Therapy for Trauma

Therapy for Trauma

Too many people are put off coming to therapy as they worry that it will involve talking about and reliving their trauma. They prefer to try and put it behind them, or “forgive and let go.” However, sometimes that just doesn’t work for them. It’s true that trauma impacts people in different ways and to different degrees. Some people seem to be able to ride it out, drawing on an innate resilience that keeps them safe. Others even experience what we call post-traumatic growth, where they emerge a stronger and richer person from that trauma, without needing intervention.

However, many of us can find that trauma has lingering effects. It plays a role in many mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, OCD, addictions and phobias. It can also come back to haunt us when we least expect it, through flashbacks, high levels of anxiety, cropping up in dreams or in unwanted memories. This could happen just after the event, or resurface years later, triggered by something that is often seemingly unrelated.

Feeling the effects of trauma doesn’t mean that you are weak in any way. What’s happening is that your brain has gotten “stuck” at the place of trauma, and hasn’t been able to process what happened properly. The incident could be a one off incident like a car accident, a series of smaller incidents that add up, or a history of childhood abuse. There’s no scale for trauma. I’ve worked with clients who have been traumatised by a redundancy that was handled particularly badly. It’s important that you don’t feel that your own trauma isn’t important or big enough. If it’s affecting you, then we can do something about it.

Gentle Trauma Treatment

I use a technique called Rewind. It is a technique extensively used on veterans suffering from PTSD, as well as people from Northern Ireland who were traumatised by the violence there. It uses a process similar to that of EMDR where the unwanted emotion is unhooked from the memory. This means that you still have the memories of the incident/s, but the visceral feelings associated with them are lifted. So too is the trauma’s impact on your life.

The beauty of this technique is that you don’t have to tell me everything that happened and risk re-traumatising yourself all over again. I’ve seen it work for clients so many times, and never had to rewind the same trauma twice (although some clients have needed multiple traumas addressing, in different sessions).

At the moment I am only doing Rewinds in person, from my Hythe therapy clinic. Do contact me or book a call to discuss if you think you would benefit from some help with a trauma you may be experiencing.