Latest articles on counselling and therapy

I work with stories, stories that are often dark and despairing as they understandably would be in the aftermath of violence. Yet I know through my work that it is in the telling that we heal. Trauma following violence disrupts everything. All is fragmented in its aftermath and we are left with pieces of our past life that no longer make sense. The past is so far removed from the present and it stops us from seeing a future.  Sometimes it can stop us from living, wanting to live, wanting...

When we experience strong emotions we try to process what is happening to us. As well as involving the logical brain this has an effect on the physical body. When traumatic events occur physical feelings of discomfort in the stomach, chest and other ares of the body are common. Images, sound and smells may become very focussed in trauma situations. If these situations are not processed by the brain and resolved they will generally leave a person hypervigilant to the sensory information...

Healing Complex Trauma through the Wisdom of the Body When we think of healing, the general picture which arises tends to be that we are healing to become whole or moving towards health or wholeness. There is another understanding which is that we are healing to understand our wholeness; our health, which is present at the beginning of our lives; when it comes to trauma and chronic stress, in particular. The neuroscience which explains these concepts shows we are born with an innate sense of...

Medically unexplained symptoms are usually ongoing problems which cannot be explained by a clear medical condition. They include the following;

Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Chronic headache. Fibromyalgia.

These issues can be related to trauma, often in childhood, sometimes as a pre-verbal child and can also be related to trauma as an adult.EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) is a therapeutic method which was originally developed to treat trauma by...

A couple of weeks ago I read a review about the forthcoming television drama, 'Patrick Melrose'. It was a well written and sensitive review by a national newspaper paper that didn't shy away from the subject of intrafamilar child sexual abuse experienced by Patrick Melrose as a boy. The review also discussed the novels that the drama is based on, highlighting the novels were loosely based on the experiences of the author Edward St Aubyn. Often the media does not cover the abuse and child sexual...

"Sometimes I'm okay. I am able to get things done, am productive and sociable. But when I rest, it's agony." The urge to overwork and keep busy can be a coping mechanism to avoid negative thoughts and feelings. These negative thoughts may be the residue left over from past unresolved childhood experience and trauma. Aside from the energy expelled in the pursuit of distraction, holding onto these unprocessed thoughts and feelings can be exhausting. What gets broken with trauma is the basic,...

When a person decides to go and see a counsellor, chances are that they are not feeling at their strongest. It may well have taken a long time to decide to seek help. Sometimes a person doesn't really want to see a counsellor but their loved ones keep telling them they ought to. Often people don't actually know what a counsellor does. If you or someone you know relates to this, please read on. This is a brief introduction on how to be counselled. First, finding a counsellor. You may want the...

Pregnancy and birth can be a particularly tricky time for sexual assault and abuse survivors. At a time when women are usually expected to be full of joy and anticipation, survivors can find that painful and difficult feelings related to the assaults and abuse are triggered. This can be really hard to talk about; sexual trauma in itself is not something that we as a society are very comfortable discussing. This can be compounded when it is combined with the cultural taboo around disclosing...

Being diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) can often be validating for some. Having difficulties for years and being diagnosed can lead to positive feelings and thoughts similar to "yes, I finally know what has been going wrong, I'm not just going crazy, this is what it is and it can get better". The opposite can also be true for many people. So you now have a diagnosis - how can therapy help? Due to the difficulties in regulating emotions and disruptions in relationships...