Psych Garden’s commitment to trauma treatment
Facing events that we have worked so hard to avoid throughout our lives can leave us scared and full of trepidation. That’s why, at Psych Garden, we address the treatment of trauma and PTSD from a Phase-Oriented approach, emphasizing safety and stabilization of other problematic behaviors or situations in our lives before directly engaging with your trauma narrative. We highlight and place priority on your values, goals, and the meanings you have made based on your experiences.
Trauma changes everything
Together, we build a strong foundation of healthy coping and an ability to contain the difficult internal reactions related to your trauma experiences. We look at how these experiences have shaped your understanding of yourself and the world and may contribute to other problems you would like to address.
Trauma treatment emphasizes getting “unstuck” through addressing the factors that have prevented us from experiencing a natural recovery from trauma. This is a simultaneous acknowledgement and experiencing of the grief that accompanies traumatic experiences, while building values-directed decision-making and hope. It is a brave endeavor and one that we are honored to walk the path with you on.
Trauma & addiction
Trauma/PTSD is one of the most common co-occurring mental health concerns for people with addiction. Even the course of addiction can be a traumatic experience for many, with significant losses, changes to feelings of safety and security, and significant alterations in how you view yourself and the world. And quite often, traumatic experiences interrupt our natural ability to self-soothe and cope, leaving us feeling vulnerable and seeking relief. The interplay between traumatic stress reactions and addiction is reinforcing. So, in order to recover from one, the other must be treated simultaneously.
Trauma & psychiatric illness
Depression and bipolar disorders are often misdiagnosed and inadequately treated. You need a careful evaluation before application of evidence-based approaches – be those sophisticated psychopharmacology or psychotherapies targeting behavior, thinking, habits and core emotions. We may work on relationships, sleep, jobs, exercise and drug/alcohol use. We know the research. And we don’t stop at good enough.
How Psych Garden treats trauma effectively & safely
At Psych Garden, we approach the treatment of trauma from a Phase-Oriented approach that involves three phases aimed to keep you safe, help you heal, and facilitate integration with your life.
With this foundation, our therapists work with you to identify the best path towards recovery from your traumatic experiences.
-
Phase 1
Safety and Stabilization - This phase emphasizes healthy coping, reducing other unsafe behaviors or relationships, and increasing your sense of self-efficacy, as well as instilling confidence in your innate ability to heal.
-
Phase 2
Reprocessing - This phase emphasizes facing the traumatic experiences and the impact they’ve had on your life in a safe, structured, and supportive environment.
-
Phase 3
Integration - This phase focuses on the meanings you make about yourself and the world based on your new understanding and insights following reprocessing, integrating these into your understanding of yourself, and building resilience to whether life's challenges.
Using Ketamine, MDMA & other psychedelics to treat trauma
At slightly higher doses, ketamine produces a light trance-like state where anxiety is lowered. Our defenses, the protective character armor that we have developed over our lives, can be slipped off for a while, allowing us to feel connected to emotions and memories for 30 to 40 minutes.
For many patients, this experience can act as a rapid and powerful catalyst for change and insight that might otherwise take months or years to access and work through.
