Recovering from One-Time Event Traumas

Sometimes single disturbing events can cause post-traumatic experiences. These incidents might be a fire, earthquake, assault, vehicle accident, or medical procedure. Even if you just witnessed a traumatic stressor, there can be aftereffects.

If there was fear, helplessness, or shock these experiences can lead to a sense of numbness, detachment, or memory problems. Sometimes there are recurrent images or dreams, anxiety, or avoidance of all stimuli that remind you of the event.  

Working with a therapist can help to resolve these memories and allow you to resume your normal life activities. EMDR is a well-researched and effective treatment for one-time traumatic events of this type. 

Usually it is important to check for earlier memories that might be making it harder to get over the current event. If there are no significant feeder memories, post-traumatic experiences of this type can be generally resolved very effectively with EMDR.