How OEI Therapy Can Help Trauma

Trauma can have lasting effects on your nervous system, emotions, and overall view of the world. It’s more than just an event; it’s how your brain and body process and store the experience.

While talk therapy can be helpful, OEI is a trauma-informed therapy that research has shown to resolve trauma and help people move forward from feeling stuck in their past.

What is Trauma?

Trauma can be defined as any experience that overwhelms your capacity to cope. Trauma can result from a single incident or a series of experiences, affecting a person’s mental, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

Understanding Trauma

Trauma can arise from various situations, including:

Acute Trauma: The response to a traumatic event:

• Physical Trauma: Events like car accidents, medical crises, or physical injuries.
• Relational Trauma: Negative, unexpected events involving relationships with people, such as parents, teachers, or peers.

Trauma of Omission: Neglect can be a primary cause of Complex PTSD and needs to be considered an “event”

Transgenerational Trauma: Trauma passed down through generations.

Complex Trauma: Repeated, prolonged exposure to traumatic events, often with childhood onset, such as childhood abuse or neglect, disrupted attachment, domestic violence, ongoing social threats (discrimination, systemic racism, threat of deportation), community and political violence, refugee situations, or prolonged captivity.

Trauma can include:

• Physical, sexual, or emotional abuse
• Betrayal
• Criticism/rejection
• Embarrassment/humiliation
  Intentional harm
• Childhood neglect and abandonment
• Living with a family member with mental health or substance use disorders
• Sudden separation from a loved one
• Experiencing or witnessing violence
• Natural disasters or accidents
• Poverty, racism, discrimination, or oppression

Signs You May Be Experiencing Trauma

If you’ve experienced a traumatic event, you might notice:

• Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares
• Anxiety, panic attacks, or heightened fear
• Avoidance of reminders related to the trauma
• Mood changes, irritability, or sudden emotional shifts
• Difficulty concentrating or memory problems
• Sleep disturbances or insomnia
• Physical symptoms like headaches, aches, or nausea
• Feelings of detachment or emotional numbness

Long-Term Effects of Unresolved Trauma

When left unaddressed, trauma can lead to:

• Chronic anxiety or depression
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Substance abuse or addiction
• Difficulties in relationships
• Physical health issues
• Cognitive challenges affecting work or school performance

OEI Therapy for Common Symptoms of Trauma

Some of the common symptoms of dissociation are:

• Panic, rage/conflict, anxiety, shame, confusion, or agitated depression
• Headaches, visual distortions, dizziness
• Physical symptoms such as chest compression/hyperventilation, nausea, & throat constriction
• Cognitive distortions
• Relationship difficulties
• Negative self-talk, shame, and low self-esteem
• Emotional dysregulation and urges to self-harm
• Transference reactions that interfere with therapy (fear, anger, avoidance, distrust)

What Can OEI Help With?

OEI has been used to address a wide range of psychological and emotional issues:

• Psychological trauma
• PTSD
• Anxiety
• Phobias
• Depression
• Sexual assault
• Childhood abuse and trauma
• Eating disorders
• Negative self-talk
• Relationship conflicts
• Self-esteem problems
• Compulsions
• Agitated depression
• Body dysmorphia
• Dissociation
• Substance use
• Anything that makes you feel “stuck” or “stirred up” will usually benefit from OEI treatment

Key Benefits of OEI Therapy

✅  Reduced Trauma Symptoms: “OEI helps resolve PTSD, anxiety, and panic symptoms.

✅  Improved Emotional Regulation: “Enhance your ability to manage and regulate intense emotions.

✅  Increased Self-Awareness: “Promotes self-awareness, emotional regulation, and integration of fragmented experiences.

✅  Resolution of “Stuck” States: “OEI addresses anything that makes you feel ‘stuck’ or ‘stirred up,’ including relationship conflicts and unusual emotional intensity.

✅  Enhanced Cognitive Function: “OEI reduces fight, flight, freeze, and numbing responses to enable higher-level brain functioning.

✅  Addresses a range of conditions: Effective in addressing other conditions such as self-esteem problems, compulsions, agitated depression, body dysmorphia, substance use, and conflicts in interpersonal relationships

Additional Benefits of OEI

✅ OEI helps to access awareness regarding human experience

✅OEI helps to resolve physical pains and paresthesias, speech impairments, disturbing (posttraumatic) inner voices, and visual distortions

✅OEI helps to address and resolve shame, guilt, self-loathing

Why is Integration Important for Healing?

Integration is important because when traumatic memories aren’t integrated we feel stuck, triggered, and unable to move forward with our lives. We are in avoidance and dissociated, which interferes with the brains ability to engage higher-level brain functioning.

When the past is not integrated, we experience symptoms of dissociation and panic symptoms such as a racing heartbeat, tight chest, difficulty breathing, nausea, or “butterflies” in the stomach.

We might even experience headaches, visual distortions (ranging from blockage of vision to blurring), tingling or numbness in hands, face, or feet, and drowsiness or light-headedness.

Research on OEI Therapy

OEI is an evidence-based practice, as research supports its effectiveness in reducing PTSD symptoms. Studies show that OEI can lead to significantly lower CAPS scores for PTSD compared to control groups.

• OEI has been rated highly for reduction of PTSD symptoms [1]
• A randomized clinical trial showed that OEI outperformed a delayed treatment control condition for reduction of PTSD symptoms
• OEI has been shown to reduce headaches and migraines in minutes

OEI offers a gentle yet effective path to recovery, allowing individuals to move past their trauma and reclaim their sense of safety and well-being.

OEI the First Step to Gentle, Effective Healing

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