Trauma Therapy

Trauma is a response to an overwhelming event. It occurs when we are so unsafe that our body and minds cannot process what is happening or what has happened. The effects of trauma are profound and they can be felt across generations. Trauma therapy considers how such events have impacted your life, manages trauma related symptoms, establishes hope and seeks a way out of trauma.

What is trauma?

Experiences of trauma vary greatly, and so do symptoms. As a popular term, “trauma” is often mistakenly used to denote an experience which was difficult. But it is important to recognise that trauma is much more than something difficult, disrupting, inconvenient or painful. It is not an exclusively psychological phenomena; but is, rather, largely biological. The internal experience of trauma is specific to each individual, although some common symptoms include:

• Intrusive re-experiencing (flashbacks)

• Hyper-arousal

• Numbing

• Sleep problems

• Memory disturbance

• Sense of worthlessness/shame

• Depression and anxiety

The effects of trauma can be long lasting and can contribute to various physical, psychological, emotional and social difficulties in life. When our survival systems are chronically activated, as in the persistent effects of trauma, life is chronically threatening. Thus trauma treatment is primarily a process of establishing safety. By learning to regulate over-active survival mechanisms, trauma therapy helps individuals relax into themselves and re-establish a relationships with others, self and the world which is not controlled by fear, anger, shame and hopelessness.