Trauma Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy in Vienna 1180 will give you an opportunity to explore how trauma impacts on your present life and relationships. Psychotherapy will help you not only to process painful feelings related to trauma, but also to recognize and better deal with flashbacks and triggers.
Trauma makes it difficult to fully live in the presents. Often the victim’s thoughts and feelings keep returning to past trauma. In psychotherapy Vienna 1180 we help you create a better and more positive future and decrease the impact of the trauma you endured.
What does the term “trauma” actually mean?
Trauma means “speechless horror” (Bessel van der Kolk), extreme helplessness, a reduced sense of agency, disconnectedness from others and a terrifying sense of standing still in time. A traumatic event or succession of traumatic events can lead to such symptoms as hypervigilance, sleeplessness, depression, addictions of any kind, self-destructive behavior and panic attacks. Trauma intrudes daily life in the form of flashbacks, both sensory and emotional, as well as flashbacks.
There are many forms of trauma and a broad range of its impact on survivors’ lives. Trauma can impact entire societies, cultures and/or ethnic groups, such as when natural catastrophes occur, or genocides wipe out entire populations. It can also impact individuals, as is common in abuse, rape, accidents, or domestic violence. Trauma is often transmitted from one generation to the next and is then referred to as trans- or intergenerational trauma. There is broad range of intensity with which trauma occurs, but an accumulation of microtraumas is often as devastating as a single incident trauma.
Trauma as a consequence of childhood abuse
Childhood abuse is a form of complex form of trauma, as the perpetrator is usually a person familiar to the child. Perpetrators are usually family members, friends of the family, teachers, or other people whom the child had previously trusted.
Abuse is always traumatic. Its impact can be felt for many years, and healing from it can at times seem impossible.
Can a toxic relationship be traumatizing?
Survivors of childhood trauma have a greater chance of re-experiencing trauma in adulthood. Toxic relationships are generally abusive. Manipulation, gaslighting, projections, transgression of personal boundaries and a misuse of trust. Toxic relationships can therefore be traumatizing, and it important to develop enough awareness of this trauma, as this is the first step towards healing.
Psychotherapy – Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy and Trauma
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy explores the relationships within which trauma occurred. Due to the complexity of these relationships, a deeper understanding as can be obtained when taking unconscious aspects into consideration is especially helpful. In psychoanalytic psychotherapy, we will explore the impact and implication of trauma you have survived but have not yet been able to process. Therapy will help you to integrate traumatic experiences in such a way that you can live a fuller and happier life.
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is a relationship in which observation and participation of both client and therapist enables corrective and healing experiences to take place. Trauma can thus not only be understood at greater depth but can heal within the containment offered by psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
Psychoanalytic Group Therapy
Psychoanalytic Group Therapy offers mutual support and containment. In group therapy you will find that there are others who are facing similar difficulties in life as you. Isolation and loneliness is thus eased, and connection with others becomes more fulfilling.
Trauma survivors find group therapy very helpful. Trauma leads to disconnection, and group therapy is a great place to experience commonality and connectedness with others. This connection will give you the strength to cope with and process the trauma you have experienced.
EMDR Trauma Therapy
EMDR is a specific kind of trauma therapy which uses bilateral stimulation to allow for the integration of traumatic experiences. BLS (bilateral stimulation) is similar to the REM-phase of sleep, in which experiences and feelings are processed. EMDR processes trauma without talking about it much. EMDR makes it possible that traumatic memories lose their emotional power and can be felt as belonging to the past.
Psychotherapy Vienna 1180
My psychotherapy office in Vienna’s 18th district is in one of the beautiful old buildings near Bischof-Faber-Platz. Chaplain Heinrich Maier, who was affiliated with the church of Gersthof, was active in the Austrian resistance against National Socialism. Other points of interest in Vienna 1180 are the Johann-Nepomuk Chapel and the Maria-Theresien Schlössel. Moreover, the former Semmelweis-Klinik, which currently houses the Amadeus International School Vienna is very close to my office, as is the Orthopedic Hospital Gersthof.
The Café Mocca inside of the S-Bahn Station Gersthof is a wonderful place to stop for a meal. Moreover, the Meierei Diglas in the Türkenschanzpark offers delicious Austrian cuisine. Finally, there’s also the Café Linsbichler on Gersthoferstraße which sells some of the best sweets in town.
My office is in a building that was purchased by my great-grandfather who came to Vienna from Galicia at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a façade on the building commemorating the Jewish part of my family.
Psychotherapy with Native English Speaker
The creation of who we are and have over time become is closely tied to language. Language is in turn closely tied to culture and all the nuances and subtleties that are not expressed in words but rather in beliefs, cultural norms or relational expectations. Sense of humour, boundary setting and body language also form aspects of the cultural norms closely tied to language.
Language with all its complexities is the main tool of psychotherapy, and it is therefore of vital importance to be able to communicate your life story in your native language. I have lived half my life in English speaking countries, and as a psychotherapist I now work with English speaking expats in Vienna.
The Advantage of Psychotherapy with a Native English Speaker
Psychotherapy with a native english speaker will enable you to talk about and process your life experiences with someone who understands not only the language itself but also its cultural nuances. I grew up partly in the US, where I lived for a good part of my life, and also most recently lived in England for several years. I am therefore familiar with the cultural complexities of both countries. The experiences I have gathered and my subsequent understanding of the complexities of cultural differences are part and parcel of my work as an English-speaking psychotherapist working in Vienna, a city which over the past few decades has become increasingly international.
