EMDR therapy and counselling for trauma and PTSD
PTSD can develop following a single traumatic event or repeated and prolonged experiences of trauma. Understanding PTSD and traumatic memory can help explain why the effects of a life-threatening experience can continue long after the danger has passed. For example, survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire experienced the trauma of being trapped in a burning building, alongside devastating losses including loved ones, homes and livelihoods.
The combination of overwhelming fear, helplessness and loss can have a profound psychological impact. PTSD can also develop after a single traumatic experience, particularly when someone has little opportunity to feel safe, supported or understood in its aftermath.
Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is a psychological stress injury that can develop from ongoing or repeated trauma, particularly where a person has little or no control over what is happening and feels unable to escape. Experiences that involve prolonged fear, helplessness or a sense of being trapped can have a lasting impact on the way the brain and nervous system respond to stress and danger.
Examples can include childhood abuse or neglect, prolonged physical or sexual violence within an intimate or family relationship, captivity or exploitation, or living in circumstances where there is an ongoing threat to your safety. Unlike a single traumatic event, these experiences can continue over weeks, months or years, making it difficult for the nervous system to return to a sustained sense of safety.
PTSD is considered a normal response to an extremely stressful situation. It can prevent us from being able to think and feel at the same time. It can limit our ability to function as integrated human beings. We become stuck in survival mode.
Traumatic experiences can be difficult to put into words. When we're faced with overwhelming danger, the brain shifts its focus away from conscious thinking and towards automatic survival responses. There is no time to carefully process what is happening or think through what to do, we instinctively respond by fighting, fleeing, freezing or shutting down.
Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms will vary from person to person. They tend to fall in three categories of intense, emotional and physical reactions.
This is the most common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. It can be extremely distressing for anyone who goes through it.
Many people who have PTSD will experience the following symptoms connected to the actual events of the trauma:
Being reminded of the event that caused the trauma can trigger feelings of fear and anxiety. As a result of this, PTSD sufferers are more likely to avoid reminders. These include places, people or situations and conversations about the traumatic event.
Sufferers will try to counteract the painful memories and feelings by feeling nothing at all. This emotional numbing typically has a negative effect on communication with others. Individuals with PTSD are also likely to:
Other common symptoms:
It is not uncommon for sufferers of PTSD to be overwhelmed with powerful and conflicting emotions. ‘Acceptance’ is the first step in resolving any unwanted emotional state, therefore it can be helpful to understand the positive function in seemingly negative and harmful emotions.
This may involve an effort to prevent injury or maintain boundaries. Anger is a common response to been threatened, hurt, scared or towards the person who caused it. It escalates to rage when our assertions of ‘don’t’ or ‘stop’ are not respected.
Fear alerts us to danger and is stimulated by something in the environment, whereas anxiety alerts to danger but is stimulated within the self.
Fear is the driving force in many psychological disorders such as phobias, panics disorders and OCD.
In PTSD fear persists long after the threat has gone, and its protective function can become handicapped if everything is seen as dangerous and become unable to differentiate between what is truly dangerous and what is not.
Trauma survivors with PTSD may repeatedly fall prey to dangerous situations because the internal alarm systems are so overloaded they become disabled.
This emotion not released or expressed in the same way as other emotions (i.e. sadness and grief is expressed through crying, anger may be expressed though shouting or stomping around) and as such it can be difficult to find a discharge outlet.
BUT….shame seems to dissipate under non-judgemental and accepting contact from another human, trauma-focused therapies can often help with this.
People often fear grief as a regression into trauma because feeling of sadness may be increased. However, it is usually a sign of progression and trauma survivors may feel more solid and less fearful. Grief usually occurs when an aspect of trauma has been resolved and the internal experience changes i.e. from a feeling being experienced in the present, to an acknowledgement that it is now an element of the past, i.e. I was really scared, I felt bad, I felt so ashamed.
When something traumatic happens, your brain's priority is survival, not creating a clear, organised memory. During moments of extreme stress, the brain's alarm system becomes highly active, preparing you to fight, flee or freeze. At the same time, the areas involved in organising memories into a coherent timeline may not function as effectively.
As a result, traumatic memories can be stored differently from everyday experiences. Rather than feeling like something that happened in the past, they may remain fragmented, emotionally intense or disconnected from time and place.
This can lead to vivid flashbacks, nightmares, strong emotional or physical reactions. Memories might also feel blurred, fragmented or incomplete. You may remember some details clearly while others are difficult to recall, sometimes leaving you questioning your own memory.
Triggers are your brain's way of trying to protect you. They act as warning signals, alerting you to situations that resemble past experiences your brain has learned to associate with danger. Although they can feel confusing or overwhelming, triggers are not a sign that something is wrong with you, they are evidence of a nervous system that has adapted to survive.
At the centre of this response is the amygdala, often described as the brain's alarm system. It constantly scans your environment for signs of threat, doing so automatically and outside of conscious awareness. If it detects something that reminds it of a past danger, it can activate your body's survival response in a fraction of a second, preparing you to fight, flee, freeze or submit before you've had time to think things through. After trauma, this alarm system can become overly sensitive, reacting to situations that are safe in the present but resemble something that once felt dangerous.
When you're triggered, the thinking parts of the brain become less accessible while the survival parts take over. This is why it can suddenly feel difficult to think clearly, make decisions or remind yourself that you're safe. Instead, your body reacts automatically, often leaving you feeling anxious, overwhelmed, numb or out of control.
For people who have experienced repeated or prolonged trauma, these survival responses can become deeply ingrained. If you repeatedly felt powerless, trapped or unable to escape, your brain and nervous system may come to expect those feelings whenever something reminds you of the original experience. Over time, helplessness can begin to feel like the default response, not because you're weak, but because your nervous system learned that this was the safest way to survive.
Importantly, it isn't simply the memory of the traumatic event that keeps the distress alive. It's the emotions, beliefs and physical sensations that became linked to that experience. The body remembers these patterns, which is why a smell, sound, place, facial expression or even a particular feeling can trigger an intense emotional or physical reaction long after the danger has passed.
Helplessness is that feeling of being overwhelmed and powerless to stop what is happening to us. If we have experienced repeated trauma and intense helplessness our brains grow and develop in response to this experience. So without a sense of choice, we develop a learned sense of ‘helplessness’ which can become the ‘default’ state when we are triggered into, or reminded of the original trauma.
Triggers and flashbacks related to past trauma can often be alleviated with EMDR, a therapy which enables your brain to recode how the memory is stored in your mind and body. EMDR helps people process and heal from distressing memories using bilateral stimulation – typically guided eye movements, sounds in alternating ears or tapping on both sides of the body. EMDR follows a structured eight-phase approach which you can read more about in EMDR FAQ's.
Many people with trauma have been treated using approaches which drag them back through the experience again; a highly unpleasant thing to have to do. This doesn't happen with EMDR when treating traumatic memory and PTSD. You will not be required to talk in detail about what happened.
Reprocessing traumatic memories can significantly reduce symptoms in the present. During EMDR, you access the trauma whilst in a safe, relaxed state. I will talk you through the process ahead of time and guide you every step of the way. The aim of EMDR is to integrate the distressing experience into your long-term memory bank as an ordinary, albeit unpleasant, and non-threatening memory, rather than one that continually activates a terror response.
When the emotional intensity of a traumatic memory begins to ease, triggers can become less powerful and negative beliefs begin to loosen their grip. This creates space to relate to yourself with greater compassion and curiosity, rather than criticism, shame or self-blame.
People often say that after EMDR, they are surprised that they don't feel 'bothered' by the trauma anymore. The event is not forgotten, but when recalled, it doesn't pack the same punch. So, it won't be accompanied by those old feelings of fear or panic.
Sometimes triggers and flashbacks relate to a history of complex traumas. Avoidance is one way to manage triggers, but it has a huge cost attached to it because it’s difficult to control our environment and the people in it. So, avoidance is a short-term solution at best, but it is no way to live in the long term. To change how we feel and react to triggers we have to do something different. We have to change the way our brain works.
Triggers are horrible, they can take us back to where it all started and we feel like the trauma is happening all over again. Afterwards we may beat ourselves up for reacting to the trigger. And so, all the time our brain is learning that triggers are really, really awful. They are something to be afraid of. And so, the cycle continues. The good news is we can change our stance on triggers and notice its ‘just’ a trigger.
'It’s not nice or pleasant, but I can survive it. After all I have been triggered many times.'
Triggers are a faint echo of the original trauma, you survived the real thing so you have done the difficult bit. The brain needs to notice that the trigger is an association, but that is all it is. The trigger is not an indication that the trauma is happening, or about to happen, all over again.
During the early sessions of EMDR and trauma-focused therapy you will learn practical emotional regulation and grounding skills for managing unhelpful thought patterns and unwanted reactions. I will guide you in developing gentle, effective ways of responding to triggers that lessen their future power, helping you rebuild confidence in your ability to cope.
Ultimately, you will be empowered with the understanding, tools and resources you need to live a life that is free of avoidance and life-limiting coping mechanisms. A life where you start to reconnect with healthy ways of living and can realise your future potential.
I offer EMDR therapy and trauma-focused counselling with a specialist interest in helping people who live with symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression. If you're ready to move beyond the effects trauma, so you can start living life on your own terms, I'm here to help. Together, we'll work to calm the chaos, rebuild your confidence and help you create a life that feels safer, calmer and more fulfilling.
Take the first step today. Get in touch to arrange your initial consultation and begin your journey towards healing.
