Overcoming Your Fear of Addressing Childhood Trauma

The psychological scars created by trauma can run deep and severely impact your emotional and behavioral health in various ways. Today, however, we have a deeper understanding of how to treat trauma and related mental illnesses than ever before. From cognitive behavioral therapy to mindfulness-based practices, there are myriad modalities that help people who have experienced childhood trauma resolve their pasts, develop meaningful coping skills, and move forward.

Of course, therapy of any form only works if you feel comfortable participating in that therapy. While reluctance to open up about childhood trauma is a natural instinct for many, talking about your experiences is an essential part of the healing process and the only way to meaningfully participate in many treatment modalities. In order to make the therapeutic process as safe, inviting, and positive as possible, it’s essential to develop a strong therapeutic alliance with your therapist.

A strong therapeutic alliance doesn’t simply mean that you like your therapist, although that can be an important component. Dr. Deborah L. Cabaniss describes the therapeutic alliance as “the trust between you and your therapist that allows you to work together effectively. It’s what helps you to believe that your therapist is trustworthy and has your best interest at heart.” In a positive therapeutic relationship, you share a connection with your therapist that helps you feel understood, validated, and supported. You have common perspectives and goals that give you a sense of mutual therapeutic purpose and you agree on how you will create meaningful change.

Building that relationship, of course, takes time. A skilled therapist will not expect you to disclose the details of your trauma until you feel comfortable enough to do so. Instead, they will work with you to create the foundation for a strong working relationship in which you feel nurtured and supported and for which there is space for you to talk about your childhood trauma when you are ready. When you do disclose, your therapist will act as a guide as you navigate painful feelings and memories, giving you the resources you need to stay safe.

Therapists who specialize in childhood trauma treatment understand both the importance of a positive therapeutic alliance and the challenges you may face in establishing such an alliance. As such, they can take special care to create a foundation of trust and safety with you from the very beginning, always mindful of your individual limits, preferences, and personality. Not only is this vital to helping you feel safe enough to address your traumatic experiences in treatment, research also consistently shows that positive therapeutic relationships are associated with better outcomes for a range of mental health disorders, even disorders considered particularly difficult to treat, such as borderline personality disorder and dissociative disorders.

While processing your trauma verbally will likely be an important part of your recovery process, it’s also important to know that there are trauma-focused therapies that can allow you to explore traumatic experiences and reactions non-verbally. These include:

Somatic Experiencing: Somatic Experiencing helps you release traumatic energy, improve emotional regulation, and unlock your innate healing abilities. Your therapist will guide you toward greater awareness of your physical sensations and responses and direct you to engage in physical movements designed to relieve destructive energy, access new emotions, and reframe your relationship with your experiences. If you are comfortable speaking about your trauma, your therapist may involve you in a discussion about your traumatic experiences. However, the therapy doesn’t necessitate this conversation; you can benefit from Somatic Experiencing without verbally addressing the direct source of your distress.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR): When a person experiences trauma, the brain is sometimes not able to process information in a healthy way, causing lasting emotional and behavioral disturbances. EMDR helps you re-process and re-contextualize traumatic experiences using directed eye movements to unlock damaging emotional and behavioral patterns and replace them with healthier alternatives. You do not have to directly talk about your traumatic memories if you do not feel comfortable doing so; EMDR can be an empowering process even if you do not verbalize specific memories.

Engaging in Somatic Experiencing and EMDR can help you increase bodily awareness, take control of your emotional responses, and form new coping skills in a safe way before you are ready to talk about your trauma in other therapeutic contexts. While these therapies can have significant benefits in and of themselves, they can also help you feel more in control of your responses to trauma and lessen the probability of re-traumatization when you do begin to explore your experiences in other therapeutic modalities. As such, they can set the stage for deeper engagement across therapies.