As I started to write an article about traumatic triggers on the afternoon of Friday 29th November 2019, I first heard reports of the incident on London Bridge. It was not clear exactly what was happening, but the police were treating it as a...
'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens very much contains themes of trauma, therapy, and the transformation of healing that can bring about changes. The story almost takes the same process of self-discovery that takes places in the therapeutic...
What is PTSD? The word 'trauma' is used clinically to describe the experiencing or seeing of shocking or dangerous events, where either yourself or others are threatened with serious injury or death. By some estimates, over half the population in...
In the US and Canada, counselling is seen as a normal thing for someone to do and is just like going to see a GP for a physical illness. In the UK however, we are not so comfortable with the idea of seeing a therapist. Though it is encouraging that...
Eye movement desensitisation reprocessing (EMDR) is recommended for post-traumatic stress by NICE. The therapy involves using eye movements, taps, or buzzers to create bi-lateral stimulation, and access the traumatically-stored information and to...
We tend to talk about ourselves using 'I' statements: 'I just feel hopeless', 'I’m so indecisive', 'I feel so terrible'. We also often diagnose ourselves, e.g. 'I must be self-sabotaging here...', or 'I'm procrastinating, I must push myself to...
Below the surface of your mind, in the deep neural structures of your brain, is a hidden world. Dark and forbidding, we might think of it as deep space, where elemental forces are at work, shaping the internal order of our mind. It is an unexplored...
Vaginismus, which has now been renamed in the DSM-5 as genito-pelvic pain/penetration disorder (GPPPD), is the fear of penetration due to a number of contributing factors. I am increasingly finding clients presenting with this problem, with their...
Counsellors often meet people in private practice in a state of crisis. They may come for help with anxiety, grief, or because they are struggling in broken relationships, and even while they are reaching out most people experience some doubt as to...
We’ve all been there. In that moment of blind panic - your heart pounding; shortness of breath; intense and overwhelming feelings of fear for no apparent reason, quickly followed by an endless cycle of ruminating thoughts and catastrophic...
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