Trauma
How I work with trauma
Clients are often surprised when I tell them that initially we won’t be deliberately working to bring their trauma history to the surface in therapy. It’s not that we wouldn’t ever want to do that or that we’re avoiding doing that. When the time is right, trauma processing in a safe, supportive environment has a role to play in the journey of trauma integration.
Current research has found that just telling the trauma story is ineffective in bringing relief from symptom of trauma and sometimes can be harmful (re-traumatising). Traumatic memories are not stored in a way that they can be deeply accessed by verbal interactions based on cognitive or logical processes. I find that many clients can give a narrative account of their trauma, devoid of any emotion or body sensations. This is because much of the trauma is stored somatically, that is, in the body. Its most disruptive consequences play out in sensory networks, the nervous system, and the vagus nerve that connect many parts of the body including the brain and the gut. Other parts of the memory are stored in implicit memory (unconscious), this is not readily accessible to conscious memory recall. Traumatic memories reside as frozen experiences within. We have to involve all of those systems to get to the root of trauma, we have to ‘unfreeze’ the system.
Trauma puts survivors on constant high alert, a survival response useful to protect against additional trauma. The mind and body (more truthfully, mind-body as there is no separation) develop defence strategies or mechanisms to protect the conscious brain from accessing or feeling or sensing any traumatic ‘stuff.’ But this sense of alertness and these strategies also block access to the deep roots of trauma in the body. They often take away spontaneity, one of the most important resources for survivors in moving on or become unhealthy and sometimes lethal habits.
Trauma is complex in its impacts, and I think that therapy needs to address all aspects of a client’s well-being: emotional, physical, cognitive, spiritual and social.
I integrate four key approaches to trauma therapy:
- Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
- Mindfulness
- Somatic Experiencing (SE)
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that helps people heal from the symptoms and emotional distress associated with traumatic memories. Developed by Francine Shapiro in 1987, her Adaptive Information Processing model posits that EMDR therapy facilitates the accessing and processing of traumatic memories and other adverse life experience to bring these to an adaptive resolution. After successful treatment with EMDR therapy, affective distress is relieved, negative beliefs are reformulated, and physiological arousal is reduced.
During EMDR therapy, the client attends to emotionally disturbing material in brief sequential doses while simultaneously focusing on an external stimulus. Therapist directed lateral eye movements (alternating left-right) are the most commonly used external stimulus but a variety of other stimuli including hand-tapping and audio stimulation are often used.
EMDR therapy facilitates the accessing of the traumatic memory network, so that information processing is enhanced, with new associations forged between the traumatic memory and more adaptive memories or information. These new associations are thought to result in complete information processing, new learning, elimination of emotional distress, and development of cognitive insights.
Research shows that EMDR can yield benefits comparable to years of traditional psychotherapy in just a few sessions.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a transformative psychotherapy approach developed by Dr. Richard C. Schwartz in the 1980s. It views every human being as a system of protective and wounded inner parts led by a core Self. Here’s what you need to know:
Core Self: The Self is an unchanging, compassionate, and wise aspect within us. It remains undamaged and knows how to heal. IFS aims to help individuals connect with their core Self.
Inner Parts: Just like members of a family, we have various inner parts. These parts can be protective (e.g., inner critic, perfectionist) or wounded (e.g., inner child, trauma-related parts). IFS helps people access and understand these parts.
Healing Process: IFS involves accessing and healing these inner parts. By connecting with the core Self, individuals can transform their relationships with these parts, leading to greater self-awareness and healing.
Beyond Psychotherapy: While IFS is used as evidence-based psychotherapy, it’s also a way of understanding personal relationships and life. It empowers individuals with qualities like confidence, calm, compassion, courage, creativity, clarity, curiosity, and connectedness.
Mindfulness in psychotherapy is an approach that integrates the practice of present-moment awareness into therapeutic processes. Rooted in ancient contemplative traditions, particularly Buddhism, mindfulness has evolved into a powerful tool for fostering psychological resilience and emotional balance. It involves cultivating a non-judgmental awareness of thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations, enabling individuals to disengage from unhelpful patterns of rumination and reactivity.
Mindfulness serves several purposes in psychotherapy. By encouraging clients to focus on the present, it helps them break free from cycles of anxiety about the future or regret over the past. This heightened awareness can improve emotional regulation and create space for more adaptive responses to challenges.
Mindfulness in psychotherapy is not just a method; it is a philosophy that encourages individuals to embrace their experiences with openness and curiosity. By fostering a deeper connection to the present moment, it helps clients build resilience, find clarity, and embark on a path toward healing and growth.
What Is Somatic Experiencing?
Somatic experiencing is a type of therapy that focuses on physical sensations in the body to address trauma, symptoms related to trauma, and overcoming the effects of experiencing extremely stressful events. It is known for treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, it can also be used for other physical and mental health challenges.
Unlike other forms of mental health therapy that focus on thoughts, feelings, and emotions, somatic experiencing involves bringing awareness to how the physical body feels.
Examples of somatic or physical body awareness include:
- Sensing how the heart feels when it beats
- Noticing different muscles and determining if they feel tense or relaxed
- Focusing different bones, organs, and parts of the physical body
How It Works
When a person experiences a stressful or traumatic event, the body and mind respond. This survival reaction is the flight, fight, or freeze response—where the primitive, reactive part of the brain responds by making a person run away (flight), physically fight back, or freeze as protection from potential danger.
Somatic experiencing is based on the theory that traumatic memories can get trapped in the physical body and lead to symptoms long after the danger of that traumatic event has passed. The idea is that by becoming more aware of the sensations in the body, those traumatic memories can be processed and released, relieving the symptoms.
“Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well.” - Buddha
What is Trauma?
Trauma is an event or events that cause a sudden or significant negative change in our concept of self, the world and/or our future. When this sudden or intense shift occurs, we experience it as loss, confusion, disorientation or even threat and danger. To move through the trauma experience in healthy ways requires an adaptive neurological, physiological and psychological response that integrates the trauma experience into a new sense of identity, worldview, and sense of future. The problem is that for some people this adaptive integration does not occur. There are many possible reasons for this, but the end result is that the person continues to experience parts of the trauma as if it were alive and in the present. It is like they cannot get away, close the door, or just get back to “normal” life. They are haunted by the event every day if not every hour and this can lead to changes that complicate life. A trauma-informed therapy approach is specifically aimed at integrating the trauma experience.
It is essential to keep in mind that therapy is not a magic pill or a quick fix: therapy is a healing process that necessitates participation and investment from clients. Making small changes to self-defeating behaviour and coping with feelings of sadness, fear, and pain can bring life-altering results. Therapy is not always easy, sometimes you may feel worse before you feel better. My aim is to guide clients in learning to take responsibility for their own choices and making choices that align with their values and help them to live in a way that embodies their personal values and to form a realistic and authentic relationship with life. The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.