What is PTSD?

Post-traumatic stress disorder can be developed in a person who has witnessed, lived through, or had someone close to them be involved in a scary, dangerous, or shocking event. Not everyone who goes through an event such as this will develop PTSD, but some will.

When we go through scary or threatening events, our body will activate its flight-fight-freeze-fawn response as part of its natural survival response. These responses such as elevated heart rate, nausea, lightheadedness, rapid breathing, shaking, tunnel vision, sweating, etc. are normal and designed by your nervous system to help you run to safety, fight off an attacker, etc. These symptoms are not PTSD, though they can be upsetting.

Symptoms of PTSD

PTSD symptoms occur after the trauma has ended—sometimes days, months, or even years later. The symptoms of PTSD can be broken into a couple categories: re-experiencing symptoms, and avoidance symptoms.

Re-experiencing symptoms of PTSD mean ways that your body re-experiences the trauma as part of the aftermath. These symptoms can be triggered by reminders of the trauma like trauma anniversaries, sights/sounds/sensory reminders, driving by the scene of the trauma, seeing the people involved, etc. They can also feel like they appear out of the blue. Re-experiencing symptoms can include:

• flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating

• nightmares

• disturbing thoughts

Avoidance symptoms are what they sound like—behaviors that develop as defense mechanisms but that can create problems in your daily life. These include:

• Avoiding people, places, events, anything that could remind them of the trauma

• Avoiding thoughts or feelings related to the event, which could involve other behaviors such as substance abuse or dissociative behaviors to help people avoid those thoughts and feelings.

Other symptoms of PTSD affect our bodies and our minds. They can manifest through symptoms such as:

• Being easily startled

• Experiencing irritation to anger outbursts

• depressive symptoms like loss of interest in things

• Feeling a sense of guilt or blame

• Feeling on edge

• Having trouble sleeping

• negative outlook

• anxiety

An example could be someone who was involved in a car accident. They may find themselves avoiding driving in that part of town where the accident occurred, avoiding driving altogether, or experiencing panic attacks when they have to get behind the wheel of a car. When they are a passenger in the vehicle they may experience flashbacks that are distressing and come with a racing heart, sweating, and a sense of guilt about what happened. They may be plagued with reliving the trauma, imagining what they could have done differently, and experience a resulting depression and impairment of their daily life that makes it hard for them to function like they used to.

how to treat PTSD

The good news is that you do not need to suffer alone. There are many effective treatment options available for trauma. One thing we know about trauma now is that it is not all in your head. As you can see from the symptoms listed above, the body remembers and stores trauma. The body suffers many symptoms, and therefore the body needs to be included in the treatment. it can help to talk about things, but sometimes talking alone is not enough. You need a therapy that includes the brain and the body in the healing process.

What is Lifespan Integration therapy?

One such therapy is Lifespan Integration therapy.

“Lifespan Integration is a gentle, body-based therapeutic method which heals without re-traumatizing. Lifespan Integration relies on the innate ability of the body-mind to heal itself. LI is body-based, and utilizes repetitions of a visual time line of memories to facilitate neural integration and rapid healing.” (https://lifespanintegration.com/)

You can see this post here that explains more broadly what Lifespan Integration is. But today I want to share a bit about how Lifespan Integtration therapy can help with PTSD in particular.

How Lifespan Integration helps with PTSD

It is said that trauma creates a problem of time in the body. Meaning, not all of the body and brain realize the trauma is over, and part of yourself feels stuck in the past, still experiencing the trauma as if it is happening now. This is why we have the symptoms of flashbacks, the racing heart, the dreams—part of the body feels the trauma is still happening now. So our job is to help the body see the trauma is over, and to bring all parts of the self back to the present. Hence the “Integration” part of Lifespan Integration.

For PTSD clearing, the therapist will work with the client to create a list of memory cues from the traumatic event. In the example of a car accident, the memory cue list would include moments from before, during and after the accident, like a list of scenes in a movie. The client does not have to retell these in detail, merely a brief statement about them is enough. The therapist writes all of these scenes down and the timeline always ends in present time, up to the day of the session.

The therapist then reads the timeline back to the client and the client re-experiences it like a movie, always ending in the present moment. We do many quick repetitions in session, not dwelling on any moment too long, but emphasizing to the body with each repetition, “you survived, and the worst is truly over.” We go through very quickly to keep your distress in hearing the timeline as low as we can.

This helps the body come to realize that the past truly is over. The part of the body that is still alive in the moment of the trauma is reclaimed and brought back to the present.

The therapist is there to help the client not get overwhelmed by the intensity of the timeline, and the therapist has different ways to keep the client from getting overwhelmed by the processing.

Lifepsan Integration can help you find peace again after trauma

The result is truly amazing to see. Many people who experience this protocol within a single session can feel relief. For more complex trauma, especially early childhood trauma that extended over many years, treatment takes many sessions, but the results are still lasting and incremental peace, removal of symptoms, and people feeling whole again.

Finding a Lifespan Integration therapist in Tacoma, WA

If you’d like to try Lifespan Integration therapy for PTSD, feel free to give me a call for a free 15-min phone consultation to see if we’d be a good fit. And have hope, there are many wonderful therapies that are effective at helping people resolve trauma, such as EMDR, brainspotting, somatic experiencing, and others. You don’t have to suffer alone, reach out for help today.