Trauma and Post-trauma Stress Disorder (PTSD)
What can trauma and PTSD look like?
After experiencing or witnessing a terrifying, highly stressful, or life-threatening event, it is common to have strong emotional, physical, and cognitive reactions.
For some people, these reactions gradually lessen over time. For others, symptoms may persist and begin to interfere with daily life, relationships, work, sleep, concentration, or their overall sense of safety.
Trauma-related symptoms can include:
Intrusive memories of what happened
Nightmares or distressing dreams
Feeling as though the event is happening again
Strong emotional or physical reactions to reminders of the trauma
Avoiding people, places, conversations, objects, or situations connected to what happened
Trying not to think about, remember, or talk about the traumatic experience
Feeling emotionally numb or disconnected
Losing interest in activities that were once meaningful or enjoyable
Persistent guilt, shame, or self-blame
Feeling detached from other people
Being constantly alert for danger or feeling “on edge”
Being easily startled
Irritability or difficulty regulating emotions
Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Trouble concentrating
Traumatic experiences can also affect the way you see yourself, other people, and the world around you.
You may intellectually recognize that the danger has passed while still feeling emotionally or physically as though you need to remain prepared for something bad to happen.
How do I know when I may need help?
Experiencing distress after a traumatic event does not automatically mean that you have PTSD.
However, it may be helpful to seek support when trauma-related memories, emotions, avoidance, or feelings of danger continue to significantly affect your daily life.
You might notice yourself organizing more and more of your life around avoiding reminders of what happened.
You may find that relationships feel more difficult, that you have trouble relaxing or sleeping, or that experiences that once felt ordinary now feel unsafe or overwhelming.
Sometimes people also feel stuck in repeated attempts to understand what happened, blame themselves for what happened, or wish they could simply “move on” but find that their mind and body continue reacting as though the threat is still present.
Therapy can help you understand these reactions and begin responding to the trauma in ways that allow you to reclaim parts of your life that may have become restricted by fear, avoidance, shame, or hypervigilance.
How can therapy help with trauma and PTSD?
Trauma-focused therapy can help you gradually process memories, emotions, beliefs, and situations connected to what happened.
One important part of treatment is understanding how avoidance can maintain PTSD symptoms.
Avoiding reminders of trauma can bring relief in the short term, but over time it can reinforce the sense that certain memories, emotions, places, or situations are dangerous and must continue to be avoided.
Therapy can help you gradually approach these experiences in a structured and professionally guided way.
The goal is not to force you to relive your trauma or simply tell the story repeatedly.
Instead, treatment can help your brain and body learn that remembering what happened is different from being in danger now.
Over time, the traumatic memory can become something that happened to you rather than something that continually feels as though it is happening to you.
What treatment approaches can be used for PTSD?
One evidence-based treatment for PTSD is Prolonged Exposure Therapy, or PE.
PE is a trauma-focused form of cognitive behavioral therapy that helps people gradually approach trauma-related memories, feelings, and safe situations that they have been avoiding.
Treatment can include two types of exposure.
Imaginal exposure involves gradually revisiting and talking through the traumatic memory with the support of a trained clinician.
In-vivo exposure involves gradually approaching safe people, places, activities, or situations that have been avoided because they have become associated with the trauma.
These experiences are approached collaboratively and step by step rather than all at once.
Over time, this process can help reduce avoidance, decrease the intensity of trauma-related reactions, and help you regain a greater sense of choice and freedom in your life.
Prolonged Exposure is one of the most extensively studied treatments for PTSD and is strongly recommended in major clinical practice guidelines.
treatment may also incorporate principles from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT.
ACT can help you develop greater psychological flexibility in the presence of difficult memories, emotions, and trauma-related symptoms. Rather than requiring painful internal experiences to disappear before you can move forward, ACT emphasizes learning how to make room for those experiences while choosing actions that are connected to what matters most to you.
An important part of this work can involve identifying your values, sources of meaning, and the kind of life you want to continue building in the aftermath of what happened. Therapy can then help you take intentional steps toward those values, even when difficult memories or emotions are present.
ACT also incorporates mindfulness-based skills that can help you become more aware of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations without immediately becoming overwhelmed by them. These skills can support grounding, emotional regulation, and a greater ability to stay connected to the present when trauma symptoms arise.
In this way, treatment is not only about reducing symptoms. It can also help you reconnect with a sense of purpose, choice, and meaning as you move forward.
What is the goal of trauma therapy?
The goal of trauma therapy is not to erase what happened.
It is also not to require you to stop feeling sadness, anger, fear, or other understandable emotions connected to your experience.
Instead, treatment can help the trauma occupy less of your present life.
You may become better able to notice memories and emotions without immediately feeling overwhelmed by them, approach situations you once avoided, reconnect with people and activities that matter to you, and develop a greater sense of safety and flexibility.
Ultimately, therapy can help you move toward a life that is guided less by what happened in the past and more by what is meaningful to you now.
Do you offer trauma and PTSD therapy in person or online?
Mauna Psychology offers in-person trauma and PTSD therapy in Provo, Utah, as well as telehealth services for eligible clients.
If trauma continues to affect your relationships, sense of safety, daily functioning, or ability to engage fully in your life, therapy can provide a structured and supportive space to begin working through those experiences.