Trauma is not what happens to you; it is what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.
As Gabor Maté explains, although the traumatic event itself is external, the wound that occurs as a result of the event, affects our internal world. Healing from trauma requires bringing awareness to these wounds, addressing their impacts, and challenging the patterns that have developed as a result. Healing from trauma allows you to reconnect with yourself and improve your mental health, emotional wellbeing and relationships. Empathic Counselling provides a safe and supportive space for you to explore your emotions and begin or continue your trauma healing journey.
Childhood Trauma
Empathic Counselling has experience supporting adults who have experienced childhood trauma, or Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur during childhood, such as abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction. These experiences can have lasting effects on a person’s physical and mental health throughout their life. The exposure to adverse childhood experiences can disrupt the formation of secure attachments with parents/caregivers. As a result, you might carry beliefs into adulthood that you are damaged, not lovable, or that you cannot trust anyone. You might experience anxiety or depression, or have feelings of shame, unworthiness, or helplessness.
Examples of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) include:
- Physical abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Emotional neglect
- Physical neglect
- Parent divorce/separation or death
- Parent mental illness
- Parent addiction
- Parent incarceration
- Witnessing domestic violence
- Bullying
Childhood Trauma can affect:
- Your physical health
- Your mental health
- How you feel and think
- Your beliefs and understanding of the world
- Your behaviour
- Your relationships
Signs of Unresolved Childhood Trauma in Adults can include:
- Difficulty regulating emotions
- Re-experiencing the trauma through intrusive memories, flashbacks and/or nightmares
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Low self-esteem, self-blame or feelings of shame or worthlessness
- Relationship difficulties such as unhealthy attachment patterns and challenges with expressing emotions
- People-pleasing behaviours and difficulties with establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries
- Somatic symptoms
Other Types of Trauma:
In addition to supporting adults who have experienced childhood trauma, Empathic Counselling also has experience supporting adults who have experienced traumas in adulthood such as:
- Sexual assault
- Domestic violence (DV), Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and coercive control
- Betrayal trauma
- Birth trauma
- Medical trauma
- Vicarious trauma
- Bullying, intimidation and discrimination
Other important things to note about Trauma:
- Trauma is personal – if you feel the effects of trauma, then it is trauma
- Trauma is complicated – it can be obvious with a clear cause, or it can be buried beneath depression, anxiety and anger without any recognisable origin
- Trauma can affect you even if you don’t remember the event or experience
- The effects of specific experiences will be different for everyone – what is traumatic for one person might not be for someone else
- The more traumatic events you’re exposed to, the greater the risk they will have a significant effect on you
- You may not have a response to traumatic events until many years after you experienced them
The Focus & Stages of Trauma Therapy:
Rather than focusing on trauma classifications and diagnostic criteria (PTSD/CPTSD), Empathic Counselling focuses on how past trauma is specifically impacting your life now. The focus is on tailoring therapy that addresses your specific needs, and supports your mental health, emotional wellbeing and relationships.
| Stage 1: Safety and Stabilisation Focus: Establishing a sense of safety, managing intense symptoms, and building coping skills. Activities: This stage involves psychoeducation about trauma, developing grounding techniques, learning to manage anxiety and hypervigilance, and fostering a strong therapeutic relationship. The goal is to create a stable foundation before moving to the next stage. |
| Stage 2: Remembering and Mourning (Trauma Processing) Focus: Safely processing the traumatic memory by confronting and working through the emotions associated with the event. Activities: This stage involves developing a coherent narrative of the traumatic event, challenging unhelpful beliefs related to the trauma, and finding ways to process the associated grief and pain. |
| Stage 3: Reconnection and Integration Focus: Rebuilding a sense of self, developing self-compassion, re-engaging with life, and fostering post-traumatic growth. Activities: Clients learn to manage the long term effects of trauma, set future goals, and integrate the traumatic experience into their life story in a way that promotes strength and wellbeing. This stage is about restoring relationships with self and others, and embracing life. |
Therapeutic Approaches
Empathic Counselling takes an integrative approach when working with clients, incorporating a range of evidence-based therapies. Please see Therapeutic Approaches to learn more.
You can book your appointment through the Booking page.