Trauma Therapy
in Alpharetta, GA
When Past Trauma Continues To Affect Daily Functioning
Have you noticed that past negative experiences influence your current emotional state, physical well-being, or relationships?
Do you feel persistent tension, emotional distress, or a sense of being “stuck,” even long after the event that’s affecting you emotionally has passed?
You may find yourself experiencing intrusive memories, heightened reactivity, chronic worry, or low mood that interferes with work, relationships, or daily responsibilities. Maybe those reactions appear without an obvious trigger, making them confusing and difficult to manage.
Trauma can occur at any point in life, and its effects are not determined by the severity or timing of the event. You might believe you should have “moved on” by now, yet continue to feel the negative effects of your trauma, but therapy can help you find balance and heal.
How Trauma Affects The Mind, Body, And Relationships
Trauma can impact every part of your daily life. Cognitively and emotionally, you may experience rumination, hypervigilance, avoidance, irritability, or a persistent sense of sadness or defeat. Physically, unresolved trauma can contribute to sleep disturbances, chronic pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, fatigue, headaches, or other psychosomatic concerns.
Relationally, trauma can interfere with trust, emotional intimacy, and the ability to feel connected or present with others. You might feel frozen in the past, unable to envision or move toward your desired future, or perhaps you remain in a constant state of alertness that leaves you exhausted.
Although trauma can feel all-encompassing, it is highly treatable with appropriate psychological care. Therapy can help you understand how trauma responses developed, reduce distressing symptoms, and restore a sense of control over your emotional and physical experiences.
Understanding Trauma and PTSD In A Broader Context
Trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more common than many people realize. Research indicates that approximately 3.9 percent of the population will meet criteria for PTSD at some point in their lives, while many more experience trauma-related symptoms without a formal diagnosis or receiving counseling. [1]
Trauma can result from a wide range of experiences that counseling could address, including childhood adversity, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, neglect, interpersonal violence, medical trauma, divorce, relationship loss, or other overwhelming life events. Importantly, what is traumatic is subjective, as an experience that overwhelms one person’s capacity to cope may not affect another in the same way.
Because trauma and PTSD often occur early in life or within close relationships, individuals may grow up without language or awareness to identify what they are experiencing without the help of a counselor. Trauma responses are frequently misunderstood or misattributed to personality traits, such as irritability, emotional withdrawal, or difficulty trusting others. Others may normalize isolation, emotional numbing, or anger, without realizing these patterns can reflect unresolved trauma rather than character flaws.
Why Trauma Is Difficult To Resolve Without Support
Trauma can also remain unrecognized or denied, particularly when it was chronic, subtle, or invalidated by others. When trauma is minimized or stigmatized, individuals may experience shame or self-blame, further delaying help-seeking.
Many people struggle to address trauma on their own because they lack the tools to understand how trauma affects both the mind and body. But with the guidance of a therapist in trauma and PTSD therapy, you can recognize the symptoms and learn how to process or release them safely and effectively.
Trauma Therapy With Origins Holistic Psychotherapy
Developing a safe, trusting therapeutic relationship with your counselor is a critical foundation for trauma work, and that is our primary goal when you begin therapy at our practice. With appropriate, evidence-based support, trauma can be approached in a structured, non-retraumatizing manner.
Our practice addresses trauma from an integrative, mind–body perspective and can help you make sense of your symptoms, reduce distress, and gradually restore a sense of stability, agency, and emotional well-being. Healing is possible, and therapy can make a meaningful difference.
A Trauma-Informed, Nervous-System-Centered Approach To Healing
Therapy can help you understand how trauma, including childhood events, as well as complex trauma and PTSD, has affected your nervous system, thoughts, emotions, and body responses. By learning skills for grounding, mindfulness, and nervous system regulation, you can develop the internal resources needed to address your experiences in a way that feels manageable rather than retraumatizing. This foundation allows trauma to be processed gradually, with attention to both psychological insight and physiological regulation.
Integrating Trauma Through Evidence-Based Modalities
Trauma and PTSD treatment is collaborative and guided by your goals, values, and lived experience. Together, we identify how you want your life to feel different and what greater safety, connection, or freedom might look like for you. Therapy may incorporate modalities such as:
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): An evidence-based therapy using bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories so they become less emotionally distressing and disruptive.
Brainspotting: An approach similar to EMDR, we utilize brainspotting to identify specific eye positions linked to stored trauma, allowing deeper processing of emotional and physiological responses held in the nervous system.
Polyvagal Theory: Which explains trauma as the nervous system getting "stuck" in survival states like fight, flight, or freeze due to overwhelming experiences, even after the threat is gone, leading to chronic dysregulation.
Trauma Incident Reduction (TIR): By reviewing traumatic incidents in a safe and structured way, their emotional charge and distress associated with the memory are reduced.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): A structured, evidence-based method that helps you identify and modify unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors contributing to emotional distress.
Somatic Therapy: This body-oriented approach addresses how trauma is stored in the nervous system by increasing awareness of physical sensations to support regulation and healing.
Mindfulness-Based Strategies: These practices cultivate present-moment awareness and nonjudgmental attention to thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations to reduce reactivity and enhance emotional regulation.
These approaches will help you process traumatic memories, reduce hypervigilance, and bridge the gap between cognitive understanding and bodily experience. Treatment plans are flexible and evolving, serving as a framework for integrating trauma narratives with compassion and clarity over time.
Trauma does not define who you are. While traumatic experiences can leave lasting imprints, they are workable and treatable. With the support of therapy, it is possible to reduce trauma’s influence, restore a sense of agency, and reconnect with who you are without trauma directing every aspect of your life.
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You Might Have Questions Or Concerns About Trauma Therapy…
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Therapy is an investment in your long-term well-being and recovery, helping you gain insight, develop effective coping strategies, and reduce the impact trauma-related symptoms may have on your daily life. The benefits often extend well beyond the therapy room in supporting improved emotional health, stronger relationships, and greater overall stability. It can also be helpful to consider the cost of continuing to live with unresolved symptoms, such as ongoing distress, limited functioning, or difficulty fully engaging in life.
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Despite this concern, many people experience noticeable improvements relatively early in the therapeutic process, particularly as they learn skills to regulate their nervous system and reduce day-to-day distress. At the same time, deeper work in counseling for complex trauma often unfolds gradually, allowing changes to be integrated in a way that feels stable and sustainable.
While this process can take time, it is purposeful work aimed at helping you move beyond patterns that have kept you feeling stuck. Additionally, therapy is not intended to be indefinite. As symptoms become more manageable and confidence in your coping skills increases, sessions may become less frequent.
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It’s understandable to feel hesitant if you’ve already invested time and effort in trauma counseling without experiencing the relief you hoped for. Not all trauma treatment is the same, and healing often requires an approach that addresses more than insight alone.
This work is grounded in integrative, trauma-informed care attending to the mind, body, and nervous system, not just thoughts or memories in isolation. By combining evidence-based, body-oriented, and cognitive strategies, therapy is tailored to how trauma shows up uniquely for you.
Don’t Let Trauma Hold You Back Any Longer
Reach out to discuss our practice and how our therapy practice can help you process and heal from trauma, no matter when you experienced it. Call us at (404) 500-6125 or connect through our Contact page to get started.
