life.
You feel what happened to you is validated by your trauma therapist.
Trauma can often come with high levels of shame particularly if you were shamed as part of the trauma. Validation helps you to feel heard and seen and decreases shame. Sometimes it is difficult to share things with your therapist especially if it carries a lot of shame around it. There might also be some fear about what will happen if you share it.
It’s okay. Your therapist should be validating your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and experiences. This does not mean they agree with everything you say or the choices you have made. Rather, it means they understand why you feel the way you feel. It can also mean they can see why you are struggling however, they may have to ask additional questions to gain this insight.
In my sessions, clients are validated in their thoughts and experiences. They are allowed the time and space to feel accepted in their uniqueness and individuality. I explore with clients their thoughts and feelings surrounding the difficulties they bring to the session while helping them to embrace their uniqueness.
You are allowed to have a voice in your trauma therapy sessions.
It might be challenging for you to bring up things about your treatment that you may feel unsatisfied about. If the client-therapist relationship is still new to you, you may not know what to expect in your progress through treatment. Your therapist though, as a trained professional, should be more comfortable instigating these check-ins.
My clients are encouraged to share with me feedback, questions, or concerns about their treatment. Within three months of starting therapy, we will have a session dedicated to talking about your progress. This time is specifically for my clients to share with me how they are feeling about what we are doing, what they feel is working and what might help them more. If a client shares they need a different style of therapy, I refer them to a therapist who provides that type of therapy. My client’s time in therapy is about their progress whether it’s with me or someone else who may be a better fit.
Your therapist doesn’t rush your healing process in trauma therapy.
Trauma therapy is emotionally hard and healing can be painful. Even if you had a broken bone you would experience pain during the healing process. When it comes to treating trauma, if therapy is moving too slowly, then the distress of the healing process is prolonged. On the other hand, if it moves too quickly then there is a potential you could become overwhelmed with it all. It’s vital that a good trauma therapist knows how to gauge the pace of therapy based on how you are responding and coping with treatment.
In my sessions, I frequently check in with my clients. I am always letting clients know that if they need me before the next session they can reach out. During sessions, I check in with my clients to ensure the pace is not too slow but also that I am not going too fast for them.
You have started noticing changes in yourself from your trauma therapy.
Once you have been working with a therapist for a few weeks, you should start to notice a difference in how you feel. Even if you have only been introduced to new coping skills, once you start using them you might notice some differences. Although you might start feeling better early on, it’s important to give yourself time to get better at using them. This happens as you continue to receive support from your therapist.
Many of my clients start to see differences within the first two months and sometimes during the first month. We celebrate these changes together but continue working to strengthen the skills they are learning to ensure they are able to sustain them on their own before graduating from therapy.
I hope this has been helpful in addressing any concerns you may have about the trauma therapy you may have received. If you still have questions, reach out. I would be happy to hear about what is happening and share with you how I can help. You can request a free 15-minute phone consultation by clicking here or by calling (678) 744-5369. I specialize in helping trauma survivors feel calm, overwhelmed, and depressed women to calm the chaos, anxious people feel safe and worry less, toxic relationship survivors feel more confident, and parents raising a traumatized child feel less traumatized themselves.
