At our trauma therapy in Los Angeles center, we treat many different kinds of ailments, negative patterns and problems. However, we’ve found that there are many kinds of problems that people don’t know that we treat. For example, most assume that we treat addiction and depression, but they don’t know about other ailments we treat, such as affect regulation, attachment difficulties, and more. In this article, we’ll go over some of the lesser known (but no less powerful) ailments that treat as well as how we go about doing so.
Lesser Known Trauma Therapy in Los Angeles
“Affect Regulation” may sound like something that a robot would have to learn in a science fiction story, but, it’s actually the ability to experience intensely negative or positive effect without becoming overwhelmed. Do you ever feel so happy or so sad that you feel a bit out of control? Or, do you ever try to protect yourself when you get too sad or too happy? For many people, when they’re too ecstatic or “down” they’ll try to protect themselves in an assortment of negative ways. That’s often drinking alcohol or using drugs, but for others it can be dissociating or other numbing behaviors. You don’t have to go through life feeling tense, anxious, overwhelmed or even numb all the time.
How We Treat Affect Regulation
Cutting yourself off from your emotions is no way to go through life. Often, affect regulation is a problem due to a person’s early attachment breeches. That usually leads to a nervous system in adulthood that’s deeply out of balance. That’s why you might feel so stressed all of the time, anxious or tense without knowing why or how to stop it. At the Trauma and Beyond Center, we’ve helped so many clients to regulate their nervous system. Resiliency is not something that a person is born with. It’s not a case of “you have it” or “you don’t.” It can be increased. It can grow, like a muscle: something that’s tested and strengthened until it’s more powerful than a person realizes. We help with that, through NARM, somatic experiencing and many other therapy models.
Solving Attachment Difficulties
Study after study has shown that the patterns of how a person relates to others are created in the first years of life. Often, that’s before we ever even go to a kind of school. In fact, there have been some studies showing that the function and structure of our brains (as well as our nervous systems) is shaped by our earliest possible environmental interactions. So, that means our infancy goes a long way towards shaping how we see the world for the rest of our lives. When our infant attachment needs are met, that’s great. An infant whose attachment needs are met will feel safe and secure, comfortable in the knowledge that the world is ultimately a good place.
When Infancy Attachment Needs Aren’t Met
However, should the infant’s attachment needs not be met, then the opposite happens. The infant whose attachment needs go unmet may not feel safe or secure. They may go to great lengths to hide that fact. Indeed, they may not even be aware that is what’s going on inside their body and nervous system. This infant probably won’t internalize the idea that the world is ultimately a good place to be in, which can lead to a whole host of problems down the road. When caregivers are emotionally unavailable, prone to rejection or even abusive, the infant will develop survival strategies.
The problem with those survival strategies is that they will ultimately be maladaptive for the rest of their lives. The strategies an infant develops to deal with a parent who rejects them will carry with the infant as they grow. Then, as they’re an adult, that trauma will lead to a lifelong way of viewing the world. We can help with that. On our staff, we have many highly skilled therapists. Our specialists in interpersonal neurobiology as well as attachment theory have a proven track record of helping clients who suffer from these traumas. They can help you to develop more secure, lasting connections.
The traumas that we suffer early in life can inform us for the rest of lives. We may develop survival strategies that were originally designed to protect us but, over time, ultimately hurt in the lives we’re trying to lead today. It’s easy to fall into the trap of letting the maladaptive survival strategies of our past lessen our enjoyment of our modern life. To overcome these traumas and live the life you want, we recommend scheduling a free consultation with us. It’s easy to do: all you have to do is send us a message through our site or just give us a call at (818) 651-0725.
