Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Complex PTSD) is a condition that results from prolonged exposure to traumatic events, often characterized by ongoing emotional, psychological, and physical distress.
Unlike PTSD, which can develop from a single traumatic incident, Complex PTSD arises from enduring trauma, such as long-term abuse, chronic exposure to war zones, or repeated personal violations. This condition can deeply affect an individual’s mental health, leading to a range of symptoms that can significantly impair one’s quality of life.
Complex PTSD encompasses a broader spectrum of symptoms compared to PTSD, reflecting the complex nature of prolonged trauma exposure. Individuals with Complex PTSD may experience:
Persistent Emotional Dysregulation – Difficulty in managing emotions, leading to sudden mood swings, intense anger, or persistent sadness.
Altered Self-Perception – Feelings of worthlessness, guilt, or shame, often accompanied by a distorted self-image.
Difficulties in Relationships – Problems in forming or maintaining healthy relationships due to trust issues, social withdrawal, or a pervasive sense of isolation.
Detachment from Reality – Dissociation or feeling detached from oneself or the surrounding environment as a coping mechanism.
Complex PTSD often requires mental health support, because the struggle associated with the condition can be pronounced for those that struggle with it.
The Role of Somatic Therapy in Treating Complex PTSD
At Flourish Psychology, we have several distinctive approaches for addressing conditions like complex PTSD, and our goal is to determine which approach is best for you. Some of our therapists are specialists in PTSD treatment, and one of the modalities that they may use is known as “Somatic Therapy.”
Somatic Therapy is an integrative therapeutic approach that emphasizes the connection between the body and mind in the healing process. It is based on the understanding that trauma not only affects the mind but also leaves a lasting imprint on the body.
Somatic Therapy incorporates physical techniques, such as deep breathing, movement, and sensory awareness, to help individuals reconnect with their bodies, release stored tension, and address the somatic aspects of trauma. It provides benefits that include:
Releasing Traumatic Energy – Traumatic experiences can lead to the accumulation of stress and tension in the body. Somatic Therapy facilitates the release of this stored energy, promoting physical and emotional relief.
Enhancing Body Awareness – By increasing awareness of bodily sensations and responses, individuals can gain insights into their emotional states and triggers, fostering a deeper understanding of their trauma.
Regulating the Nervous System – Somatic techniques can help in regulating the autonomic nervous system, which is often dysregulated in individuals with Complex PTSD, leading to hyperarousal or hypoarousal states.
Restoring a Sense of Control – Trauma can lead to feelings of powerlessness and loss of control. Somatic Therapy empowers individuals by involving them actively in their healing process, helping them regain a sense of agency over their bodies and emotions.
Somatic therapy is a specialty, and often benefits from someone that has experience in this specific therapeutic approach. It is also not right for all patients, some of whom may benefit from other approaches, such as EMDR. We will work together to determine what the best option is for you.
Contact Flourish Psychology Today
Complex PTSD is a multifaceted condition that extends beyond the psychological impact of trauma to encompass physical and somatic symptoms. Somatic Therapy offers a promising avenue for addressing the embodied nature of trauma, facilitating a holistic healing process that integrates the body and mind. By focusing on the somatic experience of trauma, this therapeutic approach can help individuals with Complex PTSD navigate their healing journey, fostering resilience, and promoting overall well-being.
For more information, or to get started, contact Flourish Psychology, today.
New Yorkers have a lot of pride. And they should. New York is a fascinating place to live. It is the densest city in the United States. It is the city with the highest GDP. It one of the most linguistically diverse places in the world. It is headquarters to the most Fortune 500 companies, the largest library, world art, and so much more. There is a reason this is the City That Never Sleeps.
So we know that New York is unique in its economy, its people, and its lifestyle. But what many people don’t realize is that NYC can also be unique in its mental health challenges. Although the conditions affecting New Yorkers are essentially the same as they are everywhere else, there are issues that can arise here that may be less likely in other places in the United States.
Examples of Mental Health Related Issues Specific to New York City
To be clear, New Yorkers do not have higher mental health issues than other states. Here, we have better access to mental healthcare, better access to social programs, and other advantages that make it possible for New Yorkers to manage their psychological wellness. But there are also issues unique to New York that can affect both people and couples. For example:
Cost of Living – The cost of living in New York is so high that many people, including those that otherwise have fairly high paying careers, can find that there is significant financial pressures on them that may be difficult to cope with.
High Profile Issues – New York has more CEOs than any other city in the country. It has almost as many celebrities as Los Angeles. It has fashion models, lawyers, doctors – people that are faced with unique, high profile pressures, all in a city that also houses the most widely distributed news.
Social Issues – Because of its density, New York is a place where many people socialize at all hours of the day, where there are always loud activities going on, and where people are expected to be able to socialize often.
Hustle Lifestyle – Many people here in NYC also live a hustle lifestyle, getting by with multiple jobs and multiple businesses, always looking for new opportunities. That type of lifestyle can lead to issues like stress and burnout.
Many of the issues affecting New Yorkers are also the same as they would be anywhere else – anxiety, depression, addiction, and relationship issues – but have causes or are fueled by experiences that tend to exist more in New York.
Receiving High Quality Mental Health Treatment
New York may be unique. But one thing that New York has is access to some amazing therapists. If you feel like you’re struggling, and you’d like to connect with a therapist that is available to help you, please reach out to Flourish Psychology, today.
Experiencing a panic attack can be an intensely overwhelming and distressing event. While panic attacks are psychological events that can often be addressed with therapy, the effect they have on the body can not only feel very physical, but actually have physiological and psychological consequences beyond the attack itself.
One example is memory loss. Though severe memory loss is rare, partial memory loss is a common issue for those with panic attacks, from basic forgetfulness to missing or inaccessible memories.
What Causes Memory Loss?
There are actually several mechanisms for memory loss in those that struggle with panic attacks, increasing the risk in those that struggle with them. These include the following.
Acute Stress Response and Memory Function
The body’s acute stress response, often referred to as the “fight or flight” response, plays a significant role in the onset of a panic attack. This response involves a surge of adrenaline and other stress hormones, such as cortisol, which prepare the body to face an immediate threat. While this response is essential for survival, it can adversely affect brain regions involved in memory processing, such as the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.
Hippocampal Function – The hippocampus is crucial for forming new memories and retrieving existing ones. High levels of cortisol, released during a panic attack, can impair hippocampal function, leading to difficulties in forming new memories and retrieving existing ones.
Prefrontal Cortex Function – The prefrontal cortex is involved in working memory and executive functions. During a panic attack, the overwhelming stress can disrupt the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, leading to issues with attention, decision-making, and memory retrieval.
In theory, those that experience more severe or more frequent panic attacks could also be more at risk for these issues.
Emotional Overload and Memory Encoding
Panic attacks are characterized by intense emotional experiences, including fear, anxiety, and a sense of impending doom. The emotional overload can interfere with the process of memory encoding, which is the initial step in creating new memories.
Attentional Narrowing – During a panic attack, the individual’s focus narrows to the source of threat or discomfort, leading to a phenomenon known as attentional narrowing. This focus shift can result in a lack of attention to other details and experiences, making it difficult to encode these into memory.
Emotional Hijacking – The amygdala, a brain region involved in emotional processing, becomes hyperactive during a panic attack. This hyperactivity can “hijack” cognitive resources needed for memory encoding, leading to gaps in memory for events occurring during or around the time of the attack.
When someone struggles with a panic attack, their thoughts, feelings, and more are all focused on the experience of the panic attack and its aftermath. While some people may still be able to function and pay some attention to the world around them, that attention may not be enough to encode into memory.
Sleep Disruption and Memory Consolidation
Quality sleep is vital for memory consolidation, the process by which short-term memories are stabilized into long-term storage. Panic attacks, especially those occurring at night, can disrupt sleep patterns, leading to insufficient REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, where significant memory consolidation occurs.
Sleep Architecture Changes – Panic attacks can alter the architecture of sleep, reducing the duration and quality of REM sleep. This disruption can impair the consolidation of memories formed during the day, leading to difficulties in recalling these memories later.
Anxiety and Rumination – The anxiety and rumination that often follow a panic attack can further interfere with sleep quality, compounding the effects on memory consolidation. The cyclical nature of anxiety, sleep disruption, and memory impairment can create a challenging pattern to break.
The mechanisms contributing to memory loss in individuals experiencing panic attacks are multifaceted, involving acute stress responses, emotional overload, and sleep disruption. These factors can impair memory encoding, consolidation, and retrieval, leading to gaps in memory and difficulties in recalling events related to or occurring during a panic attack.
However, it should be noted that memory loss of any kind could also be due to other factors. It is important to always seek out advice from specialists to determine the cause of any memory loss, and what the best approach is to address it. For help with anxiety and panic attacks, please reach out to Flourish Psychology, today.
We live in a world with considerable information right at our fingertips. We can find information on nearly anything, especially in the medical field, where we can find the symptoms of the most obscure diseases or learn details about treatments otherwise only provided by those with Ph.Ds.
But this information can cause its own challenges. Most of us are familiar with what was once called the “WebMD Effect,” where a person convinces themselves they have a rare disease because their symptoms match what they find online, only for it to be something like the common cold.
Mental health can be similar, though the risks are different. Depending on your symptoms, you may be able to figure out what condition you struggle with – for example, if you have panic attacks, and the symptoms match, you probably have panic disorder – but self-diagnosing carries its own unique risks, which is why it is so important to speak with a professional.
Risks of Self-Diagnosis of Mental Illness
It’s first important to realize that, while it may be loosely possible to understand your mental health challenges, it’s also possible to be wrong. Depression, for example, can be triggered by anxiety where anxiety is the primary mental health challenge, not the depression. Some conditions, like binge eating disorder, can also be misunderstood.
But even if you can generally tell what mental health challenge you have, there are other issues that make it less ideal to self-diagnose. These include:
Meaninglessness of Labels – Labeling something “anxiety” or “depression” can be useful for insurance agencies, but for each individual it is often too broad a label to specifically describe their symptoms. Labeling yourself with that type of condition misses the wide range of symptoms and experiences people have, and potentially cause you to misunderstand parts of yourself.
Adopting the Identity – Some people also fall into the trap of adopting a mental health challenge as an identity. They see they have “depression” and they view the rest of their behaviors as though their depression defines them. They try to understand more about themselves through the depression and through other things they read rather than truly take the time to better understand their own behaviors.
Trying to Self-Treat – Self-diagnosis can also lead to self-treatment, which is typically not the best idea. Remember, even within specific disorders, an individual’s experience can vary considerably, and the way you address treating the disorder may be dramatically different from someone else’s if you hope to have real breakthroughs.
Treating One But Not Others – Many people struggle with more than one condition, known as “comorbidity.” But many people stop diagnosing themselves after they’ve discovered the first condition, and try to treat it without addressing other, concurrent conditions.
In our work, we also often find that people that self-diagnose will also delay treatment, treat themselves using incorrect beliefs, or otherwise look for someone to treat them based on what they read rather than what they need.
Remember, a “condition” like anxiety or depression is just a broad name for a number of unique experiences. Symptoms may have similarities, but causes, expressions, challenges, and solutions can vary so much that a self-diagnosis doesn’t necessarily provide you with what you need to move forward.
Instead of self-diagnosing or worrying about the name of your mental health challenges, the most important thing is to recognize that you can benefit from help. Once you make that determination, give Flourish Psychology a call today.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a widely used therapeutic approach that addresses dysfunctional emotions, behaviors, and cognitions through a goal-oriented, systematic process. While CBT is well known as a treatment for a variety of mental health conditions, it is not a single treatment but one of many techniques that are all focused on addressing cognitions and behaviors under the same philosophy.
Guided Discovery is one such CBT technique. The technique involves the therapist desiring and working towards helping the client discover insights and solutions into themselves, rather than providing any direct advice or interpretation.
How Guided Discovery Works and Why It’s Used
Guided Discovery is based on the principle that clients often have the capacity to resolve their own problems – and may benefit from solving problems for themselves – but may need help in doing so. The therapist uses a collaborative and Socratic questioning style (what do you mean by that? Why do you think you think that?) to guide clients in exploring their thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and in understanding the connections among them. Components of Guided Discovery include:
Collaborative Empiricism – This approach involves working together to investigate the client’s thoughts and beliefs and their validity or usefulness.
Socratic Questioning – The therapist uses thoughtful, open-ended questions to encourage deeper reflection and exploration of a client’s experiences and beliefs.
Self-Discovery – The goal is for clients to arrive at insights and answers independently, leading to a more profound and lasting understanding of their issues.
Typically, the therapist has an idea of what they want the client to realize and achieve. But they want the client to determine it for themselves, so that it comes from a deeper self-understanding rather than being told by someone what they need to do and causing them to potentially become defensive or ignore the advice.
Example of How Guided Discovery Works
Patients with anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions typically struggle with negative thinking, black/white thinking, and other similar issues. For example, a client may feel like a failure because of a mistake they made at work. The therapist will then ask questions to explore this belief, such as “What evidence do we have that making a mistake equates to being a failure?” or “How do you define failure and success?”
The patient could say “everyone makes mistakes, it’s not a failure,” but telling a patient that is often not as effective. Instead, as the client answers these questions, they begin to notice and see for themselves that the making a mistake is a common human experience, and not indicative of failure.
Your Therapist, CBT, and Guided Discovery
Our therapists only use guided discovery when appropriate, along with other CBT and psychotherapy principles. But when it is utilized, it can be very effective for helping patients truly understand more about themselves. This approach respects the client’s autonomy and encourages active participation in therapy, leading to more meaningful and sustainable change.
Guided Discovery in CBT is a powerful tool that fosters self-awareness and personal growth. By helping clients to understand their thought processes, emotional responses, and behavior patterns, therapists enable them to develop more adaptive ways of thinking and behaving. Guided Discovery exemplifies the collaborative nature of CBT, emphasizing the role of the therapist as a facilitator in the client’s journey towards better mental health.
Location: 300 Cadman Plaza West Floor 12 - Brooklyn, NY 11201
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