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Our Philosophy
We believe in the power of therapy.
We believe that acceptance and change can happen.
We believe that you can have a life worth living!
What Is Trauma Informed Treatment?
The DBT Center of Utah uses evidence-based practices to process and resolve trauma. An effective trauma informed treatment includes three phrases:
1. Building A Sense of Safety
This is the first stage of trauma treatment and involves:
- Building a relationship with your therapist
- Learning DBT and other coping skills
- Feeling confident in your ability to use skills when you are experiencing symptoms of trauma
This phase of treatment helps you to feel strong, steady, and self-assured when it comes to handling your emotions. Clients enrolled in individual and group therapy at The DBT Center of Utah are in the first phase of trauma treatment.
2. Remembering and Finding Meaning
This is the second stage of trauma treatment and involves working with your therapist to reprocess traumatic events. Reprocessing means:
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- Changing and healing your perspective on traumatic experiences
- Reframing how you view traumatic experiences – instead of feeling defeated or overwhelmed by traumatic experiences
- Clearing the negative and intrusive thoughts, memories, and images of the traumatic event from your mind
- Recognizing your strengths, how you’ve grown from the experience, and that you have more characteristics or aspects of yourself than reacting to the painful parts of life
3. Integration
This is the third stage of trauma treatment and is known as “building a life worth living” in DBT. This means that instead of feeling overwhelmed by the trauma and the symptoms you have been living with, you experience:
- Freedom to pursue goals that bring you joy
- Empowerment to create and reach goals that make “life worth living”
- Excitement about your plan for the future
Who is a good candidate for trauma informed treatment?
After learning DBT skills to regulate and cope ahead for reprocessing traumatic events in your life, The DBT Center of Utah uses trauma-based therapies to resolve trauma, meet your goals, increase positive relationships, and support you in having a life worth living.
As a client, you will benefit from trauma treatment if you have experienced:
- ZA recent upsetting or traumatic event that you find yourself reliving - it gets in the way of your ability to function the same way you did before the event happened
- ZA specific event that causes intrusive thoughts, images, and feelings and causes you to avoid certain people, places, or things that remind you of the event
- ZRepeated events with a person where you felt trapped and now you frequently feel emotionally dysregulated
- ZThe event is making your relationships feel chaotic and that no one understands why you are acting dysregulated
- ZEvents in childhood that threatened feelings of safety and/or well-being
- ZIncreased moments of “blacking out” or dissociating from your present moment - usually when your trauma is repeatedly caused by something or someone in your environment
Types of Trauma Informed Treatment Provided At The DBT Center of Utah
At the DBT Center of Utah, we offer the following types of evidence-based trauma-informed treatments (which means they have been through many studies and research to determine that it is an effective practice) for clients who would like to address trauma:
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART)
Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) allows clients to replace negative images and body sensations associated with past trauma with positive images of the client’s choosing. This happens quickly and most often in one session. ART is unique in that it is an easier type of trauma processing than traditional talking about trauma, because it does not require the client to talk about the experience in detail. Instead, ART uses eye movement and meditative imagery to help the client experience a sense of calm, or even joy, by the end of their session. ART has empirical data that supports its usage in the treatment of anxiety, depression, phobias, panic attacks, OCD, PTSD, addiction & substance use, family and relationship issues, co-dependency, grief, job-related stress, pain management, dyslexia anxiety, and many other diagnoses.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) uses eye movements and/or hand tapping to help clients reprocess trauma in short doses so they no longer experience mental and physical feelings of distress. EMDR involves 8 phases of treatment. Data has been shown to treat trauma and PTSD, anxiety, depression, dissociative disorders, eating disorders, OCD, and personality disorders.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) uses experiential and narrative therapy to better understand that within a person’s mind are different “parts of yourself.” IFS does not admonish “parts of yourself”, instead this therapy intends to recognize that different “parts of yourself” act out of protection after being traumatized. The goal of IFS is for all of the “parts of yourself” to work together to support your core Self. IFS is an evidence-based psychotherapy that treats anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, dissociative identity disorder, eating disorders, grief, OCD, panic disorders, phobias, PTSD, and substance use disorders.
Experiential & Expressive Therapy
Experiential & Expressive Therapy is a categorization of many types of trauma treatments. At The DBT Center of Utah, some methods used include:
- Sand Tray: Uses symbolic representations to better understand and process emotions, beliefs, and patterns around traumatic events. This type of therapy is beneficial when verbal expression is difficult.
- Mind-Body Connection: Enhances awareness of emotions and how they relate to body sensations. This type of therapy is beneficial for increasing feelings of calm and decreasing physical pain.
- Imagery: Increases feelings of control, calmness, and self-confidence in past, present, and future situations. This type of therapy is beneficial for mental relaxation and physical well-being (ex: sleep, blood pressure, and pain management).
