Trauma Sensitive Therapy
My therapy approach is rooted in the values of trauma-informed care and practice- Trust, Safety, Choice, Collaboration, Cultural Sensitivity, and Empowerment. Starting therapy can sometimes feel daunting to start with. It often feels easier once started and a clinical and trauma sensitive therapist works to support this by ensuring you feel safe, that you can be yourself, and are in control of your own choices and decisions, with the focus on issues important to you, whether you have experienced trauma in your life or not.
A trauma informed approach is also important for neurodivergent individuals, who may experience additional trauma due to social exclusion or other negative social experiences, invalidation (and invalidating environments), misdiagnosis, and chronic sensory or nervous system overwhelm, for example.
Being treated negatively or in a dismissive, disbelieving or invalidating way by health or care services can also traumatise (or re-traumatise) people, such as when seeking support for chronic illness or disability, or when disclosing abuse, for example.
In therapy I am committed to understanding your individual needs and ensuring that we actively progress at a pace that feels comfortable for you as we work together. The areas below represent some of the foundations of mental health and well-being that can be impacted by difficult experiences, but which can also be strengthed during therapy.
Safety & Stabilisation
Identifying and managing triggers for stress, distress or anxiety, and expanding your capacity to handle difficult emotions, reducing overwhelm, so you can navigate and process difficult experiences and situations. Recognising that freezing or shutting down is a coping response, not a behavour problem.
Trust
Learning to trust your inner wisdom and developing confidence in your own judgement to guide your relationships and boundaries, with yourself and others. This can also be about gradually developing trust in the predictability and safety of the therapy environment and process, from a physical, sensory and emotional perspective.
Autonomy
Being in charge of your own life and regaining personal agency, choice and control. Being able to make choices that are based on what's important to you. Feeling comfortable communicating in your own style, and processing interactions or experiences at your own pace.
Confidence
Building trust in your own inner capacity and resources for healing and growing, and changing old patterns of self-doubt.
Identity
Reclaiming and affirming your internal sense of self worth and self image, that doesn't depend on other people's approval of you.
Reconnection
Identifying what really matters to you and rediscovering purpose, meaning, interests or relationships. From surviving to thriving.