PTSD, Trauma,& Vicarious Trauma Therapy

Help for PTSD, Trauma, Vicarious Trauma & Moral Injury

Trauma Doesn’t Always Look Like What You’d Expect

Trauma can be a single devastating event, or it can be the slow accumulation of years of exposure to crisis, suffering, and things no person should have to witness repeatedly. It can be childhood wounds that never fully healed. It can be the call that just ‘got to you’ in a way others didn’t. It can be the steady erosion of carrying other people’s pain as part of your job.

Whatever brought you here, trauma is real, it is not a character flaw, and it is treatable. Healing is possible — even when it doesn’t feel that way right now.

PTSD and Trauma Symptoms

• Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares

• Hypervigilance — always scanning for danger, unable to relax

• Emotional numbness, disconnection, or feeling like you’re going through the motions

• Irritability, anger outbursts, or difficulty trusting others

• Avoidance of reminders, places, or situations connected to the trauma

• Difficulty sleeping or concentrating

• Feeling permanently changed, damaged, or like the person you were before is gone

PTSD also exists on a spectrum. Not everyone meets full diagnostic criteria — but still carries symptoms that affect relationships, work, and quality of life. All of it matters. All of it is worth addressing.

Vicarious Trauma & Secondary Traumatic Stress

Vicarious trauma (VT) is what happens when you absorb trauma through repeated exposure to other people’s traumatic experiences. It is an occupational hazard for first responders, dispatchers, medical workers, chaplains, counselors, and anyone whose role requires them to witness suffering regularly.

Vicarious trauma can look like:

• Losing your sense of safety in the world — feeling like danger is everywhere

• Cynicism, hopelessness, or a loss of meaning in your work

• Intrusive images or thoughts from clients’ or patients’ stories

• Emotional numbing or detachment from your own life

• Changes in your worldview, faith, or beliefs about human nature

VT is not weakness. It is a predictable response to an extraordinary occupational burden — and it responds well to the same trauma-informed approaches we use for PTSD.

Moral Injury

Many of the clients we serve carry not just PTSD but moral injury — the deep distress that comes from acting in ways that violate your values, witnessing injustice you couldn’t prevent, making impossible decisions under impossible conditions, or surviving when others did not. Moral injury has its own texture and requires a thoughtful, specialized approach. It is something we are experienced in addressing.

How We Treat Trauma at Chadash

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) — highly effective for single-incident and complex trauma

• CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy) — evidence-based for PTSD; helps identify and work through ‘stuck points’

• Somatic approaches — body-based interventions for nervous system regulation

• IFS (Internal Family Systems) — works with the parts of you shaped by trauma

• Mindfulness-based approaches — builds present-moment awareness and regulation

Our peaceful cottage setting on a working farm in Ashland City provides the kind of environment your nervous system needs: calm, private, natural, and far from the institutional.

Telehealth is available statewide for anyone in Tennessee.

You have carried this long enough.

All new clients begin with a telehealth intake.