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Douglas Wilson, Ph.D.

Areas of Focus/Trauma

Trauma

Trauma is not only what happened to you. It is also what happened inside you as a result, and what you had to do to get through it. Those adaptations often outlast the danger.

ON THE SURFACE · WHAT YOU MIGHT NOTICE

  • Being easily startled or constantly on guard
  • Intrusive memories, nightmares, or flashbacks
  • Feeling numb, detached, or unreal
  • Avoiding people, places, or topics
  • Difficulty trusting or feeling close to others
  • Shame that seems to come from nowhere

BENEATH · WHAT MAY BE AT WORK

  • Experiences that were overwhelming at the time and were never fully processed
  • Early relationships that were frightening, neglectful, or unpredictable
  • Parts of yourself that were put away in order to survive
  • Beliefs formed under threat: that you are unsafe, at fault, or alone
  • Feelings that were too big to hold then, and are still waiting

Understanding trauma

Trauma can follow a single event, such as an accident, an assault, or a sudden loss, or it can accumulate over years, as it does for people who grew up with neglect, violence, addiction, or a parent who could not be relied upon. Both kinds leave marks. The nervous system learns to expect danger. The mind learns to look away from what hurt. And the person often learns to manage, sometimes very capably, while something underneath stays frozen in place.

Many people who come to see me do not call what happened to them trauma. They describe it as how things were, or not that bad. Part of our work is simply making room to look at it honestly.

A psychodynamic approach to trauma

Working with a psychologist who is familiar with psychodynamic principles can be helpful in addressing trauma in several ways.

  1. Uncovering unconscious processesPsychodynamic therapy explores the ways traumatic experience continues to operate outside of awareness: in reactions, in relationships, and in the stories we tell about ourselves.
  2. Making sense of the pastWe look at how early relationships and overwhelming events shaped your expectations of other people and of yourself.
  3. Working within the relationshipThe therapeutic relationship itself becomes a place where old patterns of fear, mistrust, or self-protection can show up, be noticed, and gradually be revised.
  4. IntegrationRather than removing the past, the aim is to help you carry it differently: as something that happened to you rather than something that defines you.

How I work with trauma

We go at a pace you can tolerate. There is no requirement to tell the whole story at once, or at all, before you are ready. I pay close attention to safety and to the relationship between us, because trust is both the medium of this work and, often, what the trauma damaged.

Over time, as more of the experience can be felt and spoken about in the presence of another person, it tends to lose some of its grip. Sessions are 50 minutes, usually weekly, in my Burbank office or by telehealth.