Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may occur after experiencing, or witnessing a traumatic event, such as rape, or other criminal assault, child abuse, war, natural, or human - caused disasters, or crashes.

Symptoms of PTSD include:

Trauma and abuse survivors can, and do recover. Recovery begins with the realization that life is not progressing in a healthy way. It requires a person to feel ready to begin to heal. This readiness sometimes happens after a life transition, such as the birth of a child, a divorce, or becoming clean and sober. The process of recovery begins with a sense of unrest, pain, and a desire for a solution.

In recovery, the survivor loses the deep sense of fear and impending doom. The anger and hurt lose their potency, and a true sense of joy may be experienced. This does not mean that recovery equals no problems or pain. What recovery does mean is that the survivor becomes much better at solving life's problems in healthier ways.

The recovery process involves moving through the stages of:

In my practice, the therapeutic goal is to create a recovery lifestyle where the survivor experiences healthy physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. I use many experiential techniques to help with the healing, and you are in charge of which ones you would like to experience. The work vacillates between times of more and less intensity.