Healing Childhood Abuse

Over 25% of American women have been sexually abused as children and if untreated, suffer from the effects of the trauma into adulthood. The effects of sexual abuse may include but are not limited to depression, anxiety, nightmares, substance abuse, fear of intimacy, guilt, shame, promiscuity, destructive relationship patterns, inability to commit or sustain intimate relationships, irrational fears, a sense of a lack of meaning, feeling numb, an inability to trust others, a sense of restlessness and discontentment, an inability to achieve orgasm, and work addiction. The effects of childhood sexual abuse are far reaching.

Trauma therapy can help heal the effects of abuse by helping a person work through painful memories and reconnect thoughts and feelings that have become blocked. Debriefing or processing past trauma in a safe, supportive and nonjudgmental setting can help release what has not been expressed.

Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) is one method of clearing emotional and psychological channels. Dreams are another way of accessing what lies below the surface, as they often show us what we are not consciously aware of. Overtime, the “charge” that has been carried from the past can be released making way for growth and healing. Emphasis can be shifted from old baggage the past, as psychic energy is freed up, allowing a person to be present and able to look toward the future.