Sara Stanizai
What is Trauma-Informed Therapy?

The phrase “trauma-informed” is being thrown around all over the internet, but what does it actually mean?

Being trauma-informed goes beyond simply acknowledging the existence of trauma and its effects on mental health. Trauma-informed therapy is an actual approach to care that revolves around specific core principles. What a skilled therapist does with those principles, and how they implement them in the therapy room, will vary.

How we generate trust, safety, choice, collaboration and empowerment for our clients depends on what you have experienced in the past and what you might need now. (It’s those. Those are the principles.) This involves a deliberate and thoughtful approach to therapy that influences every choice we make as a therapist, both in session and when setting up our practice.

If you’re seeking therapy or if you’re a therapist yourself, it’s crucial to understand this concept so that you know how therapy works — and if it’s working for you.

What is Trauma-Informed Therapy?
Nik Stancil
"Therapy never worked for me": CBT isn't enough ...

Most of my clients have been to therapy before. Many have tried therapy several times over their life, but they never felt it was that helpful or they found it difficult to find a therapist who was a good fit. There are plenty of reasons why this might be the case, and this post aims to explore one of the main offenders: a very common type of therapy practiced is CBT, and using CBT alone may not be a great choice for neurodivergent brains. 

"Therapy never worked for me": CBT isn't enough for neurodivergent clients seeking long-term healing
trauma
Nik Stancil
Therapy Tools for Processing Childhood Trauma

No matter how hard parents work to offer the “perfect” childhood, traumatic events are all-too-skilled at finding their way into our life experience, like speed bumps in our path. And maybe they aren’t just bumps… maybe they feel like giant, icy mountains that we will never be able to scale or summit.

Trauma from our childhood can linger and have damaging effects on our adult lives, whether that effect is great or small. Addressing and healing from that trauma is often an essential step towards living a full, functional life as an adult.

Therapy Tools for Processing Childhood Trauma
Sara Stanizai
Benefits of Choosing a Neurodivergent Therapist

When it comes to your mental health, the importance of finding the right therapist cannot be overstated. Finding someone who gets your life and empathizes with your goals can be tricky if your life doesn’t look mainstream, which is the case for most of our neurodivergent clients. Plus, you deserve excellent clinical care! A shortcut to finding a therapist that is a great fit is looking for neurodivergent affirming therapists, who are often therapists who are neurodivergent themselves. Neurodivergent therapists bring a unique perspective to the therapeutic relationship, offering a myriad of benefits for both neurodivergent and neurotypical clients.

Benefits of Choosing a Neurodivergent Therapist
Sara Stanizai
Embracing Self-Discovery in Neurodiversity

Getting to know yourself and learning how your brain works can be a tricky journey, especially when it comes to neurodivergent experiences like ADHD. There is so much information online, but it’s hard to tell what’s a trustworthy source, and some sources seem to directly contradict others, making it quickly overwhelming. If you find yourself wondering, "How do I know if I have ADHD? Do I need to see a professional or can I diagnose myself?" this post is for you, written from a neurodiversity-affirming perspective.

Embracing Self-Discovery in Neurodiversity

ptsd

What is the Difference Between PTSD and C-PTSD?

What is the Difference Between PTSD and C-PTSD?

Imagine: You’re moving through your workday, like usual, handling the day’s joys and stresses like the boss you are. When, all of a sudden, it feels like the world around you has changed. For the worse.

Your heart drops into your stomach, your body feels vulnerable and exposed, and then you begin to feel confused about where you are or what you were doing.

Mentally, emotionally, and perhaps even physically, you feel like you were just dropped back into the worst day of your life. You’re immobilized. Bracing. Waiting for it to happen all over again.

That is what a flashback feels like, for people experiencing PTSD. But what does a flashback feel like for individuals experiencing C-PTSD?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can set in after experiencing a single, horrific event. Think of things that happen in a flash, like being in a car accident, grieving the death of a loved one, or experiencing assault.

Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) can set in after experiencing repeated trauma. Instead of going through a key event once, it’s caused by living through a lengthy and highly stressful period of time. This includes chronic or repeated experiences.

Unlike those diagnosed with PTSD, who experienced a single, existentially-threatening event, those diagnosed with C-PTSD may have experienced an entire childhood of abuse, ongoing domestic abuse with a partner, being a prisoner of war, or experiencing abuse or harassment in a long-term workplace. This complex stress can arise from a series of major events or from prolonged micro-aggressions. We all know that trauma isn’t defined by the scale of the event, but rather by the person’s ability to cope with the event(s). This means that a lifetime of experiencing micro-abuses, neglect, aggression, etc., can produce the unique web of hypervigilant pain and wounding that we clinically refer to as C-PTSD.

What is Survivor's Guilt?

What is Survivor's Guilt?

Living in a globalized world has its benefits, like waltzing into a grocery store and getting any fruit and vegetable, regardless of the season. However, knowing everything that’s going on in the world at all times is a recipe for anxiety, especially when there is so much heartache and pain. Even if you live a relatively comfortable daily life, you can be affected by Survivor’s guilt.

Essentially survivor’s guilt is a range of emotions, persistent thoughts, and related habits that affect people who have survived an incident that others did not. The intensity of feelings can be affected by whether you directly or indirectly witnessed the event, knew those involved personally, how traumatic the incident was, and other factors.

Survivor’s guilt can contribute to making major life decisions, and it can affect your day to day interactions. You may start to ask yourself: When does gratitude become guilt?

Convenient to Long Beach and Seal Beach at:

4510 E Pacific Coast Hwy, #540, Long Beach, CA 90804

contact@prospecttherapy.com | (562) 704-4736