Trauma

Trauma, including one-time, multiple, or long-lasting repetitive events, affects everyone differently. Traumatic events are those that cause or threaten to cause physical injury, emotional terror or death. Trauma can also occur as a result of prolonged abuse, systemic oppression and neglect.

Some people may experience clear symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), such as nightmares, flashbacks, dissociation, hyper-vigilance and difficulty sleeping and concentrating. For others, their symptoms may be more insidious, affecting their relationships, self-worth, motivation in life and trust in others. How trauma affects you depends on many factors, including the amount of support around you, how you understand what happened to you, and the extent to which power is used against you in your everyday life.

During or around the traumatic experiences, you might respond with extreme fear, in which your nervous system can shut down. In some instances, people experience multiple traumas over a lifetime, the accumulated stress of which may result in what we call ‘complex trauma’ or cPTSD. If you have experienced complex trauma, you may have some of the symptoms of PTSD, alongside entrenched feelings of guilt, shame and worthlessness, difficulties controlling your emotions, and feeling disconnected from others.

Trauma can have enduring effects on your psychological wellbeing because it disrupts your sense of safety on an embodied level. After trauma, a person’s nervous system may struggle to regulate properly or be able to calm itself down. As a survival mechanism, you may come to seek control and safety in other ways that cause further problems, such as self-harm, eating disorders, compulsive sexual behaviours, and chaotic relationships.

To address trauma in therapy, you may want to reprocess the details of the trauma itself with one of our clinicians through a therapy such as Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). However, therapy does not need to involve going over trauma in detail in order to be effective. Instead, our clinicians will explore with you how the trauma has impacted your ability to regulate your emotions, feel safe in your body, and stay connected to the things that give your life meaning.