Understanding Trauma Therapy - It is Not Voodoo Medicine
This past week I visited my psychiatrist after not seeing him for five years. I have been having my family doctor keep up with my maintenance medication and helping me slowly reduce my medication levels since I finished Trauma Therapy with my wonderful Psychologist almost three years ago.
I am so thankful for research that is being done to prove that child abuse actually physically damages a person’s brain. It is not simply in someone’s mind or something to snap out of. Simply giving child abuse medication or time does not heal a person.
My psychiatrist did not know but I stopped going to him after he stated that I he felt I would never get better and be able to get off my medications; he did not believe in the "voodoo medicine" that my psychologist therapist was using. My therapist had been trained in EMDR but soon after I started going to her she went to Brainspotting therapy training with David Grand from New York. This therapy changed my life! It was the gateway to my permanent healing.
The reason I went back to my psychiatrist is that my family discovered while getting approved for a life insurance policy that my family doctor had been writing a wrong diagnosis in my patient charts. She had put me down as Bipolar with several severe manic episodes and said that she never felt I could come off of my stabilizing medication. Of course, that diagnosis was news to me! I called my therapist and my psychiatrist and they both said it was clearly wrong. So to get my records straight, I went back to my psychiatrist to have him write a letter to my family practice doctor.
It was such a joy to see him years after I finished Trauma Therapy. Here I was: living proof that Brainspotting was not "voodoo medicine" but actually therapy that could help someone who was suffering from severe depression and PTSD due to horrific child abuse. Still, it did not sway him much to become a believer. He was happy that I was doing so well, but in speaking to me he now stated that my dear therapist was like a "snake handler" who helped to calm the "snakes" in my life so that I no longer had bodily activation to them.
I was happy to inform him again that so much MRI work has been done on the brain that shows the before and after brain pathways, and enthusiastically told him that NEW pathways can be regenerated in the brain so that actual real physical changes take place in the brain! Since therapy is not his specialty he was not as delighted as I was. As a psychiatrist, unfortunately, he focuses narrowly on the chemical changes of medication on the body and whether it is needed by his patient. Oh, how I wish he would step out of his medication mode and see what wonderful new therapies are being done to help so many people. But alas, that is not my job and it is his decision.
However, I will use my life testimony to encourage as many people as possible that need brain therapy after abuse and trauma to seek it out and push through the hard work of completing it! There is a light of hope at the end of the tunnel. Even the most severe cases of torturous abuse can be worked with through brain therapy.
If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer or point you to an answer. I hope you have a wonderful day.
I am so thankful for research that is being done to prove that child abuse actually physically damages a person’s brain. It is not simply in someone’s mind or something to snap out of. Simply giving child abuse medication or time does not heal a person.
My psychiatrist did not know but I stopped going to him after he stated that I he felt I would never get better and be able to get off my medications; he did not believe in the "voodoo medicine" that my psychologist therapist was using. My therapist had been trained in EMDR but soon after I started going to her she went to Brainspotting therapy training with David Grand from New York. This therapy changed my life! It was the gateway to my permanent healing.
The reason I went back to my psychiatrist is that my family discovered while getting approved for a life insurance policy that my family doctor had been writing a wrong diagnosis in my patient charts. She had put me down as Bipolar with several severe manic episodes and said that she never felt I could come off of my stabilizing medication. Of course, that diagnosis was news to me! I called my therapist and my psychiatrist and they both said it was clearly wrong. So to get my records straight, I went back to my psychiatrist to have him write a letter to my family practice doctor.
It was such a joy to see him years after I finished Trauma Therapy. Here I was: living proof that Brainspotting was not "voodoo medicine" but actually therapy that could help someone who was suffering from severe depression and PTSD due to horrific child abuse. Still, it did not sway him much to become a believer. He was happy that I was doing so well, but in speaking to me he now stated that my dear therapist was like a "snake handler" who helped to calm the "snakes" in my life so that I no longer had bodily activation to them.
I was happy to inform him again that so much MRI work has been done on the brain that shows the before and after brain pathways, and enthusiastically told him that NEW pathways can be regenerated in the brain so that actual real physical changes take place in the brain! Since therapy is not his specialty he was not as delighted as I was. As a psychiatrist, unfortunately, he focuses narrowly on the chemical changes of medication on the body and whether it is needed by his patient. Oh, how I wish he would step out of his medication mode and see what wonderful new therapies are being done to help so many people. But alas, that is not my job and it is his decision.
However, I will use my life testimony to encourage as many people as possible that need brain therapy after abuse and trauma to seek it out and push through the hard work of completing it! There is a light of hope at the end of the tunnel. Even the most severe cases of torturous abuse can be worked with through brain therapy.
If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer or point you to an answer. I hope you have a wonderful day.
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