Dealing with traumatic events
Sudden traumatic events can put your life upside down: a car crash, a rape, the loss of a job or relation, aggression at work, threats, the death of an important person. The longer you are exposed to the event and the more threatening it was for you, the greater will be the impact on your life. Normally it takes 1 to 3 months to get over a traumatic event. But it is possible that memories will continue to bother you. Memories that sometimes seem so real, that it looks like it’s happening all over again (reliving the trauma). Sometimes you’ll try to avoid situations or places that bring back memories. It is possible you’re getting anxious or having nightmares. Or you can have trouble concentrating, feeling helpless, listless, or depressed. We can help.
Possible content of treatment
For instance, by means of writing assignments, Hulp-Nu helps you deal with the traumatic event. At first you learn what your strength is and how to increase it. Together with your therapist you’ll learn to write about the event in a safe and clearly structured way and you’ll analyze the most difficult moments to cope with. After that you’ll learn to deal with them in different ways. In the last stage of the treatment, you’ll learn to place the event in your life and how to move on with your life.
We also work with EMDR, an evidence-based treatment for trauma. This is a very powerful and fast way to process trauma. The therapist will ask you to think back at the event in combination with a distracting stimulus. These are usually eye movements or sounds. The EMDR procedure often triggers a stream of thoughts or images, but sometimes also feelings or physical sensations. These will cause the memories to lose strength and emotional power.