Is your marriage or romantic relationship not where you want it to be? Some days, does it feel like you are anxious, frustrated, and after fights, you feel hopeless? Do you and your spouse have a history of emotional, sexual, or physical trauma from your childhood or past relationships? Is this past trauma coming up and preventing you and your spouse from communicating calmly, lovingly, or respectfully? Thinking back, did you and your partner have emotionally immature or emotionally neglectful parents? Did you or your spouse experience lots of loss, grief, and are experiencing severe sadness? Do you feel tired, experience mood swings, have trouble sleeping, are emotionally burnt out from all the trauma you’ve been through? The team at Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida specialize in trauma informed marriage therapy and complex post-traumatic stress disorder in couples counseling.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Do your spouse’s parents argue and don’t show healthy communication? Did you and your spouse have a traumatic, rough childhood and want to change the family pattern for the better?
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
What is the vicious cycle of conflict couples often get stuck in when past trauma is being triggered?
When you and your partner have experienced past trauma, you may find yourself stuck in a vicious cycle of conflict when that trauma is triggered. Wounds from childhood, such as having emotionally neglectful, narcissistic parents, can leave a painful scar. Then, you and your spouse unintentionally re-trigger each other’s past trauma wounds, leading to intense conflict. Over time, these emotionally painful patterns of interaction become detrimental to your relationship. From the vicious cycle of disconnection, distance, and hurtful jabs, you notice that you well-being suffers. Wisdom Within Counseling specializes in trauma informed marriage therapy and complex post-traumatic stress disorder in couples counseling in Melbourne, Florida.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
In couples therapy, with our complex trauma specialists, you can learn to identify common elements of your “dance” or vicious cycle.
Can You Name Some Triggering Events?
Something in the present situation, a word, a gesture, or a situation, reminds one or both of you of the hurt, betrayal, and loss of past trauma. These triggers can bring up intense emotions, anger, and defensive reactions.
For instance, let’s say your father was emotionally reactive, angry, and often yelled at your entire family. As a small child, you off and found yourself hiding under a table, or remaining as silent as possible as not to make him more angry. Essentially, you never had a voice, and didn’t feel safe to speak up as a child. Though you had good memories with your dad, your father was narcissistic, yelled, and was emotionally explosive often.
You walked on eggshells as a child in your home growing up.
And, you never felt comfortable bringing your friends over to your house because you never knew if your dad would be emotionally abusive to them. After school, you always try to spend time at your friend’s houses, and avoided being at home around your dad. The memories of having a father with anger management issues is a painful scar. Your angry, narcissistic father never met your emotional needs in your childhood, and this leaves a lasting impact. You felt small, inferior, helpless, scared, and hurt in your childhood.
Now, when your romantic partner or spouse raises their voice, this triggers this childhood trauma wound.
When your spouse or romantic partner talks down to you, yells, gets loud, or shouts, you immediately feel like a small child who has to hide and pull away. You default to the silent treatment. To note, the silent treatment was a survival mechanism that you used to get through having a narcissistic, emotionally explosive father. As a small child, you remained quiet as you walked on eggshells. The silent treatment was some thing that allowed you to get through the emotionally abusive childhood that you experienced.
However, using the silent treatment with your spouse, only makes your spouse more upset because they cannot connect with you.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Understand and learn about trauma triggers in Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy and complex post-traumatic stress disorder focused couples counseling
Working with a trauma informed couples therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida can give your spouse understanding as to why you may be using the silent treatment. They can learn it was a survival mechanism that you have used for most of your life. Then, your spouse can develop a sense of compassion for your childhood trauma experiences and the pain of having a high conflict, narcissistic, angry father. However, you can also learn how the silent treatment is no longer serving you and start to talk about emotional safety needs. In your marriage, trust can be rebuild and you can feel that you no longer have to be walking on eggshells in your marriage.
Your spouse can learn to use a calmer, more gentle tone of voice as they know that a loud, harsh tone of voice triggers your past trauma wounds.
You can also learn how to verbalize when you feel emotionally overwhelmed, instead of using the silent treatment. From Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy, you can verbalize your needs and boundaries when it comes to feeling safe continuing a conversation with your spouse. You can work together to create perimeters to feel safe talking and being emotionally vulnerable.
Couples counseling near Cocoa Beach, Florida can help you both in feeling more loved, respected, valued, wanted, and secure together.
Overall, you and your partner do not have to feel stuck, helpless, or hopeless about the state of your marriage. Couples counseling can help you gain awareness for how past trauma can be healed through counseling, being vulnerable together, and empathy skills. Our team of marriage therapists in Brevard County, Florida create a safe space for you to talk about a range of marital emotions that are at the root of your conflicts. Trauma wounds can lead to blocks in intimacy.
At Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida, our team specializes in trauma informed marriage therapy and complex post-traumatic stress disorder in couples counseling.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Does Your Nervous System Go Into Hyperarousal In A Fight With Your Spouse?
When past trauma is triggered, both partners may experience heightened emotional arousal. Fight, flight, and freeze states lead to increased stress, anxiety, anger, and reactivity. The more you both try to “talk it out” in a heightened emotional state, the more you will both react out of anger, fear, or even shutdown. You’ll both say something hurtful, that you regret later.
For instance, different parenting styles and talking about parenting your children together can lead to a massive, intense blowup. There are usually roots in unhealed childhood trauma here.
Or, when you want affection, cuddles, or touch, your partner withdraws and pulls away. You feel like roommates, like two ships passing in the night. You immediately feel unwanted, hurt, alone, and rejected when your spouse won’t show you affection. It makes you feel like you are just a helper, or even a servant in your own home. Couples counseling can help you verbalize your emotions, give you a voice, and work through it together.
Do Miscommunications Increase The More You Try To Talk?
In a heightened emotional state, effective communication becomes challenging, and often impossible. It is like you are both trying to talk, but both of you are not actually emotionally validating the other. So, you both feel unheard, upset, and try even harder to explain or convince the other to see your point of view. More so, misunderstandings and misinterpretations occur, which create more intense frustration, emotional disconnection, and conflict.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Is Defensiveness Present?
Defensivness is a wall, a form of disengagement, and a form of self-protection. But, healthy communication means being open, engaged, responsive, calm, and receptive. Both of you may become defensive as you try to protect yourselves from perceived threats and more emotional pain. For instance, you might respond with criticism, blame, or withdrawal, which exacerbates the conflict.
Often, couples counseling is the first time many partners start to understand and truly identify that they are in fact using defensiveness, criticism, blame and withdrawing.
And, these reactions are very triggering for your partner, so both of you end up trigger each other.
So often, people are just stuck in the pattern of what they know and how they have see parents react, which is often dysfunctional. Often times, your own parents are defensive, critical, and guilt tripped you. Without realizing it, you and your spouse may be carrying on negative generational patterns into your marriage. And, you both want to create a calmer home than the ones you grew up in.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, we specialize in trauma informed marriage therapy and complex post-traumatic stress disorder in couples counseling.
Rarely, do we grow up seeing our parents show good role modeling of conflict resolution skills and calm, emotional communication skills.
Growing up, when you or your partner have emotionally neglectful parents were narcissistic parents, you were criticized, blamed, guilt tripped, and you experienced your parents withholding affection. Identifying these hurtful behaviors can help prevent you from repeating them in your own marital and family dynamic. And, trauma informed marriage therapy helps you both how to communicate in healthier ways, which will better your romantic relationship more than you’ll ever realize.
Couples therapy in Melbourne, Florida at Wisdom Within Counseling is a process of identifying when you and your partner may be getting defensive, critical, or socially overwhelmed.
From there, you can respond mindfully verses react. You can your partner can learn to verbalize how you may be in a trauma state and being triggered, and use positive coping tools.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Another Sign Of Past Trauma Being Triggered Is Repetition Compulsion
There’s a psychological phenomenon called “repetition compulsion” where people unconsciously reenact past traumas in their current relationships. In the context of your marriage or relationship with unresolved trauma, you may experience a cycle where you both keep triggering each other’s past wounds.
When you most deeply want to feel loved and seek connection, somehow, your partner is triggered, and pulls away.
When they are triggered in a trauma state, they can’t offer you the love you need or want. Your partner’s trauma trigger prevents them from being loving, nurturing, and affectionate. Maybe, they withdraw, use the silent treatment, and avoid you. Or, maybe, your partner reacts angrily, yelling, or blaming you. This makes you feel even more hurt, lonely, sad, and betrayed.
In turn, their reaction triggers your unmet love needs and childhood trauma wounds from having neglectful, narcissistic parents, even more. To add, your partner’s reaction triggers your need to feel loved and wanted even more.
Working with our Melbourne, Florida team of trauma informed marriage therapists and complex post-traumatic stress disorder trained couples counselors, you can understand how to break this cycle.
There is an inner child inside each of you craving and hungering for attention, affection, quality time, compliments, reassurance, and closeness. But, it lashes out, gets angry, yells, defensive, and uses criticism when past trauma is triggered in a current marital fight.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
The team at Wisdom Within Counseling specialize in helping couple of step away from hurtful trauma reactions such as blame shifting, guilt tripping, yelling, name-calling, and defensive communication styles.
Instead of reacting out of pain, you can share your needs for connection with your partner. Couples counseling is a process of remaining open and receptive in the present moment, even when past trauma wounds in pain. Instead of criticizing or being defensive, you and your partner can learn how to be emotionally vulnerable with each other.
Rather than yelling, you both might need help talking about how you fear rejection or fear abandonment.
As well, your romantic partner may need help telling you that they fear they could never measure up, or that they could never be good enough.
Your partner may fear that you find someone better, or more attractive.
Also, your partner may fear that you will leave them, deep under the cycle of vicious conflict.
And, they also may have a fear of abandonment and rejection, but use the silent treatment or an anger outburst, instead of being emotionally vulnerable.
Speaking about fears is the way to build emotional intimacy and emotional security, to fully heal from childhood trauma and complex post-traumatic stress disorder through couples counseling.
Overall, our Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapists and complex post-traumatic stress disorder specialists teach you how to verbalize your deepest fears.
You and your partner can shift into being vulnerable with each other. Being vulnerable and sharing your fears is scary at first, but it allows emotional closeness and togetherness.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
When Past Trauma Is Being Triggered, You Will Experience Avoidance and Withdrawal
When the conflict becomes overwhelming, one or both of you may withdraw from the interaction, physically or emotionally. This avoidance can prevent resolution and leave issues unresolved.
Rather than avoiding conflict, you can learn to confidently manage and overcome conflict with new skills through marriage counseling in Melbourne, Florida.
As Well, When Past Trauma Is Triggered In Your Marital Fights, Conflicts Escalate Quickly
Yelling, name calling, angry outbursts, and hurtful jabs increase, causing more pain. Conflicts can escalate as you both get more defensiveness and emotional arousal intensifies. Your heart rate increases, your blood starts to boil, and your blood pressure goes up.
Maybe, you feel hot and you start talking louder and faster. Escalating conflict can lead to shouting matches, emotional distress, or even physical confrontations.
Depending on the severity of the trauma, you and your spouse may end up in a really negative place.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, in Melbourne, Florida, you and your spouse can learn to develop coping mechanisms to self-regulate and calm yourselves. From there, you can decide how you want to, and when you want to, gently talk.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Do You Experience Prolonged Disconnection After A Fight?
You might feel hopeless and defeated after a marital fight, especially after past trauma wounds have been triggered.
Often, your complex trauma conflict cycle results in prolonged emotional disconnection between you both. Over time, this prolonged disconnection can erode the intimacy and trust in your marriage and relationship.
Breaking out of this vicious cycle often requires the help of trauma informed marriage therapists.
A general couples therapist doens’t have the extensive training that the team at Wisdom Within Counseling does. At Wisdom Within Counseling, we specialize in complex post-traumatic stress disorder as well as couples counseling.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
In the process of marriage counseling with our complex trauma (C-PTSD) trained team, you can work on both your individual healing and your relationship itself.
Seeking trauma informed couples therapy is key in breaking the vicious cycle and developing emotional vulnerability tools.
Especially, meeting with our team of couples therapists experienced in trauma-informed care, can help you develop an awareness of the inner child wounds that are being re-triggered in current conflicts. In couples therapy, you and your spouse can talk about the wounds and pain of having emotionally neglectful, narcissistic parents.
You and your spouse don’t have to repeat the same dysfunctional patterns or repeat the negative, hurtful communication styles from childhood.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, our Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapist can be instrumental in addressing these patterns.
We help you both find healthier ways to communicate and support each other. It’s important to recognize that healing from past complex trauma rather than treating the surface conflict, can truly positively impact your romantic relationship and marriage.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
How do I know if past trauma is being triggered in a current argument or conflict in my marriage?
Recognizing when past trauma is being triggered in a current argument or conflict in your marriage can be challenging, but is possible through couples counseling.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, in Melbourne, Florida, trauma informed marriage therapy sessions can help you learn to identify when past trauma is being triggered.
To note, there are specific signs and cues to look out for. So, below are some indicators that past trauma may be influencing and coming up in your current marriage conflicts.
If you notice any of these, it can be very beneficial to seek trauma informed marriage therapy and work with a couples counselor who specializes in complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), such as at Wisdom Within Counseling.
Intense Emotional Reactions:
If you or your partner have disproportionate emotional reactions to a seemingly minor issue, this could be a sign that past trauma is being triggered. For example, a small disagreement about household chores might lead to intense anger, yelling, or panic.
Irrational or Defensive Responses:
As well, people with past trauma may become defensive or irrational when their trauma is triggered. They may feel attacked or threatened even when the current conflict doesn’t warrant such a response.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Repeating Patterns:
If you notice that you and your partner keep having the same types of arguments or conflicts over and over again, it may be an indication that past trauma is being replayed in your current interactions. Plus, patterns could involve similar triggers, emotional responses, and emotionally intense outcomes.
Disproportionate Fear or Anxiety:
If one or both of you experience intense fear or anxiety during an argument, this could be related to past trauma. Notability, your current marital conflict may activate old fears or anxieties that are not directly related to the current issue.
Shutting Down or Withdrawing:
In response to conflict, one or both of you might withdraw emotionally or physically. This can be a sign that the emotions and memories triggered by the argument are overwhelming and push one of both of you into self-protect mode. At Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy can help you both learn distress tolerance, emotional regulation, vulnerability, and emotional validation skills.
Flashbacks or Intrusive Thoughts:
In extreme cases, past trauma can lead to flashbacks or intrusive thoughts during a conflict. These can be vivid recollections of traumatic events or distressing memories that interfere with the current discussion. Trauma informed marriage therapy sessions support you both in learning positive coping strategies.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, our C-PTSD specialists teach you grounding skills, mindfulness meditations, and somatic, mind body therapies to feel safe in your body after trauma.
Physical Symptoms:
To add, trauma can manifest as physical symptoms, such as rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, or trembling during an argument.
These physical signs could be indicative of past trauma being triggered. Likewise, at Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida, your trauma informed marriage therapist will teach you ways to become more attuned to your body’s signals.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Sudden Escalation:
Also, arguments may escalate quickly and become more intense than seems warranted by the initial disagreement. This quick escalation from talking to a high conflict fight can be a sign that deeper emotional issues related to past trauma are at play.
Unresolved Issues:
If you find that conflicts in your marriage often remain unresolved or resurface frequently, it may be a sign that there are underlying unresolved issues related to past trauma.
The Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling specialize in complex post traumatic stress disorder. Your couples therapist can help you both process and understand how past childhood trauma experiences may be playing a role in current high conflict disagreements.
Difficulty in Self-Regulation:
People with past trauma may struggle to regulate their emotions during conflicts, leading to impulsive or self-destructive behaviors.
Recognizing when past trauma is being triggered in your marriage is an important first step toward addressing the cycle of vicious conflict. Couples counseling with our complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) specialists can help you gain these skills.
Our team of Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapists offer empathy, understanding, and education around complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD).
As well, our complex trauma trained therapists have extensive experience in trauma-informed care. We can help you and your partner explore the impact of past trauma on your relationship. Overall, you can work together to develop strategies for healthier communication, trauma recovery, and conflict resolution.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
In the cycle of vicious conflict after trauma, what is the pursuer and withdrawer pattern?
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFT) is an approach to couples therapy that focuses on understanding and reshaping emotional responses and interactions within the relationship.
One common dynamic that EFT identifies and addresses is the pursuer-withdrawer pattern. This pattern is a cycle of interaction that often occurs in distressed couples and can lead to ongoing conflict and emotional disconnection.
Here’s a description of the pursuer and withdrawer roles within this pattern:
- The Pursuer:
- The pursuer is often the partner in the relationship who seeks more emotional connection and reassurance.
- They may express their needs and emotions more overtly, often through criticism or demands for attention.
- They tend to pursue their partner for closeness, connection, and emotional responsiveness.
- The underlying fear of the pursuer is often a fear of abandonment or rejection. They may worry that their partner is emotionally distant or doesn’t care about them.
- The Withdrawer:
- The withdrawer is typically the partner who responds to conflict or emotional demands by distancing themselves.
- They may become emotionally shut down, avoidant, or silent during conflicts, or they may physically withdraw from the interaction.
- They often struggle to express their emotions or respond to their partner’s emotional needs.
- The underlying fear of the withdrawer is often a fear of engulfment or feeling overwhelmed by emotional demands. They may fear that their partner’s emotional intensity is too much to handle.
In the pursuer-withdrawer pattern, a cycle of interaction emerges where the pursuer’s demands for emotional connection and reassurance trigger the withdrawer’s need to retreat or protect themselves.
This, in turn, escalates the pursuer’s anxiety and emotional intensity, leading to more demands and criticism. The withdrawer’s withdrawal and emotional shutdown further exacerbate the pursuer’s sense of emotional abandonment, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of conflict and emotional disconnection.
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy in Melbourne, Florida aims to help couples break this pattern by:
- Identifying and understanding the roles of pursuer and withdrawer in the relationship.
- Helping partners express their underlying emotions, fears, and attachment needs more effectively, especially after complex trauma experiences.
- Promoting empathy and understanding between partners so that each can better respond to the other’s emotional needs.
- Assisting couples in creating a more secure emotional bond and attachment, which reduces the need for pursuing or withdrawing behaviors.
By working through the pursuer-withdrawer pattern and reshaping it into a more secure and emotionally responsive dynamic, EFT can help couples improve their emotional connection and address the issues that have contributed to their distress.
To begin, book your phone consult for help breaking unhealthy patterns of conflict and building a secure, loving, trauma informed marriage.
What are flight, fight, and freeze states your nervous system goes into when past trauma memories and wounds get triggered in marital fights?
When past trauma memories and wounds are triggered during marital fights or conflicts, the body’s nervous system can respond in different ways. Your nervous system can’t stay calm.
Instead, when danger is sensed, and past trauma is getting retriggered, your nervous system will shift into “fight, flight, or freeze” responses.
These trauma responses are part of the body’s natural reaction to perceived threats or stress. In general, your “fight, flight, or freeze” responses can manifest in various ways during moments of distress, such as during a marital argument or fight.
Here’s how each “fight, flight, or freeze” response typically presents itself:
Fight:
Aggression: Some individuals may respond with a “fight” response, which can involve becoming verbally or physically aggressive during marital conflicts. They may lash out, raise their voices, or engage in confrontational behavior as a way to protect themselves or regain control of the situation. Yelling, name calling, and painful jabs can be forms of the fight trauma response.
Defensiveness: Instead of direct aggression, some people may become defensive and argumentative. They may feel the need to protect themselves and their emotions, which can lead to heated arguments and escalating conflict. To note, the Gottmans, marital researchers, have coined defensiveness as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Defensiveness destroys relationships and immediately blocks connection, intimacy, and closeness. In couples therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling, you both can learn alternatives to being defensive. Instead of defensiveness, you can learn to be vulnerable, share your fears, self-soothe, and communicate in a calm way.
Flight:
Avoidance: The “flight” response often involves avoidance behaviors. When past trauma memories are triggered, individuals may try to escape the conflict by physically leaving the situation or emotionally withdrawing. They may shut down, become emotionally distant, or even leave the room or the house to escape the emotional distress. As well, avoidance can be seen by numbing out. These include, gambling addiction, pornography addiction, affairs, cheating, infidelity, drugs, alcoholism, becoming a workaholic, and other compulsive behaviors.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Freeze:
Shutting Down: The “freeze” response is characterized by becoming emotionally or physically immobilized. Individuals may become overwhelmed by the conflict and unable to respond or express themselves. They might go silent, lose the ability to think clearly, or feel emotionally numb. Often times, the silent treatment is an extension of the freeze response.
To note, the silent treatment is also one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and a destroyer of romantic relationships. Someone may use the silent treatment because they fear they will be yelled at more. Or, someone may use the silent treatment because they fear speaking up will only make matters worse. Couples counseling at Wisdom Within in Melbourne, Florida can give you positive alternatives rather than defaulting to the silent treatment. Instead of the silent treatment, you can start to feel like you have a path forward. Healthy communication tools and skills can help you both move on from the conflict and see a healthier, more positive future.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Dissociation:
In extreme cases, the freeze response can lead to dissociation, where individuals mentally detach from the situation. They may feel like they are observing the conflict from outside their own bodies or experience a sense of unreality.
These responses are adaptive reactions to perceived threats or stress, and they can be particularly pronounced when past trauma memories are triggered. The body’s stress response system, including the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, can become dysregulated in these moments, leading to these reactions. It’s important to note that these responses are not conscious choices; they are automatic reactions that are deeply rooted in our biology.
Recognizing these responses in yourself or your partner during marital conflicts is essential. The team at Wisdom Within Counseling in Brevard County, Florida can help you and your partner develop self-awareness.
Trauma-informed therapy can be especially beneficial in addressing these responses and their impact on your marriage and relationship.
Understanding that these reactions may be related to past trauma can help both of you approach your relationship with empathy. So, seeking therapeutic support to work through these triggers can help you both develop healthier ways of communicating and resolving conflicts.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
In what ways can Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy help us break the cycle of fighting when emotionally flooded, frozen, or triggered?
Trauma-informed marriage therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling can be highly beneficial in helping couples break the cycle of fighting when emotionally flooded, frozen, or triggered.
It provides a safe and supportive environment where both of you can explore the impact of past trauma on your relationship. As well, you both can develop healthier ways of relating to each other.
Here are some ways in which trauma-informed couples therapy can help:
Psychoeducation:
Our couples therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling specialize complex post traumatic stress disorder and trauma-informed therapy. We can educate couples who feel hopeless, sad, distressed, and disconnected on the cycle of conflict that is rooted in trauma. As well, we teach couples how to develop compassion for each other. You can both learn about the effects of trauma on the nervous system, attachment patterns, and emotional regulation skills. Understanding how past trauma influences your anger reactions and vicious cycle of conflicts can help you both develop empathy, awareness, and insight.
Safe Environment:
Trauma-informed marriage therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling prioritizes creating a safe and non-judgmental space for couples to express their feelings, experiences, and fears. This safe environment is crucial for addressing past trauma and for addressing emotional flooding, freezing, or triggering in the context of the relationship. You can co-regulate your nervous system off your therapist’s as well. The team at Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida specialize in complex post-traumatic stress disorder in couples counseling, teaching positive coping strategies.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Emotional Regulation:
At Wisdom Within Counseling, our trauma informed marriage therapists can teach both of you emotional regulation techniques to help you both manage intense emotional reactions during conflicts. These skills can include mindfulness, deep breathing exercises, and grounding techniques to stay present in the moment. You can take part in art, painting, watercolor, nature walks, meditations, and music therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling.
Communication Skills:
Couples can learn effective communication skills to express themselves and listen actively to each other. To note, communication skills can help break the cycle of fighting by improving the quality of your interactions and reducing misunderstandings.
Co-regulation:
As well, co-regulation is the idea that partners can support each other in managing their emotional states. At first, you will be co-regulating off your therapist’s calm nervous system. Then, you and your partner can learn to co-regulate off each other. In trauma-informed marriage therapy, you both can learn how to co-regulate and provide comfort and support to each other. When one of you is emotionally flooded, frozen, or triggered, your other half can provide emotional validation, soothing, and comfort, without getting reactive or angry.
To add, these are skills you can learn about right in session to support bonding, emotional security, and long-lasting love.
Attachment Repair:
Trauma-informed couples therapy focuses on repairing attachment issues that may have developed due to past trauma in childhood. You or your spouse may have had emotionally neglectful, narcissistic, emotionally abusive parents that really impacted you. Healing attachment wounds is a part of healing complex post traumatic stress disorder.
Couples counseling with our complex post traumatic stress disorder professionals can help you rebuild trust, emotional safety, and secure attachment bonds with each other.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Healing from Trauma:
To add, trauma-informed couples therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida includes individual therapy and couples sessions. Your therapist will provide positive interventions aimed at helping you both heal from past traumas. Healing can involve various therapeutic modalities, such as music therapy, yoga therapy, walk and talk therapy, experiential therapy, emotionally focused therapy, Gottman therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or exposure therapy, depending on the nature of the trauma.
Identifying Triggers:
Couples can work together to identify their individual triggers and learn how to communicate about them. This can help reduce the likelihood of triggering each other during conflicts. As you learn more about your partner’s triggers, you can show compassion, and vis versa.
Conflict Resolution:
Your therapy process can include techniques for conflict resolution and problem-solving that are tailored to the specific needs of the couple. This helps couples break the cycle of fighting and work through disagreements constructively.
Self-compassion and Self-care:
Trauma-informed therapy encourages partners to develop self-compassion and self-care practices. When individuals take care of their own emotional well-being, they are better equipped to navigate conflicts in their relationship.
By addressing past trauma and its impact on the relationship, trauma-informed marriage therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling helps couples break the cycle of emotional flooding, freezing, or triggering. Skills you learn with our C-PTSD specialists foster healthier ways of relating and resolving conflicts. It empowers couples to develop a deeper understanding of themselves and each other, ultimately leading to a more secure, meaningful, and fulfilling partnership.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Why work with a trauma informed marriage therapist who understand complex post-traumatic stress disorder?
Working with our trauma-informed marriage therapists at Wisdom Within Counseling, who understand complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), is essential when one or both partners in a marriage are dealing with this condition.
C-PTSD, also known as complex trauma, typically results from prolonged exposure to traumatic events or repeated interpersonal trauma, such as childhood abuse, neglect, or domestic violence.
Here are several reasons why a trauma-informed couples therapist with expertise in C-PTSD is beneficial in this context:
Specialized C-PTSD Knowledge:
Your couples therapist with expertise in C-PTSD at Wisdom Within Counseling has a deeper understanding of the unique challenges and symptoms associated with this complex form of trauma. Our team of couples counselors can recognize the specific ways it impacts you and your spouse’s’ thoughts, emotions, and behaviors within your marriage.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Safety and Trust:
When you and your spouse struggle with C-PTSD, you both may struggle with trust and issues related to attachment. Your trauma-informed marriage therapist can create a safe and secure environment, which is essential when you have C-PTSD. A safe environment builds trust, which helps you to be able to open up. You can express yourself, your fears, needs, and work through past traumas.
Holistic, Somatic Trauma Treatment:
At Wisdom Within Counseling, your marriage therapist, experienced in C-PTSD, can develop a treatment plan that is specifically tailored to the needs of each of you. This may involve trauma-focused therapies, such as yoga, meditation, music therapy, art, creative therapies, mind body therapies, somatic therapies that are known to be effective for C-PTSD.
Addressing Triggers:
C-PTSD can lead to numerous triggers that affect your’ emotional and relational responses. Your couples therapist with expertise in C-PTSD can help identify and address these triggers within the context of your marriage, which is essential for improving relational dynamics.
Emotion Regulation:
C-PTSD can lead to difficulties in regulating emotions. We teach both partners effective emotional regulation techniques to reduce emotional flooding and reactivity during conflicts.
Communication and Boundaries:
Couples with a history of trauma often struggle with effective communication and boundary-setting.
For instance, growing up with narcissistic, angry, and emotionally abusive parents may have turned you into a people pleaser. Growing up, you had to cater to them, care for your parents, and be a parent yourself to them. As well, you might be really good at giving in to other people’s boundaries. In couples counseling, you know you really need help maintaining your boundaries. Because your parents were aggressive and narcissistic, you never felt like your boundaries were respected growing up. Counseling with your partner can give you a safe place to assert having a voice. You can learn how to talk about your boundaries in a calm and healthy way.
As well, after childhood trauma, you may feel an immense sense of guilt and shame for even wanting to have boundaries. Couples counseling can help you talk about in process any guilt or shame that may come up around having a
At Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida, your trauma-informed couples therapist can guide you both in developing healthier communication patterns and setting boundaries that promote safety and respect.
More so, many types of couples need help with boundaries for emotional safety. Overall, no matter your age, race, ethnicity, or how long you’ve been together, you both may need help talking about boundaries and expectations.
In general, you both may need help talking about boundaries around finances, money, parenting styles, quality time together, hobbies, work schedules, your sex life, intimacy, how much you share about your relationship with friends or family, religion, and more.
Boundaries promote self-care and self-love. To note, these are limits that help you feel safe and secure. You and your partner may have different types of boundaries, and different expectations.
Couples counseling in Melbourne, Florida can help you both in negotiating boundaries so that you both feel emotionally safe moving forward.
Healing and Resilience:
Our team of marriage counselors specialize in C-PTSD and can facilitate the healing process for both of you. We help you build resilience, emphasizing that recovery is possible. This sense of hope from couples counseling is crucial in working through the challenges of C-PTSD within a marriage.
Validation and Empathy:
People with C-PTSD need validation and empathy for their experiences. Your trauma-informed therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling can help you both emotionally validate each other.
In Brevard County, Florida, your Wisdom Within Counseling marriage counselor can provide emotional validation, and model it for your partner. Essentially, emotional validation helps to diffuse and de-escalate conflict.
It’s common for couples to need help learning emotional validation skills and tools. We often are not taught these growing up. If anything, we are taught how to fix problems. But, emotions don’t need to be fixed, instead they need to be validated, seen, and heard.
Emotional validation skills are playful part of C-PTSD focused couples therapy at Wisdom Within Counseling in Melbourne, Florida.
So, from couples counseling, you can learn how to hear and validate your partner’s emotional experience. From there, you can reduce conflict, feel safe together, and create a sense of emotional closeness.
Emotional validation tools allow you both to feel understood and less alone in your struggles. Essentially, emotional reassurance and meeting each other’s emotional needs is a part of recovering from complex trauma in couples therapy.
To begin, book your phone consult for Melbourne, Florida trauma informed marriage therapy with our complex trauma specialists.
Understanding Triggers in the Relationship:
Your couples therapist can help you both recognize how past traumas may be affecting your current relationship dynamics. You can learn about how you both respond to each other’s triggers and trauma reactions.
As well, we teach couples with C-PTSD relaxation skills and mindfulness tools for emotional grounding in therapy. This way, when trauma triggers do surface, you can support each other in relaxation. This means, helping each other arrive in the present moment. Then, you can respond more calmly and with nurturing energy to your partner. Grounding skills help you respond to your partner’s C-PTSD triggers with appreciation and gratitude too.
Instead of feeling frustrated that your partner is anxious or upset, you can feel grateful that your partner feels safe enough to be so vulnerable with you. More so, mindfulness meditation, yoga, music therapy, art, and painting are all available in your couples therapy experience at Wisdom Within Counseling.
Positive Coping Strategies:
C-PTSD often results in a range of coping strategies that may be maladaptive. Anger, yelling, the silent treatment, withholding affection, fight, fight, and freeze responses are maladaptive.
Instead of feeling like you have to be in a high alert mode, you can feel confident in your relationship through couples counseling.
Art, yoga, music, mediation, and creative, somatic therapies are available in marriage counseling. These provide positive coping strategies and healthy, holistic ways to release intense emotions.
In Florida, the Wisdom Within Counseling team helps couples in Melbourne, Naples, Key Biscayne, Tampa, Boca Raton, Parkland, Coral Springs, Miami Beach, Sanibel Island, Jupiter Island, Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, Pinecreast, Aventura, Windermere, St. Petersburg, Orlando, Rotonda West, Port Charlotte, Winter Park, Jacksonville, Fisher Island, Tallahassee, Rockledge, Palm Bay, Malabar, Mims, Key Largo, Key West, and more. Video counseling marriage therapy services are also available in Connecticut, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, Delaware, Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Indiana, Vermont, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Our team of couples therapists specialize in help you create a loving, close, meaningful, and playful relationship, all while addressing the complexities of living with C-PTSD.
At Wisdom Within Counseling, your trauma-informed couples therapist can help both of you develop healthier coping mechanisms and strategies for managing trauma triggers within your marriage.
In summary, working with a trauma-informed marriage therapist at Wisdom Within Counseling, who understands C–PTSD is crucial for healing. We help individuals and couples navigate the unique challenges that arise when trauma is a factor in their romantic relationship.
Couples therapy with our C-PTSD specialists offers a path to healing, growth, and improved relational dynamics.
