Trauma Therapy vs Talk Therapy- What’s the Difference?
You talked and thought your way around the issues. Maybe you’ve even been to therapy before. Despite all of these efforts, it still feels impossible to shake the uncomfortable feelings, negative thoughts, and crushing sensations in your chest…
It’s not like you had a super terrible childhood or suffered a huge trauma.
Shouldn’t talk therapy be enough to resolve these issues?
As a trauma therapist in Oakland CA, I am often asked about the difference between trauma therapy and talk therapy and if trauma therapy is necessary if someone “hasn’t had trauma.” The word “trauma” carries a tone of being a huge thing that happened- an abusive parent or caregiver, sexual assault, the untimely death of a loved one, or some other catastrophic event.
The truth is, trauma can be these things, but it can also be more subtle and a lot more common than we think. This doesn’t mean that everyone has big trauma, but many people have registered difficult past experiences or relationships in their psyche in a way that impacts their present-day mood and functioning.
While some mental health-related symptoms do have a biological component, most people with a mental health-related struggle picked up that struggle from a difficult relationship or event that happened in the past.
Talk Therapy vs Trauma Therapy
Therapy has changed over the past few decades. We have become far more educated about mental health and therapy approaches have evolved to match this knowledge. A trauma-informed approach works with mental health symptoms in a deeper way than talk therapy. Here are a few key similarities and differences.
Talk Therapy often focuses on changing thoughts cognitively, while trauma therapy accesses the felt experience of the emotion or thought
Many traditional therapy models, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, or Acceptance and Commitment therapy focus on changing how you think to change how you feel and behave.
While these approaches can effectively alleviate symptoms, they often miss the deeper nuances of why that thought keeps happening and in many cases, don’t result in deep lasting change.
Trauma therapy helps you really feel your feelings. This involves accessing your body’s felt experience of the thought or emotion and working with the underlying root or reason for that sensation, thought, and why it keeps showing up.
This can often result in deeper lasting change than when only working cognitively.
Trauma therapy prioritizes building skills to regulate difficult emotions, thoughts, and behaviors before going deep into a difficult memory or experience.
Most trauma therapists have a toolkit of interventions and therapy modalities that often include talk therapy (and many of the modalities named previously). Often, those tools and strategies are heavily used to prepare before going deep into difficult memories or experiences.
A skilled trauma therapist will support you in learning how to regulate your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors (often using talk therapy approaches in tandem with trauma-informed approaches) before deep diving into the difficult stuff. This is important because without these skills, working with difficult experiences or memories can be overwhelming and unsupportive of your desired changes.
Both Trauma therapy and Talk Therapy often emphasize the relationship with the therapist as a key component of healing.
Positive and healthy relationships help improve depression, and anxiety and help mend the impact of difficult past relationships and experiences. Both talk therapy and trauma therapy emphasize the relationship with the therapist as an essential part of the healing process.
When looking for a new therapist, it’s important to ensure you “click” with them. When speaking with them on the phone, pay attention to how you feel. Are they easy to talk to? Do you feel comfortable on the phone with them?
Before deciding between a trauma therapist or a talk therapist, it’s important to make sure the relationship with the therapist feels like the right fit for your personality and communication style.
Talk therapy can be a helpful stepping stone in preparing for trauma therapy.
Not ready to dive into working on that difficult relationship or experience? That’s ok! A well-trained trauma therapist will have the skills and tools to support you in building up to working through those difficult relationships or experiences.
If you already have a talk therapist you love and have a great relationship with, adjunctive EMDR therapy or adjunctive trauma therapy might be a good fit for you. Adjunctive therapy allows you to continue seeing your current therapist and also work with a trauma therapist short-term on specific areas where you need support.
If you currently have a therapist and want to do trauma-focused work, it’s ok (and encouraged!) to bring it up with your current therapist. They can help connect you to a trauma therapist they think would be a good fit.
