Facing Religious Trauma and Spiritual Harm Together

 In today’s diverse and dynamic world, individuals navigate a multitude of beliefs and ideologies. For some, faith is a source of strength, solace, and community. However, for others, religious experiences can leave deep emotional scars that can often feel overwhelming. Creative Family Counseling understands the importance of addressing the challenges faced by those who have experienced religious trauma and spiritual harm. If you have experienced wounds related to negative experiences of faith or spiritual beliefs, therapy can help you sort through your emotions and help process the traumatic experiences of your life toward spiritual healing. But what exactly is religious trauma? How can therapy help? This article will explore some of the ways that religious trauma can affect you, where it comes from, and how therapy can help you sort through your beliefs and feelings. Learn More...

Is EMDR Right For Me?

This is a question I’ve been asked many times over the past several months. My answer is often a resounding “Yes!” due to the many applications for this intervention. If you’ve heard the buzz around EMDR and wonder if it’s right for you, here is some information you might consider for yourself and then discuss it with a therapist trained or certified in EMDR.

EMDR, or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, is a therapeutic intervention that allows people to heal from traumatic or disturbing life events. We all have neural pathways in our brains that help us make sense of the world around us. However, these pathways can become blocked after a traumatic experience. Using eye movements or other bilateral stimulation, EMDR helps reprocess the memories related to those events, thus removing the blocks in the neural pathways. Once the block is removed, the brain begins to heal from the traumatic event. Learn More...

Non-Suicidal Self Injury (or self-harm) vs. Suicidality

The difference between Suicidality and Self Injury is INTENT. 

Individuals engage in self-harm to feel “something” other than numb or empty. Sometimes self-harm can be a way to signal to others that they need help or the harming behavior has become a maladaptive coping skill. Individuals who express suicidality are experiencing hopelessness, despair, and thinking that the end of their life could be the solution to their problems. Although both conditions can stem from similar situations or contexts, self-harm does not always indicate that the individual wants to end their life.  Learn More...