Trauma Counselling in Berlin
You may think that talking about your trauma won't improve anything, but you feel like you can't stay in the same place any longer. You know you have to do something about it since it's unbearable to be where you are now. Trauma may show up as difficulties with sleeping, reliving traumatic events, intense emotional overwhelm, and the loss of feeling safe. Trauma treatment can help you feel less anxious and find self-compassion, understanding and healing.
Working with trauma
Trauma therapy isn't just looking towards your future. It is about making sense of your past in a safe environment and diving deeper than just talking about how your week went. It is about relationship building and gaining trust. Through a safe space, we can start working through painful experiences and start living a life with full potential.
Process of trauma counselling
The process of trauma counselling won't make you feel better immediately, and it won't be easy. You will often want to quit and not come to therapy throughout the process. But if you stick with it and show up consistently, a therapist will help you to work through your past. You will start to find new ways of coping and moving forward. If you don't believe you can feel better, a counsellor will hold hope for you in times of difficulties.
Arula Counselling integrates creative, psychodynamic, mindfulness and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) approaches with a focus on neurodiversity-affirming and trauma-informed care.
What is trauma?
Trauma is an overwhelming event that affects a person's ability to cope. It is about what happens in the person after the event. Trauma can happen in many ways, such as an acute, intense, traumatic event, or a repeated series of traumatic events. Trauma can be a sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, abuse, which can include bullying, racism and homophobia, a serious accident, or losing someone close to you. And these might be difficult to recover from alone.
What are the symptoms of trauma?
Symptoms of trauma can be:
Having intrusive thoughts - your thoughts may interrupt your daily living, give you anxiety or panic attacks, and make you feel like you can't move on with your life.
Avoiding situations and reminders - you may avoid triggering situations and reminders altogether since it is too painful to go through them again. It feels like you are reliving the past.
Distorted beliefs and negative thoughts - you may have distorted thoughts and feelings about yourself and others with ongoing fear, guilt, anger or shame. As a result, this can lead to feeling disconnected from yourself and your loved ones.
Unsafe, risky behaviour - not thinking of the consequences of your behaviour and wanting to get rid of the pain that the traumatic event or events have caused you. Becoming reactive, having irritable outbursts, difficulties concentrating and behaving self-destructively.
It is important to note that these trauma symptoms are common and normal reactions to an abnormal situation. Trauma often occurs with other related mental health conditions such as substance misuse, depression, anxiety, and difficulties with memory and concentration.
How to recover from trauma?
When you've been through an overwhelming experience, you may recover within a few weeks or months. However, if your symptoms, such as intense fear, avoiding situations, feeling triggered, nightmares, depression and anxiety, carry on, you may be experiencing PTSD. In this case, counselling can help you find relief from your symptoms and help you find yourself again.
Music therapy in healing trauma
Music can be combined with therapy to bring successful results for healing traumas. Integrating music into the session adds therapeutic value, allowing us to treat and heal trauma more efficiently. In addition to words, we will be working with the body and non-verbal material, forming a bridge between your conscious and subconscious minds. This allows you to communicate beyond verbal understanding and connect to your innermost emotions and thoughts, which, in turn, can lead to healing.
We can gain insight into your experiences through music analysis, ultimately allowing the therapeutic process to occur without words. Music stimulates certain areas of the brain that accelerate the healing process and promote positive physical changes within the body's ability to manage stressors more effectively. Additionally, when deep emotion is engaged through music-making or listening, this directs energy towards psychological insight, which slowly forms additional parts of one's 'story' leading back home within ourselves again and again.
Starting with trauma counselling
Everyone reacts and deals with trauma differently. Trauma doesn't have a look, and trauma symptoms can occur immediately or much longer after the event. You are not defined by what happened to you.
I am here to support you in processing your experiences in a safe space. I look forward to connecting with you.
Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only and does not replace a therapeutic relationship with a trained professional. If you are in a mental health crisis, please call 112 or your country's crisis line, where professional mental health workers can help you.