Seeking Depth to Recovery

Neglect are the things that didn't happen, that should have happened. And if they didn't happen, then I can't tell you about them, because nothing happened!

The brain doesn't process the absence of stimuli the way it stores things like abuse. Unless there is a tangible withholding, such as clothing or food, neglect is internalized as an embodied state of feeling unloved, not enough, too much, or invisible.

TALK THERAPY CANNOT TREAT EMBODIED STATES!

Instead, embodiment therapy practices are the gold standard for creating implicit change in the lives of people who've experienced neglect.

Learn more about embodiment practices here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/somatic-experiencing-trauma-therapy

Ready to overcome the internal landscape of neglect? Schedule an assessment with us: 804-203-2100

How to avoid a re-traumatizing therapy experience?

Trauma therapy is still relatively new. Many insurance providers and universities back antiquated approaches for trauma treatments that have largely been debunked as the "gold standard."

The biggest example of this is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which focuses on changing your thoughts to change your life experience. While there's value in this approach, if this is the only tool for treating trauma, participants are at a high risk for feeling broken, invalidated, unsupported, inherently wrong/bad, ashamed, and not good enough. Their symptoms persist, despite having developed good coping strategies.

In traditional Talk Therapy, it was historically thought that effective trauma treatment entailed recounting the details of a traumatic event. The client would experience catharsis, and the therapist would believe that the work was done.

What we now know is that catharsis and coping skills are not indicative of healing. In fact, catharsis can be a way that we continue to avoid or dissociate from our experience.

Research from EMDRIA, SEI, and others now prove that the area of our brains where trauma is stored is separate from the areas that are engaged in CBT or Talk Therapy.

Trauma is stored in a small almond shaped structure at the base of the skull. There is no language or conscious thought here - so we cannot treat it with language or conscious thought. We treat is through somatic approaches that address physiology.

Learn more about somatic approaches here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/polyvagal-theory-trauma-therapy

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Call, text, or email to schedule your therapy intensive: 804-203-2100 or [email protected].

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If you're being asked to recount your trauma narratives, you're likely not working with a trauma-sensitive provider.

True trauma therapy is about integrating the experiences of what is being held within the body and what is happening in real time.

If you're ready to invest in your trauma recovery, then it's time to establish a dialogue between your body and your mind.

Schedule a consult to see if a therapy intensive is a good fit for you:

https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/trauma-therapy-intensive-richmond-va

Have you plateaued on your healing journey?

1) You know all the coping skills, but you're tired of a life where you need to cope at all.

2) The insight you've gained into your triggers isn't enough to stave off trauma echoes.

3) There's still that sneaky suspicion that you're somehow innately broken.

4) You love your therapist, but don't feel like you're making progress.

Therapy Intensives transcend these plateaus by:

1) Extended Time-
The extended structure of a Therapy Intensive provides a formulaic timeline for the clinical process.

2) Clinical Intention-
A Therapy Intensive isn't long for the sake of being long.

​3) Expedited Results-
With a Therapy Intensive, we can make more progress within a shorter therapeutic lifespan, compared to the traditional 50-minute talk therapy model.

If you're serious about your trauma recovery, schedule a consult with us to see if we're a good fit for you: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/trauma-therapy-intensive-richmond-va

Group is more impactful than individual therapy. This is because with all the various dyads in a group setting, we have full access to our entire role repertoire.

Our role repertoire is comprised of all the roles we play in life: child, caregiver, protector, peacekeeper, etc. With these roles available to us, the group facilitators can bring us to greater insight than in the isolated space of individual work.​​

We are excited to offer an Intro to Experiential Healing - a 4-week group series starting in January to give a window into the healing power of experiential groups.

Learn more here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/intro-to-experiential-healing

We will use psychodrama, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to take your trauma recovery journey to a level you didn't even know existed.

What do our clients say about this group?

“I've had some HUGE shifts in behavior with the work we're doing. I am not getting triggered all over the place...I have stopped people-pleasing so much...I'm able to say no and not feel guilty, and ask for what I need and not feel the need to explain and over-explain."

"I feel closer to myself and others. The work has catapulted me toward more willingness of self-discovery."

*Join the waitlist, or sign up for our Intro to Experiential Healing group in January*

Transcend trauma echoes in the MOST unique trauma recovery group in the Richmond area.

-Learn how relational trauma alters the blueprint for how we show up to life

-Draw out subtle inter and intrapersonal relationship patterns using psychodrama

-Develop the "Group Brain" to rewire attachment wounds

-Use of Trauma Dramas to anchor Post Traumatic Growth roles

Register for groups and workshops here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/group-therapy-richmond-va

Experiential therapies, like psychodrama, are designed to help trauma survivor reprocess memories and events that don't have a narrative.

All stimulation from our environment is processed by the right hemisphere of our brain, and most of it does not travel across the bridge to the left hemisphere, particularly when we're emotionally flooded - as is the case with trauma.

This means that many experiences feel like they're floating around untethered - like, "I cry for no reason," or "I feel like I'm always on edge."

Transcend trauma echoes in the MOST unique trauma recovery group in the Richmond area.

-Learn how relational trauma alters the blueprint for how we show up to life

-Draw out subtle inter and intrapersonal relationship patterns using psychodrama

-Develop the "Group Brain" to rewire attachment wounds

-Use of Trauma Dramas to anchor Post Traumatic Growth roles

Join the waitlist for our 11/15 workshop, or sign up for our Intro to Experiential Healing group in January: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/group-therapy-richmond-va

Join the waitlist or sign up for our Intro to Experiential Healing group starting in January.

Transcend trauma echoes in the MOST unique trauma recovery group in the Richmond area.

-Learn how relational trauma alters the blueprint for how we show up to life

-Draw out subtle inter and intrapersonal relationship patterns using psychodrama

-Develop the "Group Brain" to rewire attachment wounds

-Use of Trauma Dramas to anchor Post Traumatic Growth roles

See upcoming groups and workshops here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/group-therapy-richmond-va

Psychodrama groups are about developing underdeveloped roles - Observing Ego, Good Enough Nurturer, and Spontaneous Child - while retiring overdeveloped roles, such as Inner Critic, Co-Dependent, and Wounded Child.

If you are stable in your trauma recovery journey and you're ready to retire your Trauma Roles and Strengthen your Resilience Roles, join us Friday, November 15 from 9:00-4:00 pm.

We will use psychodrama, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to take your trauma recovery journey to a level you didn't even know existed.

What do our clients say about this group?

“I've had some HUGE shifts in behavior with the work we're doing. I am not getting triggered all over the place...I have stopped people-pleasing so much...I'm able to say no and not feel guilty, and ask for what I need and not feel the need to explain and over-explain."

"I feel closer to myself and others. The work has catapulted me toward more willingness of self-discovery."

Learn more and sign up here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

Curious how your past is showing up to make decisions in the present?

Then join our Seeking Depth to Trauma Recovery workshop on Friday, November 15 from 9:00-4:00 pm.

What do our clients say about this group?

“I've had some HUGE shifts in behavior with the work we're doing. I am not getting triggered all over the place...I have stopped people-pleasing so much...I'm able to say no and not feel guilty, and ask for what I need and not feel the need to explain and over-explain."

"I feel closer to myself and others. The work has catapulted me toward more willingness of self-discovery."

Learn more and sign up here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

ONE MONTH FROM TODAY!

Psychodrama workshop on 11/15!

Every Psychodrama group starts with the Observing Ego, or as Adrienne calls it, the Observing Self. We do this to make sure that our grown-up self is chaperoning our trauma work.

Trauma is not about the event, but what gets stuck inside in the absence of an empathic witness. When we heal trauma with Psychodrama, we're learning how to be that witness for ourselves.

Register for our psychodrama trauma healing workshop: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

Not all trauma leads to traumatization. When a person experiences traumatization, they're experiencing a fragmentation of the self.

The first fragment is the Wounded Self, who holds the embodied state of psychological pain. Because trauma is not about the event, but rather having the appropriate witnessing of the pain caused by the event, we then internalize those who neglected us, as well as those who've abused us. We continue to perpetuate this neglect and abuse is various ways hoping to contain the original wound.

Psychodrama works directly with this trauma triangle, making the implicit explicit. Once we've identified the internal triangulation, then we can work on witnessing the self from a sense of internal safety.

Begin your journey of self-integration, using this unique Seeking Depth to Recovery framework, on Friday, November 15 from 9:00-4:00 pm.

Learn more here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

Trauma isn't about what happened, it's about what's happening now.

When we are quick to react, have strong emotions, or cry for "no reason," there is something internally that is asking for us to pay attention. In other words, we're time traveling between historical events where we needed to utilize such behaviors to survive, and present day time where such behaviors make us feel like we're "doing the most."

Explore your trauma story in the safety of our 1-day psychodrama trauma workshop, where we will support the brain in separating the trauma timeline from the present day timeline.

Find out more here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

Projection happens when our own internal chaos is too overwhelming to tolerate, but we still have an impulse to make sense of it. Instead of owning up to accountability for our behaviors, we may get role locked in victim-stance, seeing over-exaggerated faults in everyone else around us, taking little to no responsibility for our own behavior.

How can you tell when you're projecting?

First off, the opposite of projection is both personal responsibility and perspective taking. To assess for these two ingredients, we must ask and genuinely answer these questions: "What is my role in this situation?" and "What's it like to be the other person with whom I'm experiencing conflict?"

To ask these questions, one must feel safe within their own nervous system. When we operate from our fight, flight, or freeze response, then we're at a greater risk for engaging in habitual projective behaviors.

Projection is a form of communication that is primarily indicative of attachment trauma. The greater the attachment trauma, the greater the projection. This is because the fragmented parts of ourselves who engaged in the unmet attachment cry remain latent until attended to. These infantile parts perpetuate a sense of helplessness, relying on others to rescue them.

Psychodrama works directly with projection to make the implicit explicit. Once we've identified the projections, then we can work on reparenting self from a sense of internal safety.

Start your psychodrama journey with our 1-day, 1-of-a-kind trauma healing workshop on Friday, November 15th from 9:00-4:00 pm.

Details here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

Group is more impactful than individual therapy. This is because with all the various dyads in a group setting, we have full access to our entire role repertoire.

Our role repertoire is comprised of all the roles we play in life: child, caregiver, protector, peacekeeper, etc. With these roles available to us, the group facilitators can bring us to greater insight than in the isolated space of individual work.​​

If you are stable in your trauma recovery journey and you're ready for new depths, join us Friday, November 15, 2024 from 9:00-4:00 pm for the most impactful trauma recovery work you've done.

Learn more here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

We will use psychodrama, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to take your trauma recovery journey to a level you didn't even know existed.

What do our clients say about this group?

“I've had some HUGE shifts in behavior with the work we're doing. I am not getting triggered all over the place...I have stopped people-pleasing so much...I'm able to say no and not feel guilty, and ask for what I need and not feel the need to explain and over-explain."

"I feel closer to myself and others. The work has catapulted me toward more willingness of self-discovery."

TRANSCEND TRAUMA ECHOES

-Learn how relational trauma alters the blueprint for how we show up to life

-Draw out subtle inter and intrapersonal relationship patterns using psychodrama

-Develop the "Group Brain" to rewire attachment wounds

-Use of Trauma Dramas to anchor Post Traumatic Growth roles

Register: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

Group is more impactful than individual therapy. This is because with all the various dyads in a group setting, we have full access to our entire role repertoire.

Our role repertoire is comprised of all the roles we play in life: child, caregiver, protector, peacekeeper, etc. With these roles available to us, the group facilitators can bring us to greater insight than in the isolated space of individual work.​​

If you are stable in your trauma recovery journey and you're ready for new depths, join us Friday, November 15 from 9:00-4:00 pm.

We will use psychodrama, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to take your trauma recovery journey to a level you didn't even know existed.

What do our clients say about this group?

“I've had some HUGE shifts in behavior with the work we're doing. I am not getting triggered all over the place...I have stopped people-pleasing so much...I'm able to say no and not feel guilty, and ask for what I need and not feel the need to explain and over-explain."

"I feel closer to myself and others. The work has catapulted me toward more willingness of self-discovery."

Learn more and sign up here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

REGISTRATION IS OPEN!

Join us Friday, 11/15/2024 from 9:00-4:00 pm for the most unique trauma recovery workshop.

We will use psychodrama, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems to take your trauma recovery journey to a level you didn't even know existed.

What do our clients say about this group?

“I've had some HUGE shifts in behavior with the work we're doing. I am not getting triggered all over the place...I have stopped people-pleasing so much...I'm able to say no and not feel guilty, and ask for what I need and not feel the need to explain and over-explain."

"I feel closer to myself and others. The work has catapulted me toward more willingness of self-discovery."

Learn more and sign up here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/event-details-registration/seeking-depth-to-trauma-recovery-workshop-2

Do you feel safe when you are safe?

Most people will answer "yes," but that's more commonly a reflection of how our society teaches us to disconnect from our internal experiences.

If you experience:
- Negative self-talk
- The impulse to gossip about others
- Perfectionism
- Instant gratification
- Crippling self-doubt
- Anxious thoughts
- Hyperfocus on other people's reactions
- Among other symptoms of hyperarousal

It's possible that your survival brain, the amygdala, has been a packrat for all the times you were excluded, felt unwanted, insignificant, or not enough.

Instead of attempting to override these thoughts by only focusing on the positive, utilizing coping skills, or avoiding them completely, effective treatment is about honoring the fear that underlies them.

Until our survival brain has mastered the potential threats to our survival, it will continue to perseverate and obsess over what went wrong. When we can take a step back and see the part of ourselves who feels threatened, then, with clarity and compassion, we can meet its needs for safety.

Ego state therapy, EMDR, Art Therapy, and somatic practices are all highly effective in treating negative thoughts, relational trauma, anxiety, and perfectionism.

Learn more about how trauma gets stored in our body here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/polyvagal-theory-trauma-therapy

Don't forget to sign up for our monthly newsletter while you're there for FREE monthly tools to improve your mental health.

There are so many misconceptions of what trauma is and isn't. Put simply, trauma is anything that is too much, too soon, with too little support.

The metric for traumatization is impact on functioning:

-Can you sleep?
-Do you worry about small things?
-Do you struggle with impulse control?
-Do your thoughts ruminate?
-Can you pull yourself out of a funk?

There are many seemingly mild symptoms of trauma, mostly because we've learned to be de-sensitized from them.

Learn more about how trauma is stored in the body here: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/polyvagal-theory-trauma-therapy

Schedule with one of our trauma specialists by emailing or calling/texting: [email protected] or 804-203-2100

Experiential therapy works directly with memories, whether conscious or not, that are trapped in the amygdala.

The amygdala is the unconscious part of our brain that remembers fear and terror, and employs our autonomic nervous system to engage in the fight, flight, freeze response.

The amygdala is fully formed in utero and is constantly assessing our environment for threats, which could range from seeing an assailant with a weapon, or feeling excluded from a group.

Because there is no language in the amygdala, people are unaware of how their present day symptoms are rooted in this part of the brain.

This usually takes the form of denying the existence of an overwhelming or traumatic experience, minimizing the impact of such an experience, or justifying why it was okay that whatever happened happened.

Language and cognitive processing are unable to reach this part of the brain, instead, we work with physical sensations in the body.

Experiential Therapy Intensive make more progress within a shorter therapeutic lifespan, compared to the traditional 50-minute talk therapy model.

Learn more about the benefits of Experiential Therapy Intensives here and make the first step toward living the life you want: https://www.seekingdepthtorecovery.com/trauma-therapy-intensive-richmond-va