Support for trauma, PTSD and difficult past experiences
Trauma does not always come from one single event.
For some people, it follows an accident, assault, bereavement, relationship breakdown or another overwhelming experience. For others, it develops through repeated or prolonged experiences such as childhood adversity, neglect, abuse, difficult relationships or living for long periods without feeling emotionally or physically safe.
You may know exactly what has affected you, or you may simply recognise that certain feelings, reactions or patterns seem difficult to understand or change.
I offer trauma counselling in Hertford and online, providing a confidential space to begin making sense of what has happened and how those experiences may still be affecting you today.
What can trauma look like?
Trauma can affect people in very different ways.
You might experience:
- anxiety or feeling constantly on edge
- difficulty relaxing or switching off
- intrusive memories or distressing thoughts
- nightmares or disrupted sleep
- emotional numbness or disconnection
- shame, guilt or low self-worth
- difficulty trusting other people
- relationship difficulties
- strong emotional reactions that seem difficult to control
- avoidance of people, places or situations
- feeling detached from yourself or your surroundings
- using alcohol, drugs, food, work or other behaviours to manage difficult feelings
You do not need to have a formal diagnosis of PTSD or Complex PTSD to seek support.
Understanding what trauma does
When something feels overwhelming, the mind and body can adapt in ways that help us survive at the time.
Those responses can sometimes continue long after the original danger has passed.
You may find yourself becoming highly alert to threat, shutting down emotionally, avoiding particular situations or reacting very strongly to experiences that remind your nervous system of something that happened previously.
Trauma counselling is not simply about repeatedly telling the story of what happened.
An important part of the work can be understanding your responses, developing ways of feeling safer and more regulated, and gradually increasing your ability to remain present when difficult emotions or memories arise.
The window of tolerance
One idea I may use in trauma therapy is the window of tolerance.
Within this window, we are generally able to think, feel and respond while remaining sufficiently regulated.
When we move above it, we may experience anxiety, panic, agitation, anger, racing thoughts or hypervigilance.
When we move below it, we may feel numb, disconnected, shut down, exhausted or emotionally absent.
Trauma therapy can involve developing awareness of these states and learning strategies that help you return to a more manageable level of emotional arousal.
This emphasis on stabilisation and regulation forms part of the trauma-focused training I completed during my specialist Level 5 studies.
A phased approach to trauma therapy
I do not believe trauma work should be rushed.
My specialist training included a tri-phased approach, in which safety, stabilisation and emotional regulation form an important foundation before deeper trauma processing is considered.
In practice, this means we may initially focus on:
understanding what is happening to you, recognising triggers, developing emotional regulation, building internal and external resources, strengthening coping strategies and establishing a therapeutic relationship in which you feel sufficiently safe.
Only where appropriate would therapy move towards more direct work with traumatic memories, beliefs or patterns.
The pace is guided by your individual needs rather than by an expectation that you should disclose or process everything immediately.
Trauma is not only about memories
Trauma can influence the beliefs we develop about ourselves, other people and the world.
You may find yourself carrying beliefs such as:
“I am not safe.”
“I cannot trust people.”
“Something is wrong with me.”
“It was my fault.”
“I have to stay in control.”
“If I let people close, I will get hurt.”
My advanced trauma training included work on trauma-related schemas — deeply established patterns involving experience, emotion, beliefs, cognition and behaviour — alongside both top-down and bottom-up approaches to working with complex trauma.
Therapy can provide an opportunity to understand where these patterns came from and whether they still serve you now.
Working with the body as well as the mind
People sometimes understand intellectually that an experience is over but still feel as though their body is responding as if danger remains present.
My Level 6 trauma training specifically developed a bottom-up approach to complex trauma, alongside cognitive and psychological approaches.
The training included schema work, trauma processing, abuse rescripting, prolonged exposure approaches and reconstruction of trauma narratives within a structured trauma framework.
This informs the way I understand trauma: not simply as a memory of something that happened, but as something that can affect thoughts, emotions, behaviour, relationships and physiological responses.
Trauma, shame and self-blame
Shame is common following traumatic experiences.
You may find yourself wondering why you reacted the way you did, why you did not leave a situation sooner, why you still feel affected or why other people appear to have coped differently.
Trauma therapy can help separate what happened to you from the conclusions you may subsequently have drawn about yourself.
Understanding your reactions within the context of threat, attachment, emotion and survival can often create a very different perspective.
Trauma and relationships
Past experiences can also influence present relationships.
You may find yourself:
struggling to trust, fearing rejection or abandonment, withdrawing when relationships become emotionally close, becoming highly alert to changes in another person’s behaviour, finding boundaries difficult, or repeatedly entering relationships that feel familiar even when they are painful.
Trauma counselling can help us explore these patterns without reducing everything in your life to the past.
The aim is to understand what is happening now and identify where earlier experiences may still be influencing current choices, emotions or relationships.
My specialist training in trauma
Alongside my core counselling training, I have completed specialist Level 5 and Level 6 Diploma training in Working with Complex Trauma and PTSD through Integrated Trauma Solutions.
My Level 5 studies included trauma assessment and formulation, neuroscience, stabilisation, resourcing, emotion regulation, dissociation, STAIR, Cognitive Processing Therapy and the tri-phased approach to trauma therapy.
My Level 6 training developed this further through schema-focused work, bottom-up trauma processing, suicide-risk frameworks, abuse rescripting, prolonged exposure and structured trauma narrative work.
Both programmes incorporated supervised client work and the practical application of trauma-focused approaches.
I combine this specialist training with my wider counselling experience and adapt the work to the individual rather than expecting every person to fit one therapeutic model.
What happens in the first session?
You will not be expected to describe traumatic experiences in detail during your first appointment.
We will begin by understanding what has brought you to counselling, how things are affecting you now and what you would like to be different.
We may talk about:
your current difficulties, important experiences from your past, relationships, emotional responses, ways you currently cope and what you hope to gain from counselling.
From there, we can think together about what approach feels appropriate.
You remain in control of the pace
Trauma therapy should not feel like something being done to you.
You decide what you are ready to talk about.
There may be times when we concentrate more on stabilisation, regulation and present-day difficulties rather than processing past experiences directly.
The aim is not to push you back into traumatic experiences but to help you develop a greater sense of understanding, choice and control.
Not sure whether what you experienced “counts” as trauma?
You do not need to decide that before contacting me.
People sometimes minimise their experiences because someone else “had it worse”, because the events happened many years ago or because there was no single obvious traumatic incident.
If something from your past continues to affect your emotional wellbeing, relationships, behaviour or sense of yourself, it is reasonable to explore it.
Free 15-minute introductory call
I offer a free 15-minute confidential introductory telephone call.
This gives you an opportunity to briefly explain what is happening, ask questions about counselling and decide whether working together feels right for you.
There is no obligation to book a counselling session afterwards.
Trauma counselling is available face-to-face in Hertford, Hertfordshire, and online throughout the UK.
Ready to talk?
Get in touch to arrange your free 15-minute introductory call.