What is Covert Trauma?

Covert trauma is emotional or relational trauma experienced through words or actions that communicate underlying messages. These messages can lead to negative personal beliefs or feelings, such as “I am not good enough” or “I am not emotionally safe.” Covert means that these words or actions aren’t always seen as outright forms of maltreatment and are therefore harder to detect and often ignored. Do any of these sound like things you’ve experienced? 

-A parent telling you that “you can’t get anything right”

-Love or attention conditional upon your behavior 

-Being bullied or someone being cruel to you 

-A teacher telling you “this is easy, why can’t you understand that like the rest of the class”

-An adult being highly critical or having extreme expectations of you

-Abandonment from a parent or loved one 

Cooper Counseling Center can help! We will work together, using Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), to help you overcome these experiences. Visit our page about EMDR to learn more about how we can help!