Trauma
“Trauma is not what happens to us but what happens inside of us as a result of what happens to us, and that trauma is manifested in a disconnection from self.”
What is trauma?
Trauma is a response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms your ability to cope. It can leave you feeling helpless, emotionally dysregulated, or disconnected from yourself or others. Trauma doesn’t have to be caused by a single major even. It can also result from ongoing, less visible experiences like emotional neglect, living in an unpredictable environment, or repeated microaggressions.
Trauma affects each person differently. What feels traumatic to one person may not feel that way to another. Your experience is valid, even if others don’t understand it.
What is PTSD?
PTSD stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s a mental health condition that can develop after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. PTSD is characterized by symptoms such as:
Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares
Avoidance of reminders of the trauma
Negative changes in mood or beliefs about yourself or the world
Feeling constantly on edge or easily startled (hypervigilance)
These symptoms can significantly impact your daily life, relationships, and sense of safety.
What Is Complex PTSD?
Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is a type of post-traumatic stress that can develop after long-term or repeated exposure to trauma, especially during childhood or in situations where escape wasn’t possible, such as chronic abuse, neglect, captivity, or coercive relationships.
In addition to the symptoms of PTSD, Complex PTSD often includes:
Deep-seated shame or guilt
Difficulty regulating emotions
Persistent feelings of worthlessness or emptiness
Struggles in relationships, including trust and intimacy
Does everyone get PTSD?
No. Not everyone who experiences trauma will develop PTSD. People respond to trauma in different ways, and many factors can influence whether PTSD develops, including:
The nature and duration of the trauma
Support systems available at the time
Personal history, including earlier life experiences
Genetics and nervous system sensitivity
Some people may have a strong reaction at first but gradually heal over time. Others may feel fine initially and develop symptoms later. Whether or not you meet the criteria for PTSD, your suffering is real and healing is possible.
How I treat trauma
When you first come to see me, I spend the first session or two getting a sense of who you are and what is really going on for you. I listen to your present struggles, your background, and any traumatic experiences. I draw from a range of therapeutic approaches, always keeping your preferences, needs, and pacing at the heart of our work together.
My approach is grounded in Judith Herman’s Three-Stage Model of Trauma Recovery:
Stage 1: Establishing safety
We begin by creating a foundation of safety, both in our work together and in your daily life. That includes helping you feel grounded in your body and supported in the therapeutic relationship, but also attending to any practical needs or environmental changes that could increase your sense of safety in the world around you.
Stage 2: Processing trauma
When you feel ready, we may gently explore and process past experiences. I use a variety of expressive and body-oriented tools such as Focusing, art therapy, and projective techniques like card work, always at your pace.
Stage 3: Reconnection and growth
This stage is about moving forward, exploring who you are beyond the trauma, setting goals, and reconnecting with meaning, relationships, and hope for the future.
These stages are not rigid. Healing often moves in waves, we may revisit earlier stages, pause, or shift between them depending on what feels most supportive in the moment.
I work both with mind and body
The Mind: I offer practical tools from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which can help you manage difficult thoughts and emotions, stay present, and live in alignment with your values, even when things are hard.
The Body: I also use Focusing, a gentle yet powerful way of listening to the body’s felt sense of a situation. It helps shift how the trauma is held in the body and lead to integration of traumatic experiences.
The mind - the ACT framework
ACT posits that disorders result from:
Cognitive fusion (getting hooked by unhelpful thoughts)
Avoidance of inner experience
Disconnection from the present moment
Remoteness from values
Ineffective behaviours
and these are the “antidotes”:
Defusion (unhooking from thoughts
Noticing and accepting inner experience
Present moment awareness
Contact with values
Value-committed action
From an ACT perspective, the person suffering from any disorder is often hooked by unhelpful thoughts, disconnected from the present moment, avoids their inner experience, and behaves in ineffective ways. While all “antidotes” may be offered to the client, this may take different forms depending on the presentation and preferences.
The body - Focusing
Focusing is a gentle, body-oriented practice that helps you tune in to your inner experience, not just your thoughts, but how things feel in your body. When we carry trauma, it often lives in the body in ways that words alone can’t fully express. Trauma is often stored not as a clear story, but as fragments of memory held through the senses: a particular smell, a sound, a body sensation, an image.
Focusing offers a way to meet those places with curiosity and kindness, and to gently bring those pieces together, so they feel less confusing, less overwhelming, and more like part of a whole story you can hold and make sense of.
In a Focusing session, I will ask you to slow down and listen inward, paying attention to what is known as the felt sense, the vague bodily awareness that includes everything you feel and know about an issue. We stay with that felt sense, giving it space and allowing it to unfold at its own pace.
This can be especially powerful in trauma work because:
It does not require re-telling your trauma story.
You stay in control of what you explore and how deeply you go.
It helps create a sense of inner safety and trust in your body.
It often leads to subtle but profound shifts in how the trauma is held in the body.