When is Trauma (PTSD) Complex or C-PTSD? Does this Impact Treatment?
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD): Definitions
What we call trauma refers to an experience that overwhelms our system. This overwhelm leads to symptoms that we call and diagnosis as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The symptoms include:
Flashbacks of traumatic event(s)
Nightmares
Intrusive memories of traumatic event(s)
Avoiding thoughts related to traumatic event(s)
Avoiding reminders of traumatic event(s)
Memory gaps
Negative beliefs
Emotional numbness
Loss of interest
Strong negative emotions
Being easily startled
Hypervigilance
Sleep issues
Trouble focusing
Angry outbursts
Reckless behavior
Learn more about trauma, symptoms and treatment.
We are a trauma specialized psychotherapy clinic with over 50 years combined experience. Most of the trauma that we see that is complex in nature is childhood abuse.
The complexity of trauma in childhood is due to development happening at the same time as the abuse.
The child‘s brain is developing, wiring and growing while their still undeveloped brain is trying to deal with huge, scary and confusing things. Scary things such as angry, intoxicated parents &/or sexual touch they can’t consent to as it is developmentally inappropriate, they don’t understand it.
As abuse is terrifying and sexual touch unboundaried, inappropriate and confusing, a child is forced to develop primitive coping mechanisms such as Dissociation to cope. Dissociation Blog
If abuse is in the home &/or ongoing and continuous, the child is also trapped there and must adapt to their environment to survive. So they develop a traumatized brain, a brain made to survive awful circumstances. This is also true of war trauma ex. The child stops reacting to falling bombs and drones.
The Central Nervous System (CNS) is always activated due to chronic threat and potential scary, awful experiences. The child must always be ready.
If teenage identity development happens in an abusive home identity disturbances develop.
This is due to the developmental milestone reached in these years. Your trauma ends up a huge part of identity development, another survival strategy.
All of this leads to long-term impacts that need to be healed to manage the symptoms described above.
If a healthy, mentally resilient adult experiences an isolated traumatic event and develops PTSD they will be better resourced to cope. They will have a healthy adult brain to handle an awful event. They may develop PTSD but will have a better prognosis for a full recovery.
If an adult with a personal trauma history experiences that same incident they will likely use their childhood primitive coping to deal with it ex. Dissociation. Past traumatic events are also triggered due to CNS activation and fear responses. These past experiences will need to be healed to return to managed symptoms and a healthier state.
It is possible to develop complex trauma (C-PTSD) as an adult but less so. A person in the military can be exposed to chronic, ongoing traumatic events they feel they cannot get away from. However, they have an adult brain to cope. A paramedic can be exposed to ongoing, chronic trauma as well. We also support frontline workers at our clinic .
Complex trauma is just that, complex. You will likely need a myriad of ways to heal and need ongoing, trusted support.
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD): Treatment
Treatment can be Strategy-based to help you meet your goals.
Cognitive-behavioural Therapy (CBT) can manage and reframe negative core beliefs that repeat in your internal dialogue Ex. I’m broken.
Narrative Therapy helps to rewrite your story in a way that helps you see your strengths and resources. This aids healing as you were victimized but life does not have to victimize you and keep you down. It can help you feel separate from your story through exploring/examining it and rewriting it.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can help with self-esteem, self-acceptance and learning to love yourself and yourself in recovery. It can help you embrace all parts of yourself and aid in putting energy into the right places that fit for you.
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Treatment can also be process-oriented, healing and rewiring the brain over time in a safe therapeutic relationship.
Relational Therapy can use your personal relationships and the one with your therapist to heal the attachment problems caused by complex trauma.
Emotion-focused Therapy gets feelings flowing through you to heal, learn to stay present more often and bring joy back into life if you feel frozen and numb.
Somatic Therapy can reconnect you with your body, processing from the primitive/preverbal parts of the brain through the Amygdala or more logical/verbal parts. This also opens you up creatively.
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Treatment can really target relationship health and wellness including intimacy that has suffered due to trauma symptoms and experiences.
Couple Therapy may be helpful to you and your partner(s) and bring you both/all into the room to heal together.
Solution-focused Couple Therapy techniques can bring concrete strategies for communication and support into your relationship(s).
Emotion-focused Couples Therapy can reconnect you with your partner(s) by making talking about feelings and processing hard things together a new skill that you can rely on for years to come.
Does this sound right for you?
Lisa Shouldice Psychotherapy Clinic is a trauma-specialized clinic that offers culturally relevant care for trauma, personality disorders and related mental health issues. This diverse team works extensively in the LGBTQIA communities. This includes individual, couple and family wrap-around services.
Check out our videos on trauma.
Lisa S.
