Neurofeedback: Trauma & PTSD | Sugar Land Teen & Family Counseling

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Neurofeedback for Trauma & PTSD:
Sugar Land, TX

Research Supported Approach in Trauma Therapy & PTSD Therapy

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Is Trauma or PTSD Affecting Your Teen or Young Adult?

Has your teen or young adult withdrawn from socializing with friends and/or family members?

Is your teen or young adult struggling with focus and concentration where before they did not? Are their grades suffering as a result?

Does your teen or young adult experience flashbacks or nightmares related to the trauma they experienced?

Does your teen or young adult experience mood swings beyond the teenage norm? Do they experience intense anxiety, fear, and/or depression?

There are few things that leave parents feeling more powerless than when their teenager or young adult experience a traumatic event.

Trauma can lead to serious struggles for anyone who has experienced an event that overwhelms our emotional system and our ability to cope. Events that can include feeling like your life or safety is at risk.

The aftermath of trauma and what it can leave in a teenager or young adults' life can be debilitating. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs researched trauma and PTSD in teens and young adults. They found that:

Approximately 5% of teenagers between 13 and 18 years old experience PTSD,

Teen girls are 3 times more likely to develop PTSD than teen boys,

About two-thirds of all teens will experience at least one traumatic event by the time they are 16.

There are answers. There is hope. There is a pathway through the pain that trauma and PTSD can bring into a teen or young adult's life.

Neurofeedback for trauma has shown to be an effective approach in helping teens, young adults, and adults alike through trauma and PTSD.

And combining neurofeedback with trauma therapy and PTSD treatment approaches like Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) or Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) can be a powerful approach to trauma treatment and PTSD therapy.

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What Are the Signs of Trauma or PTSD in Teens & Young Adults?

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No two people will experience the same traumatic event the same. Where the event can create significant challenges in one person's life another may experience fewer challenges.

While we may experience traumatic events differently, the signs of trauma or PTSD are similar across experiences.

Below are signs parents can watch for if they believe their teen may have experienced a traumatic event or have PTSD.

Signs of Trauma or PTSD in Teenagers & Young Adults

Signs of trauma or PTSD may be clearly evident, or they may be subtle and challenging to see. Some teens are more verbal and may talk about their experiences with their parents. Some teens may hold their feelings in and don't share their inner experiences easily.

To help you know the signs of trauma and PTSD so that you can more easily recognize them in your teen or young adult, we have provided the signs below:

Being easily startled,

Feeling constantly depressed,

Being irritable and quick to anger,

Having difficulty focusing on schoolwork,

Refusing to talk about a traumatic event,

Withdrawing from family, friends, and others,

Experiencing flashbacks to a traumatic event,

A sudden drop in grades or performance,

Experiencing nightmares,

Having trouble sleeping,

Repetitively remembering or re-experiencing a traumatic event,

Being easily triggered by anything that brings a traumatic event to mind, and

Avoiding anyone or anything that strikes up memories of a traumatic event.

When Trauma or PTSD is Left Unattended in Teenagers & Young Adults

When a teenager or young adult experiences trauma, it can often not be processed in the brain fully. It's like it gets stuck and the intense emotions that surround that traumatic event remain and do not go away.

If left untreated, trauma can develop into PTSD and other challenges such as:

Chronic depression,

Chronic anxiety, social anxiety, or panic attacks,

Insomnia,

Inability to function at previous levels in life,

Increased risk of self-harm behavior,

Increased risk of substance abuse,

Increased risk of suicide.

There are many great trauma therapy and PTSD treatment approaches for teens and young adults. Neurofeedback for trauma is one of several therapy approaches supported by research and shown to be effective.

Don't wait. If your teen or young adult has experienced a traumatic event and is showing signs of trauma or PTSD, reach out to a teen therapy or young adult counseling specialist who treats trauma and PTSD.

Trauma Therapy & the Brain: Neurofeedback for Trauma Therapy & PTSD Treatment

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When we experience a traumatic event, our brains record that information for future use. Often trauma involves the real or perceived threat that our safety or even our life is in danger. This is information that our brain needs to record to help protect us from other similar events in the future.

However, what can happen is that the information related to the traumatic event doesn't get processed fully in our brain. It becomes "stuck", and the brain starts identifying non-threatening things as threatening. It then puts the body on full alert to defend against that threat.

When a teen or young adult experiences trauma and the brain records that event, the brain will also have a tendency to remind the teen or young adult about the traumatic event. This can occur in nightmares, flashbacks, emotional triggers, etc.

There are regions of the brain that are often involved in creating the signs of trauma in a teen or young adult. What neurofeedback does is record the performance of these regions to see where they are over or under performing.

Then neurofeedback trains the brain to perform at optimal levels. This allows the symptoms related to trauma to be significantly reduced or eliminated.

From research conducted and fond in the Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, they discovered the regions of the brain that are impacted by trauma and PTSD include the following:

Medial prefrontal cortex,

Anterior cingulate cortex,

Hippocampus,

Amygdala,

Posterior cingulate cortex,

Parietal cortex,

Visual association, and

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Through neurofeedback, your neurofeedback therapist can create a training protocol specific and uniquely tailored for your brain's performance. As your neurofeedback therapists implements the training protocol, your teen or young adult's brain can start to learn to perform without the signs and symptoms of trauma or PTSD.

For a deeper dive into what neurofeedback is and how it works, please see our Neurofeedback page.

Neurofeedback Can Help with Trauma & PTSD as Well as Other Challenges in Teens & Young Adults

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Neurofeedback has been supported by research and shown to be effective for trauma therapy and PTSD treatment. We at Sugar Land Teen & Family Counseling have seen the effectiveness of this approach.

Neurofeedback can also be very effective in treating a wide variety of other challenges. Some of those include:

Depression,

Anxiety,

Social anxiety,

Panic attacks,

ADHD and ADD,

Autism spectrum, and

If you have a teen or young adult who may not be struggling with trauma or PTSD but a different emotional or behavioral challenge, neurofeedback therapy is an effective approach in helping teens and young adults overcome those challenges.

A Closer Look at Neurofeedback

If you are interested in taking a closer look into what neurofeedback is, how the training protocol is created, how it works, and more information, please see our Neurofeedback page.

You can also visit the International Society for Neuroregulation & Research (ISNR).

Neurofeedback for Trauma & PTSD at Sugar Land Teen & Family Counseling:
Sugar Land, TX

Out of the many emotional or behavioral challenges a teen or young adult can face, trauma and PTSD is one of the more difficult ones. First, it often occurs not because of something we've done but something that was done to us. It also leaves a variety of challenging symptoms in its wake that impact every aspect of a teen or young adult's life.

Neurofeedback for trauma and PTSD can help. Don't wait any longer. You can be free from the grip of trauma and PTSD and reclaim your life!

At Sugar Land Teen & Family Counseling located in Sugar Land, TX, our board-certified neurofeedback therapist can help. Our office is conveniently located off of US 90 and Dairy Ashford Road.

We also have our Katy, TX location, Katy Teen & Family Counseling, which is located right off of I-10 and Grand Parkway/Hwy 99 in Katy, TX.

If you are ready to begin neurofeedback for trauma or PTSD, all you need to do is follow these 3 simple steps: