If you’ve been searching for answers about trauma therapy, you’re not alone. Whether you’re dealing with something that happened recently or something you’ve carried for years, the question is the same: what actually works?
At Solasta Counselling in Calgary, our registered psychologists specialize in evidence-based trauma therapy — including EMDR, somatic therapy, and CBT. This guide answers the most common questions we hear from people ready to take that first step.
What Therapy Is Best for Trauma?
There’s no single “best” therapy for trauma — the most effective approach depends on your specific experiences, how trauma shows up in your body and mind, and what feels manageable for you. That said, research consistently supports a few key modalities:
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
EMDR is widely considered one of the most effective treatments for PTSD and trauma. It works by helping your brain reprocess distressing memories using bilateral stimulation — such as guided eye movements or gentle tapping — so that those memories lose their emotional charge. Many people experience significant relief within a relatively short number of sessions.
At Solasta, several of our psychologists are trained in EMDR, including Marissa Whalley, Sarah Choudhry, and Misha Waheed. Learn more about our EMDR therapy in Calgary.
Somatic Therapy
Trauma doesn’t just live in your mind — it lives in your body too. Somatic therapy focuses on the physical sensations and patterns that trauma creates: tension, numbness, a persistent sense of unease or hypervigilance. By working directly with the body, somatic approaches can reach what talk therapy sometimes can’t.
This is especially helpful for people who find it hard to talk about what happened, or who feel stuck even after years of trying to work through things cognitively.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)
CBT for trauma — including Trauma-Focused CBT — helps you identify and shift the negative thought patterns that often follow traumatic experiences. Beliefs like “I’m not safe,” “It was my fault,” or “I can’t trust anyone” can become deeply ingrained after trauma. CBT gives you practical tools to challenge and reframe those beliefs.
What Are the 7 Trauma Responses?
Most people are familiar with “fight or flight,” but trauma research has expanded our understanding of how the nervous system responds to threat. The seven recognized trauma responses are:
- Fight — becoming angry, confrontational, or defensive
- Flight — fleeing, avoiding, or staying constantly busy
- Freeze — feeling paralyzed, unable to act or speak
- Fawn — over-pleasing others to stay safe (common in relational trauma)
- Flop — a collapse response where the body goes limp or numb
- Dissociation — mentally detaching or feeling unreal
- Attach — clinging to caregivers or relationships for a sense of safety
Understanding your own trauma response isn’t about labelling yourself — it’s about recognizing that these reactions are your nervous system trying to protect you. Therapy helps you build new responses so you’re not stuck in survival mode.
What Are the 6 Stages of Trauma Recovery?
Recovery from trauma isn’t linear, but therapists often describe it in stages. Here’s how we tend to think about the journey at Solasta:
- Safety and stabilization — building a foundation of emotional safety and coping skills before processing begins
- Acknowledgement — beginning to recognize the impact of what happened, often with grief
- Mourning — processing the losses that come with trauma: trust, safety, time, relationships
- Reconnection — rebuilding your sense of identity and your relationship with the world
- Integration — weaving the experience into your life story in a way that no longer defines or controls you
- Post-traumatic growth — many people ultimately discover strengths, values, or connections they wouldn’t have found without the journey
The timeline looks different for everyone. Some people move through these stages in months; for others it takes years, especially with complex trauma. The key isn’t speed — it’s having the right support.
What Does CPTSD Look Like in Women?
Complex PTSD (CPTSD) develops from prolonged or repeated trauma, particularly trauma that was relational in nature — childhood abuse or neglect, domestic violence, or growing up in an unpredictable home environment.
In women, CPTSD often presents differently than the “classic” PTSD picture:
- Persistent self-criticism and shame (often mistaken for low self-esteem or depression)
- Difficulty trusting others, even in safe relationships
- Emotional dysregulation — intense emotional swings that feel hard to control
- Physical symptoms with no clear medical explanation (chronic pain, fatigue, digestive issues)
- A strong “fawn” response — over-giving, people-pleasing, difficulty saying no
- Dissociation or feeling numb or disconnected from yourself
If this resonates, know that you’re not broken — and CPTSD responds well to treatment, particularly EMDR and somatic therapy. We work with many women in Calgary navigating exactly this.
What Is the Hardest Trauma to Heal From?
Trauma researchers generally consider the following types to be among the most challenging to heal:
- Childhood trauma and neglect — particularly when it involved primary caregivers, because it shapes attachment and the nervous system at a foundational level
- Complex or repeated trauma — where there was no safe period between events
- Betrayal trauma — when the source of harm was someone deeply trusted
- Trauma with no language — experiences that happened before we had words, or that were so overwhelming they couldn’t be processed verbally
“Hardest” doesn’t mean impossible. It usually means it requires more time, more layers of work, and the right kind of support. Somatic and EMDR approaches can often reach trauma that talk therapy alone struggles to access.
Where Does Trauma Sit in Your Body?
This is one of the most important questions in trauma therapy. Trauma is stored somatically — meaning it lives in the body, not just the mind. Common places people notice it:
- The chest — tightness, shallow breathing, a sense of dread
- The throat — difficulty speaking, a lump or constriction
- The gut — chronic tension, nausea, or digestive issues
- The shoulders and neck — holding, bracing, carrying the weight
- The jaw — clenching, grinding, tension
Bessel van der Kolk’s foundational work on trauma noted that the body holds traumatic memory in ways the mind doesn’t always have access to. This is why somatic therapy can be so powerful — it works directly with where trauma actually lives.
What Are Three Unhealthy Coping Skills for PTSD?
Many people develop coping strategies that make sense in the short term but create problems over time:
- Avoidance — steering clear of people, places, or situations that feel triggering, which temporarily reduces anxiety but reinforces the nervous system’s fear response over time
- Substance use — alcohol or other substances to numb emotional pain or sleep, which disrupts the natural processing the brain needs to heal
- Emotional suppression — pushing feelings down or staying constantly busy so there’s no space to feel, which can lead to physical health problems and emotional dysregulation
If you recognize yourself in any of these, therapy can help you replace them with strategies that actually support healing — rather than just managing symptoms.
What Is the 3-3-3 Rule for PTSD?
The 3-3-3 rule is a grounding technique for managing anxiety and PTSD symptoms in the moment. When you’re feeling overwhelmed or disconnected, try this:
- Name 3 things you can see right now
- Name 3 sounds you can hear
- Move 3 parts of your body (fingers, toes, shoulders)
It works by redirecting your attention to the present moment and your physical senses, which interrupts the stress response. It’s a useful tool, but it’s a management technique — not a substitute for actually processing the trauma underneath. Therapy gives you more durable tools and works on the root cause.
Ready to Start Trauma Therapy in Calgary?
If any of this resonates, we’d love to support you. Our Calgary psychologists offer EMDR, somatic therapy, CBT, and more — both in-person at our NW Calgary office and online throughout Alberta.
Book a free consultation call, or use our Find Your Therapist quiz to get matched with the right person for you.
📞 587-487-7015