When we look back at our ancestors, we can often find surprising, hidden strengths and things that connect us to our history. I often felt like an alien growing up in my family, I found it difficult to connect with …
Trauma Informed Perspective
Being ‘trauma informed’ is being called for in more and more spaces as society recognises the prevalence of PTSD. In any given year 8 million adults have PTSD, so the likelihood of working with, living with or encountering someone with …
Post Traumatic GROWTH (PTG)
Have you had a traumatic experience, which was painful and hard, and at the same time been aware of your inner self growing, or having grown substantially from the experience? If you have, this is what is referred to as …
Our “innate capacity to triumph over trauma” – Peter Levine
Humans have been working with trauma for eons. We have always been coping with wars, genocides, death, illness, and natural disaster. Overcoming these things builds resilience and grit. It is in our DNA to overcome and survive. Can trauma be …
Trauma & Secure Attachment
When we experience trauma as a child and our mother (or primary caregiver) is not attuned to our needs this is an attachment trauma. 50% of the population have an insecure attachment style. This means the mother was not available …
Deep Attunement for Trauma
THIS IS THE WORK As a therapist it is my job to be deeply attuned to my client, to notice when someone is becoming distressed and to assist them in returning to their window of tolerance. I like to think …
Integrating Traumatic Experiences
“Effective treatments for trauma involve evoking the fragmented, cognitive, emotional and sensorimotor responses within the patient’s window of tolerance, and facilitating new, adaptive responses which can lead to the integration of past and present, belief and body, emotion and meaning.” …
How We Can Work Top-Down with The Brain to Heal Trauma
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recommends the use of psychotherapy in the form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to treat PTSD (APA, 2010). CBT is a process that helps you to change your thoughts and replace them with more positive …
A Bottom-Up Approach to Trauma
In therapy there are two approaches to trauma. Both refer to the order of areas of the brain being addressed in the therapy. The first is top-down, and the second is bottom-up. When our brains grow in utero the brain …
Does Depression Lead to Loneliness or Does Loneliness Lead to Depression?
Does depression lead to loneliness or does loneliness lead to depression? This was Cacioppo’s question in the early 2000’s. In one of many studies he took 135 lonely people, divided them into group A and group B and asked them …