Like any complex trauma, healing from religious trauma is not linear. Because cults or fundamentalist religious communities tend to try to control your whole lifestyle and internal experiences, religious trauma encompasses so much: your relationships, thoughts, feelings, body, sexuality, and finances– just to name a few. Here are some potential signs that you’re healing from religious trauma.

When we experience trauma, our bodies and minds do what is necessary for us to survive. This might be repressing our memories, compartmentalizing, numbing our emotions, or projecting our emotions onto others. This month, we will be sharing blogs about trauma therapy and what that process is like. Today we are covering why trauma therapy is so difficult.

Trauma therapy can help you make sense of your trauma history and feel more grounded in your life. When trauma happens, you need trauma-informed and competent therapy to support your recovery. Trauma therapy provides a space to talk about trauma, identify how it has impacted you, and process all of it. This type of therapy looks at more than what is currently going on in your life- this process will look more deeply into your experiences, beliefs about yourself, and how these things impact you.

Trauma survivors are often immersed in intrusive sensations, thoughts, and emotions, as a result of remaining stuck in a trauma response. They become hypervigilant about their surroundings, avoid hard conversations, or shut down with depression or fatigue. We can’t talk our way out of our trauma; talking about our distress and narrating the traumatic events that occurred is often insufficient for trauma survivors to fully and permanently recover. 

It’s estimated that over 224 million adults have experienced at least one trauma. It’s prevalent, albeit horrifying.  After trauma, your world can feel unsafe, and then anxiety makes your body feel unsafe too. The good news? It’s treatable, and we specialize in helping you cope. Trauma therapy can help you make sense of your trauma history and feel more grounded in your life. When trauma happens, you need trauma-informed and competent therapy to support your recovery. 

There are many ways to cope with suicidal ideation. You could do some of the ways of coping with a therapist, some with your loved ones, and some on your own. It is helpful to have a range of ways to cope because one will not always be a good fit. We have talked about different aspects of SI, and before we talk about coping, I want to talk about ways of experiencing SI.

Suicidal ideation is a symptom of depression that some people experience. Suicidal ideation and suicide are stigmatized topics, but I believe that knowledge and conversations about suicide reduce stigma. Today we’ll cover talking to your therapist about SI to destigmatize those conversations.

Suicidal ideation (thoughts of suicide) can feel like a very big topic, and it may not have been something your family or community discussed. Suicide and suicidal ideation have carried stigma for a long time. This blog will help break down the components of suicidal ideation and the difference between active and passive suicidal ideation.

You are probably here because you or a loved one may have experienced treatment-resistant depression and are looking for support. You are not alone: treatment-resistant depression is a condition that up to ⅓ of adults with major depressive symptoms experience.

October is National Depression Education & Awareness Month! You are probably here because you or a loved one may have experienced the symptoms of depression, or a depressive episode and are looking for support. You are not alone: depression is a condition that an estimated 21 million U.S. adults experience every year, and is considered one of the most common mental health disorders in the United States.* Here at Woven, we want to be able to provide information and support for you.

There is a strong connection between narcissistic or emotionally unstable parenting and complex trauma (C-PTSD). In other words, adults with complex trauma often have parents with narcissistic qualities or significant emotional limitations. Thus, C-PTSD children often grow into adults who are used to navigating emotionally nonreciprocal relationships.  

Today we are going to talk about the overlap between childhood complex trauma and narcissistic abuse, and how this can show up in adult relationships. We will also discuss 3 strategies to heal from narcissistic abuse. 

Here at Woven, we specialize in trauma therapy. We are passionate about providing trauma-informed care, and a big part of that work is providing psychoeducation on trauma and its effects on our bodies and minds so you can feel empowered in your healing. One of the first steps in understanding your own trauma and healing is to learn about trauma responses.

In recent years, ketamine and other psychedelic therapies have shown incredible results with treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy (KAP) combines the helpful medicine of ketamine with the emotional support of a therapist to help you take your healing to the next level.  

If you are looking into Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, you might feel overwhelmed by all of the different components of the treatment process. Ketamine is still a newer form of treatment, and it is normal to have a lot of questions. This blog will provide some insight into what your first session will feel like.

Just as the eyes scan the outside environment for information and signals, they do the same in our inside environments, scanning inside our brains for areas where trauma is stored. Essentially, when we talk about trauma, the brain scans itself to reveal where that trauma is being held. Reflexive cues—seen in the eyes—tell us when the brain has found something important. Brainspotting notices and follows these cues to find where the brain pointing to—where that trauma is stuck. This place is called a Brainspot. 

Immigration can cause trauma. The reality is that most immigrants are leaving their home country due to traumatic experiences such as war, poverty, or natural disasters, and the violence endured during the journey to come to a new country is also often traumatizing.

Sometimes when trying to change patterns, cyclical thoughts and behaviors can bring you a lot of shame and frustration. Understanding that there is a significant physiological component to creating lasting change helps you to see you are not flawed or damaged.

If you’ve been following along on my Instagram, you know by now that we have been closely watching the Depp/Heard trial unfold, and Amber Heard’s diagnoses have us all talking a little more about personality disorders. Let’s start off by defining what Borderline Personality Disorder is.

If you scroll through social media, you may see people talking about the importance of good mental health. We are no stranger here to why that is important, but have you ever thought about what factors make up good or bad mental health? I will start off here by saying that the factors are many, and are often complex.