Tools For Healing Trauma

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

Neil Strauss writes:

Whatever the case may be, just going to intensives or workshops is not enough. It’s important to maintain any shifts, revelations, or improvements after the first healing experience with the following four things:

*Consistent Support: Decades of dysfunctional behavior can’t be eliminated in a weekend. To keep your head right, it’s important to retain a regular regimen of individual or, even better, group therapy with others who share similar wounds. Even if it’s just a monthly or bi-monthly hour-long phone call.

*Self care: If you take care of your mind, body, and soul through healthy eating, exercise, positive self-talk, appropriate boundaries, sleeping well, and a practice such as yoga or meditation, you will be less vulnerable to your past dysfunctional behaviors and beliefs. A lack of self care typically leads to a lack of self regulation.

*Tools: Through therapy, reading, and research, you can gather tactics and techniques for retaining your new healthy, functional behavior and thoughts. Sometimes, when under too much pressure, stress, or poor self-care, you may begin to backslide into old habits of dysfunctional behavior. And it’s important to use a tool here—for example, using non-violent communication, focusing on slow diaphragm breathing, or having an inner dialogue to soothe your agitated inner child—to keep from going over the psychological cliff.

*Patience: When cleaning a room, it gets more messy before it gets orderly. The same is true of cleaning your mind. Often, as you begin the healing process, you will begin feeling the pain or shame that your dysfunctional behavior was protecting you from. But if you can tolerate those raw feelings and process them in a healthy way this time, then you will no longer need the dysfunctional behavior. It won’t have a purpose because there’s no longer any toxic shame or pain to avoid. At other times, a behavior or belief that you thought you defeated may rear its head again. Don’t get frustrated. Think of self-improvement as climbing a mountain. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re in the same place you started, but the truth is that you’ve climbed higher and you’re just looking at the same view.

If you’re ready to start exploring your psyche, unpacking your emotions, and healing your wounds (and we’re all wounded in varying degrees), here are a few places and therapies I recommend starting with.

I’ve focused on the centers, counsellors, and therapies I had positive experiences with while writing The Truth. As such, some of the sections focus on relationship healing.

There are of course many other workshops and therapies that have helped others. So if you’d like to add your own recommendations, please do so in the Comments section here: www.neilstrauss.com/neil/trauma-healing/.

Trauma-Healing Workshops
  • The Society Inner Game Intensive: www.thesocietyinternational.com (Conflict of Interest Note: These are workshops that I facilitate, usually with the same therapists who helped me in The Truth.)
Trauma-Healing Therapies
  • Group Therapy
    • I have yet to find a good website for finding a group, and recommend reaching out to local therapists you trust or forming one yourself with a professional faciliatator. If all else fails, here’s a possible online resource to start with: https://groups.psychologytoday.com/rms/
Relationship Intensives for Individuals
Relationship Intensives for Couples
Diagnostic Tools

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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