This website is for people who have experienced trauma and continue to suffer from its effects. This includes trauma survivors with or without a formal diagnosis of PTSD and those struggling with other issues such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, or borderline personality; substance use; disordered eating; or unexplained recurring physical symptoms worsened by stress, symptoms like non-epileptic seizures, fainting spells, nausea and vomiting, and chronic pain.
Recovery from trauma is possible. Identifying trusted sources of information and support are an important step. Our mission is to provide reliable educational resources, balanced information on a wide range of treatment options, and where needed, personalized assistance in finding effective treatment.
Considering Seeking Help?
What is Trauma?
Trauma refers to experiences that are emotionally or physically harmful or threatening and can overwhelm a person's ability to cope, causing lasting effects on mental, physical, social or emotional wellbeing. Some examples are assault, abuse, serious accidents or life-threatening health problems – or witnessing these happening to someone else. They can be one-time events, or repeated or ongoing ones.
The effects of trauma can last years or even decades – effects like anxiety and depression, feelings of shame, difficulty trusting others, problems with appetite and digestion, changes to the nervous system, even changes in how we experience pain. The connection between the trauma and its effects may be obvious – or may go missed or misunderstood.
- Experiencing or witnessing violence or severe mistreatment
Like physical, sexual, verbal or emotional abuse, or assault - Other adversity as a child
Neglect or abandonment
Having a parent with mental illness
A parent being incarcerated - Someone you know dying by homicide or suicide
- A serious accident or fire
- Combat or other wartime experience
- Severe illness or overwhelming healthcare experiences
- PTSD or C-PTSD
- Depression, anxiety, and panic attacks
- Chronic or recurrent physical illness without an identifiable physical cause
Like non-epileptic seizures, recurrent vomiting, and some chronic pain - Substance use
- Other high-risk behaviors
- Eating disorders including food aversion.
What is PTSD?
PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, is a set of specific and persistent symptoms and behaviors that sometimes occur after trauma.
What is C-PTSD?
C-PTSD, or complex post-traumatic stress disorder, refers to PTSD with some additional symptoms which may result when trauma is prolonged or repeated.
1. Re-experiencing. Intrusive thoughts or vivid sensory re-experience of the trauma
2. Avoidance. Avoiding people, places or things that remind you of the trauma
3. Negative thoughts & feelings, reduced interest in activities, or isolation from others, or emotional numbing
4. Hyperarousal. Increased irritability or aggression; risky or destructive behavior; hypervigilance; an increased tendency to startle; or difficulty concentrating or sleeping
PTSD symptoms plus:
5. Problems regulating emotions; dissociation (involuntary detachment or disconnection from your feelings or surroundings)
6. Feelings of shame, guilt, failure or worthlessness
7. Difficulty with relationships and trust; trouble feeling close to others
Trauma and post-traumatic syndromes are common.
In fact, they are considered an epidemic. Traumatic or adverse childhood experiences ("ACEs") have been called the "single greatest public health threat facing our nation today."(1)
(1) Dr. Robert Block, Former President of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Trauma is hard for us to talk about, so it often goes unaddressed.
This may be due to fear, shame, forgetting, or from our collective discomfort with a problem we would rather pretend did not exist.
Identifying and confronting trauma and its effects can be a path to recovery.
This is true both for personal recovery, and for breaking cycles of harm and creating positive change at every level.
Learn More About Trauma
- National Center for PTSD
- Understand PTSD. See drop-down menu for additional listings under these headings:
- What is PTSD?
- Types of Trauma (note that there are many other causes of trauma not listed here)
- Is it PTSD?
- How Common is PTSD?
- Related Problems
- Understand PTSD. See drop-down menu for additional listings under these headings:
What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
By Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, Flatiron Books, 2021
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
by Richard C. Schwartz, Sounds True, 2021
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
by Bessel van der Kolk, Penguin, 2015
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences
By Peter A. Levine with Anne Frederick, North Atlantic Books, 1997
Trauma and Recovery
By Judith L. Herman, Basic Books/Hachette Book Group, 1992
Treating Trauma
There are many different treatments available for trauma-related symptoms. Treatment can lead to significant improvement and even recovery.
Learn About Trauma Treatment
Online Resources:
- National Center for PTSD. See drop-down menus under these headings:
- Understand PTSD treatment
- Apps, Videos and More
Books:
What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
By Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, Flatiron Books, 2021
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
by Richard C. Schwartz, Sounds True, 2021
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
by Bessel van der Kolk, Penguin, 2015
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences
By Peter A. Levine with Anne Frederick, North Atlantic Books, 1997
Trauma and Recovery
By Judith L. Herman, Basic Books/Hachette Book Group, 1992
| Therapy | Description |
|---|---|
| Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) | ACT aims to help you understand and accept your emotions, detach from negativity, and make changes to align your behavior with your values. |
| Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) | CBT refers to a structured, goal-oriented type of talk therapy. It focuses on identifying and changing distressing thoughts and behavior patterns. The term CBT covers a number of different trauma therapies such as CPT, PE, and EMDR (see below). |
| Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) | In CPT, the patient and therapist examine the patient’s thoughts and beliefs about the trauma. They work together to evaluate if traumatic experiences have impacted thinking in unsupported ways, and the patient can consider new perspectives. |
| Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) | DBT uses a combination of acceptance and change strategies to help patients who struggle with intense emotional reactions. It teaches coping and problem-solving skills to improve relationships and quality of life. |
| Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) | EFT is a short-term therapeutic approach that helps people improve relationships and manage emotions by building awareness, acceptance, and regulation of emotional responses. |
| Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) | EMDR helps patients process trauma by recalling it while attending to a distracting movement or sound (e.g., finger waving, light, tone). It can reduce the vividness and emotional weight of traumatic memories. |
| Hypnotherapy | Hypnotherapy uses relaxation and focused attention to enter a trance-like state. This opens up receptiveness to suggestions that can positively alter thoughts, feelings, memories, and behaviors. |
| Internal Family Systems (IFS) | IFS helps people understand and heal internal “parts” of themselves, similar to members of a family. Each part has unique roles and intentions, and therapy focuses on bringing harmony among them. |
| Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) | MBT helps patients pause and think before reacting to their own feelings or perceived feelings of others, improving self-awareness and interpersonal understanding. |
| Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) | MBSR uses mindfulness meditation techniques to increase awareness and acceptance, reduce judgment, and alleviate stress and emotional distress. |
| Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) | NET helps individuals re-author their life story through structured storytelling, separating the trauma from their identity and helping them process it more objectively. |
| Prolonged Exposure (PE) | PE gradually exposes patients to trauma-related triggers in a safe, therapeutic environment. Repeated exposure can reduce fear and avoidance behaviors. |
| Psychodynamic Therapy (PT) | PT explores how unconscious processes and past experiences influence current behaviors. It can offer insight but may be less effective for trauma than CBT-based methods. |
| Reconsolidation of Traumatic Memories (RTM) | RTM is a guided visualization technique designed to help patients revisit and reframe traumatic memories, aiming to reduce emotional impact by creating safer emotional associations. |
| Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP) | TFP focuses on the relationship between the therapist and patient to explore emotions, relationships, and trauma. It emphasizes real-time interactions to examine past patterns. |
| Written Exposure Therapy (WET) | WET is a short, structured therapy involving writing about trauma over five sessions. It helps reduce distress by helping patients reprocess the trauma and assign new meaning to it. |
| Other | Art therapy, movement therapy, sand therapy, music, yoga, dance, martial arts (e.g., Qigong, Tai chi), neurofeedback using EEG, vagal nerve stimulation, Pilates, cardio, medication. |
PTSD Coach app
Learn more about the app here
Rebound Health app
Rebound Health can help you work through traumatic memories, break free from negative cycles, and understand how trauma affects your mind and body, privately, on your own schedule. Rebound was built by trauma survivors and psychologists. It can be used on its own or with therapy, at any stage.
The cost is $4.99 per week with a Stony Brook discount—scan the QR code below to access it (code: “STONYBROOK”).
Getting Unstuck from PTSD: Using Cognitive Processing Therapy to Guide Your Recovery
by Patricia A. Resick, Shannon Wiltsey Stirman, and Stefanie T. Losavio, Guilford Publications, 2023
Transforming The Living Legacy of Trauma: A Workbook for Survivors and Therapists
by Janina Fisher, PESI, 2021
Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing: A Workbook to Help You Grow, Rebuild, and Take Back Your Life
by Elena Welsh, Callisto Publishing, 2018
Considering Seeking Help?
For guidance in finding the right therapist or other resources tailored to your needs:
Contact the Stony Brook Hospital Emergency Department
Patient Navigator Program
Phone: (631) 320-8232
Help
For help finding a Trauma Therapist:
Call or text our Patient Navigator at: 631-320-8232
For urgent help
- Call or visit DASH in Hauppauge 631-952-3333
- Visit CPEP (Stony Brook Hospital Psychiatric Emergency Department)
- Or call 911