The Center for Healing Injury and Pain

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Therapy for Boulder

We treat PTSD by a form of therapy known as Somatic Experiencing in direct support of the functional musculoskeletal work, osteopathic therapy, physical therapy, and myofascial bodywork practiced at the Center for Healing Injury and Pain in Boulder, Colorado.

Somatic Experiencing is a form of psychological therapy that incorporates a body-centered approach emphasizing the healing of dissociative behavioral patterns and other nervous system responses to the overwhelming structural damage, emotional stress, and physical pain linked to trauma. This therapy is based on the work of Peter Levine, PhD, Robert Scaer, MD, and others who have developed an improved understanding of the nervous system's dissociative responses and symptoms, which so often accompanies the overwhelming stress of physical injury.

The symptoms of PTSD often take the form of dissociative behavioral patterns - 'dissociative' meaning that the patient's physical symptpoms may not appear to be directly linked to (or associated with) the related physical injury. These symptoms may include:

  • paradoxical (unexplainable) chronic pain
  • depression
  • anxiety
  • panic attacks
  • the shame, guilt and anger over being victimized
  • hyervigilance
  • accentuated nervous reaction
  • adrenocotical stress patter
  • relationship crisis
  • insomnia
  • autonomic dysfunction
  • fibromyalgia
  • chronic fatigue
  • other physical and emotionally debilitating conditions

The severity of these symptoms is related to the patient's inherent constitutional strength or resiliency in withstanding the impact of both the related physical and psychological injuries. Additionally, these injuries can cause the collapse of previously established physical and psychological compensatory mechanisms, requiring resolution of the underlying trauma structured structure created by previous injury.

We have come to recognize that the patient often locks the true derivation of these symptoms within the subconscious. Somatic Experiencing is a psychobiological therapeutic approach that unlocks the self-regulation of the nervous system and resolves the dissociative symptoms of post-traumatic stress by recruiting supportive resources, which the patient either did not have or was unable to access at the time of the most recent injury.

Call (303) 444-5131 to schedule an appointment or for more information.



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