Trauma Counselling

“Traumatic events are extraordinary, not because they occur rarely, but rather because they overwhelm the ordinary human adaptations to life.” – Judith Herman 

Your own traumatic experiences may be keeping you from adapting to life’s changing tides. This may be noticeable if you feel caught in a cascade of emotions, physical sensations and memories. This storm can cause chaos in and around you or interfere with your ability to move forward. Some people with trauma histories describe feeling on edge, waiting for something bad to happen or for “the other shoe to drop”. How many of the following resonate with you?

• Do you routinely avoid things or places that remind you of very hurtful events knowing that they will trigger a flood of feelings or memories that overwhelm you?
• Do you remember being badly hurt in the past and now think: “If only I could get over that or put it behind me, life would be perfect”?
• Do you get the sense that you’re somehow broken, damaged or at fault because of something that happened in your past?
• Do memories from the past feel intrusive and unwelcome, disrupting the flow of your life and causing chaos in your psyche and body?

Some people say that even though they feel that their lives are in chaos, the chaos is preferable to revisiting the painful past. So why go back? Why look at past events if it’s just going to cause more pain?

Unresolved trauma has a life of its own. Trauma gets trapped in the body and can lead to a host of physical ailments as well as emotional backlash. Traditional talk therapy, while providing comfort, may not be enough to address how past events can get caught in your body. Body-based and energy therapies such as Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, hypnosis and EFT can engage your own natural healing capacities, and bring relief without the pain of re-traumatization. 

Counselling can help you find ways to ground and anchor yourself so you have more control over the chaos that is happening now, and with this control you’ll have more choice and space to make decisions.

Seeing a counsellor can help you deal with the events of the past in ways that reduce your exposure to the pain, anger and confusion that you find overwhelming. Letting go of the past so you can live today is a key goal of therapy. As a result, you’ll want to explore yourself and the world. You’ll be comfortable with feeling a full range of emotion and physical experience safely. You’ll feel alive again.

Our counsellors will help you:

• Calm the storm in your mind and body;
• Teach you strategies to bring yourself back to the present when you feel stuck or lost in the loop of memories and pain;
• Reduce the pain and put memories into perspective so you can move forward into life;
• Want to connect with yourself and your experiences; and
• Embrace life again.