PTSD Treatment
and Trauma Therapy
Online therapy for Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and New Mexico residents, with licensed therapist in Tucson, Jacob Gotwals, MA.
Are you feeling weighed down by trauma?
Have you been through a difficult life experience? If so, you may experience emotional and psychological distress for a long time afterwards; this distress is called trauma.
If you’ve been through a traumatic experience:
Have you been having flashbacks, nightmares, or intrusive thoughts related to the experience?
Have you been avoiding situations, triggers, or thoughts about the traumatic experience?
Have you been having trouble concentrating?
Have you been hypervigilant or easily startled?
Have you had insomnia, fatigue, headaches, or digestive issues?
Have you been feeling fear, anger, guilt, or emotional numbness and detachment?
Have you had increased anxiety or depression?
These can all be symptoms of trauma. These symptoms can be really unpleasant and can get in the way of your ability to function in your relationships, work, and school.
EMDR therapy can help.
During EMDR therapy, I will guide you through a healing process of focusing on distressing memories while experiencing bilateral stimulation (stimulation that goes back and forth from one side of your body to the other). Through repeated sets of bilateral stimulation, EMDR can reduce the emotional distress associated with traumatic memories, allowing you to experience them with less emotional intensity. EMDR can also help your mind reprocess traumatic memories, making new connections and associations.
Experience freedom from trauma.
As traumatic memories are reprocessed during EMDR therapy, you may experience a sense of resolution and closure. The memories become integrated in a way that allows for greater understanding, acceptance, and emotional healing. EMDR can also help you identify and challenge negative beliefs or interpretations associated with traumatic memories, creating positive changes in your thoughts and perceptions.
Eventually, through EMDR therapy, your traumatic memories can become more like ordinary memories; while they are still memories of unpleasant experiences, they no longer bother you nearly as much when you remember them. You go from re-experiencing the trauma every time you remember them to being able to tell the story of what happened, with much less emotional distress.
How I Can Help
EMDR therapy with me can help resolve PTSD and trauma symptoms. I’ll start by talking with you to understand the issues you've been facing and your goals for therapy. Then we’ll work together to make sense of your symptoms, and we’ll use EMDR therapy to start resolving them.
Frequently Asked Questions
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A traumatic experience could be a single overwhelming or life-threatening event (like an accident, injury, disaster, or loss of a loved one) or repeated or ongoing stressful events or situations (as in abuse, neglect, bullying, discrimination, or childhood adversity).
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When you go through a traumatic experience, your mind’s ability to process the experience gets overwhelmed, leaving you with a traumatic memory. The difference between traumatic memories and ordinary memories is that traumatic memories can be intrusive, coming up unexpectedly and repeatedly; they can be emotionally intense, bringing up emotions like fear, helplessness, or horror; and they can be fragmented, making it harder to remember a coherent story of what happened. Traumatic memories can also trigger strong physical reactions like increased heart rate, sweating, or panic, which can interfere with your ability to function; these physical reactions can lead to avoidance, hypervigilance, and difficulty concentrating or sleeping.
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EMDR was developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. (Originally, EMDR therapists used back-and-forth eye movements for bilateral stimulation, but now we know that other techniques, such as self-tapping, can also be effective.)
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Bilateral stimulation (stimulation that goes back and forth from one side of your body to the other) helps create the right conditions for your mind to heal and reprocess traumatic memories. There are a number of theories about why this works; this is still being researched.
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Many research studies have demonstrated that EMDR can be effective in reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other trauma-related conditions. EMDR was developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, and is recognized as an evidence-based treatment for PTSD by organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
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I’m proud to be certified as an EMDR therapist by the EMDR International Association.
I’m Jacob Gotwals, MA, a licensed professional counselor in Tucson.
I work by video with individuals and couples in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and New Mexico. Looking for a male therapist?