Trauma can leave lasting imprints on your mind, body, and nervous system – affecting how you relate to others, manage emotions, and navigate daily life. Whether you’re dealing with a single traumatic event or complex trauma that developed over time, healing is possible with the right therapeutic approach.
At Right Path Counseling, our experienced therapists specialize in evidence-based trauma treatments designed to help you process difficult experiences, regulate your nervous system, and reclaim a sense of safety and control in your life.
We understand that trauma affects everyone differently, which is why we offer multiple therapeutic modalities tailored to your unique needs and healing journey. We have offices in Jericho and Huntington, and are here to help you through your traumas and challenges. Reach out today to get started.
What Is Trauma and How Does It Affect You?
Trauma occurs when you experience or witness an event that overwhelms your ability to cope – leaving you feeling helpless, frightened, or unsafe. While many people associate trauma with major events like accidents, violence, or natural disasters, trauma can also result from ongoing experiences such as childhood neglect, emotional abuse, or growing up in an unpredictable environment.
The effects of trauma extend far beyond the initial event. When traumatic memories remain unprocessed, they can continue to affect your nervous system, emotional regulation, and relationships long after the danger has passed. You might experience:
- Intrusive Memories and Flashbacks — Unwanted thoughts, images, or sensory experiences that feel like you’re reliving the traumatic event
- Hypervigilance and Heightened Anxiety — Constantly feeling on edge, scanning for danger, or experiencing an exaggerated startle response
- Emotional Numbing or Disconnection — Feeling detached from yourself or others, or experiencing difficulty accessing emotions
- Avoidance Behaviors — Going out of your way to avoid people, places, or situations that remind you of the trauma
- Difficulty with Relationships — Struggling to trust others, feeling disconnected from loved ones, or experiencing intense relationship conflicts
- Physical Symptoms — Experiencing chronic pain, digestive issues, or other unexplained physical problems related to stored trauma in the body
- Negative Self-Beliefs — Carrying shame, guilt, or deeply held beliefs that you’re somehow damaged, unsafe, or responsible for what happened
These symptoms can feel overwhelming and isolating, but they’re actually your nervous system’s protective responses that have become stuck in survival mode. Trauma therapy helps you gently release these patterns and restore a sense of safety and regulation.
The Scientific Links Between Trauma and Your Nervous System
One of the most important insights in modern trauma treatment is understanding how trauma affects your autonomic nervous system – the part of your body that controls your automatic responses to stress and safety. When you experience trauma, your nervous system can become dysregulated, causing you to swing between states of hyperarousal (anxiety, panic, hypervigilance) and hypoarousal (numbness, disconnection, shutdown).
This dysregulation isn’t something you can simply “think your way out of” or control through willpower alone. Your body has learned to associate certain triggers with danger, automatically activating survival responses even when you’re actually safe. Effective trauma therapy addresses both the psychological and physiological aspects of trauma, helping you regulate your nervous system while processing difficult memories and experiences.
At Right Path Counseling, we integrate multiple evidence-based approaches that recognize the body’s role in healing from trauma, creating a comprehensive treatment plan that addresses your whole experience.
Trauma Treatment Approaches at Right Path Counseling
Our therapists are trained in specialized trauma modalities that work with both your mind and nervous system to facilitate deep, lasting healing. We’ll work collaboratively with you to determine which approaches best fit your needs, comfort level, and treatment goals.
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
EMDR is one of the most extensively researched and effective treatments for trauma and PTSD. This approach recognizes that traumatic memories can become “stuck” in your nervous system in their unprocessed form, continuing to trigger distressing symptoms long after the event has ended.
During EMDR therapy, you’ll work with your therapist to identify specific traumatic memories or experiences while engaging in bilateral stimulation – typically following the therapist’s finger movements with your eyes, though tapping or audio tones can also be used. This bilateral stimulation appears to activate your brain’s natural healing process, helping you reprocess traumatic memories so they lose their emotional charge and become integrated as regular memories rather than ongoing threats.
EMDR can help you process trauma without requiring extensive verbalization of traumatic details, which many clients find relieving. You’ll remain in control throughout the process, and your therapist will help you develop resources and coping strategies before, during, and after processing work.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS is a compassionate, non-pathologizing approach to trauma treatment that views your psyche as naturally multiple – made up of different “parts” with their own perspectives, feelings, and protective strategies. When you experience trauma, certain parts of you may take on extreme protective roles to help you survive, while other vulnerable parts carry the pain and memories of what happened.
In IFS therapy, you’ll learn to identify and develop a relationship with these different parts of yourself rather than trying to eliminate or override them. Your therapist will help you access what IFS calls your “Self” – the core of who you are that possesses natural qualities like compassion, curiosity, and calm – and use this wise, healing presence to work with your protective and wounded parts.
This approach is particularly effective for complex trauma because it honors the adaptive strategies you developed to cope while gently helping you update these patterns when they no longer serve you. Many clients find IFS deeply empowering because it helps them develop self-compassion and recognize that nothing is fundamentally wrong with them.
Polyvagal Theory-Informed Therapy
Polyvagal Theory provides a neuroscientific framework for understanding how your autonomic nervous system responds to perceived safety and danger. This approach recognizes that trauma survival responses aren’t cognitive choices but automatic nervous system reactions that occur below the level of conscious awareness.
Your therapist will help you understand your unique nervous system patterns—recognizing when you’re in a state of social engagement (feeling safe and connected), sympathetic arousal (fight-or-flight), or dorsal shutdown (collapse or dissociation). You’ll learn practices to regulate your nervous system, gradually expanding your window of tolerance so you can experience emotions and sensations without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down.
Polyvagal-informed therapy emphasizes creating safety in the therapeutic relationship and helping you develop awareness of your body’s signals. You’ll learn specific techniques to activate your ventral vagal system – the part of your nervous system associated with safety, connection, and social engagement – creating a foundation for healing trauma from the bottom up.
Emotional Regulation Skills
Trauma often disrupts your ability to regulate emotions effectively, leaving you feeling either overwhelmed by intense feelings or disconnected and numb. Learning emotional regulation skills is an essential component of trauma treatment, providing you with practical tools to manage difficult emotions as they arise.
Your therapist will help you develop skills such as identifying and labeling emotions, understanding the connection between thoughts and feelings, using grounding techniques during moments of distress, and gradually increasing your tolerance for uncomfortable emotions. These skills complement deeper trauma processing work by ensuring you have the resources to manage what comes up during and between therapy sessions.
Emotional regulation work is often drawn from approaches like Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and can be particularly helpful if you’ve experienced childhood trauma or have difficulty managing intense emotions in relationships.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Trauma
CBT for trauma, including specialized approaches like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure (PE), helps you examine and modify the unhelpful thought patterns and beliefs that often develop after traumatic experiences. Trauma can leave you with deeply held convictions about yourself, others, and the world – beliefs like “I can’t trust anyone,” “I should have done something differently,” or “The world is completely unsafe.”
In trauma-focused CBT, you’ll work with your therapist to identify these trauma-related thoughts and beliefs, examine the evidence for and against them, and develop more balanced, realistic perspectives. You’ll also learn coping strategies for managing anxiety and avoidance behaviors that may be limiting your life.
For some clients, CBT approaches that involve gradually and safely confronting trauma-related memories and situations (with extensive preparation and support) can be incredibly effective in reducing avoidance and helping you reclaim activities and situations you’ve been avoiding.
How Trauma Therapy Works at Right Path Counseling
Beginning trauma therapy can feel intimidating, especially if you’ve spent years trying to avoid thinking about painful experiences. At Right Path Counseling, we prioritize creating a safe, collaborative therapeutic relationship where you can move at your own pace.
Your trauma treatment journey typically begins with an assessment where your therapist will learn about your experiences, symptoms, and treatment goals. You won’t be pressured to share more than you’re comfortable with, and you’ll maintain control over the pace and direction of your therapy.
Before engaging in deeper trauma processing work, your therapist will help you develop resources – coping strategies, grounding techniques, and emotional regulation skills – that provide stability and safety throughout your healing journey. This foundation phase ensures you have the tools you need to manage what emerges during trauma work.
As you progress in therapy, you’ll work with your therapist to identify specific memories, experiences, or patterns you’d like to address. The pace of trauma processing is entirely up to you, and your therapist will regularly check in to ensure you feel safe and supported. Many clients are surprised to find that trauma therapy, while challenging at times, can also bring profound relief as they release what they’ve been carrying for so long.
Who Can Benefit From Trauma Therapy?
Trauma therapy can help anyone whose past experiences continue to affect their current well-being and functioning. You don’t need a formal PTSD diagnosis to benefit from trauma treatment – many people experience significant symptoms from experiences that don’t meet full diagnostic criteria but nonetheless cause real distress.
You might benefit from trauma therapy if you’ve experienced:
- Childhood Trauma or Adverse Experiences — Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; neglect; witnessing domestic violence; or growing up with instability or unpredictability
- Single-Incident Trauma — Car accidents, natural disasters, assaults, medical emergencies, or other discrete traumatic events
- Complex Trauma — Ongoing traumatic experiences, particularly in relationships or during developmental periods
- Vicarious or Secondary Trauma — Trauma exposure through your work in healthcare, emergency services, social work, or other helping professions
- Medical Trauma — Traumatic medical procedures, chronic illness, or hospitalizations that left you feeling helpless or overwhelmed
- Grief and Loss — Deaths of loved ones under traumatic circumstances or losses that were never fully processed
- Relationship Trauma — Abusive or toxic relationships that left lasting impacts on how you relate to others
Trauma therapy is also effective for addressing symptoms that may not obviously connect to past experiences but have roots in unresolved trauma, such as chronic anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, or unexplained physical symptoms.
Why Choose Right Path Counseling for Trauma Treatment on Long Island?
At Right Path Counseling, our therapists bring specialized training in evidence-based trauma treatments, combined with a deep commitment to creating a safe, compassionate therapeutic environment. We understand that healing from trauma requires more than techniques – it requires a trusting relationship where you feel seen, heard, and supported.
Our therapists stay current with the latest research and training in trauma treatment, ensuring you receive care informed by the most effective approaches available. We recognize that trauma affects everyone differently, which is why we offer multiple modalities and tailor treatment to your unique needs, preferences, and goals.
Located conveniently on Long Island, Right Path Counseling provides accessible, high-quality trauma therapy for individuals throughout the area. We work with most insurance plans and offer flexible scheduling to accommodate your needs.
Take the First Step Toward Healing
You don’t have to continue carrying the weight of past trauma alone. With specialized trauma therapy at Right Path Counseling, you can process difficult experiences, regulate your nervous system, and reclaim your sense of safety and empowerment. Our experienced therapists are here to support you every step of the way.
Contact Right Path Counseling today to schedule a consultation and learn more about how trauma therapy can help you heal and move forward with your life.