EMDR therapy and counselling for trauma and PTSD
If you have ever endured a significant trauma or deeply distressing event, you may be suffering from nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks, as your mind and body struggle tirelessly to process the memory. In an ideal world, once the traumatic event has ended we return back to a normal state. But for many people, this doesn’t happen. This article takes a look at the effects of trauma on the brain, and why it may feel as if at times it is still happening, even if it was several years ago.
During a traumatic or life-threatening event, much of what happens in the brain is an automatic survival response. These reactions happen rapidly and largely outside conscious awareness, allowing the brain and body to respond to danger before there is time to think through what is happening.
When the brain detects a threat, the amygdala and other areas involved in the survival response become highly active. Stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are released, increasing alertness and preparing the body to respond. Your heart rate may increase, your muscles tense and your attention becomes focused on detecting and responding to danger. This is the body's fight or flight response.
If fighting or escaping doesn't feel possible, the nervous system may instead respond through freeze or other defensive reactions. You may feel unable to move, speak or think clearly, or experience a sense of detachment or numbness. These responses are not conscious choices, they are automatic protective mechanisms that can occur when the brain perceives that there is no safe way to escape the threat.
Once the danger has passed, the nervous system would normally return towards a calmer state. However, following overwhelming or repeated trauma, aspects of the stress response can remain heightened. This can leave you feeling constantly on edge, easily triggered, emotionally numb or disconnected, even when you are physically safe. The effects of these ongoing changes in the brain and nervous system can continue long after the traumatic event itself has ended.
Although the body doesn't literally store memories, traumatic experiences can leave strong associations between memories, emotions, physical sensations and the situations in which they occurred. These learned associations can become powerful triggers. A particular smell, sound, place, facial expression or bodily sensation may remind the brain of past danger and activate a familiar survival response, sometimes making you feel as though the trauma is happening again, even though you are safe in the present.
Triggers are part of the brain's protective system. They help us recognise potential danger by drawing on information from previous experiences. Following trauma, particularly when experiences have been repeated or overwhelming, the brain's threat-detection system can become more sensitive. The amygdala, which plays an important role in detecting and responding to potential threats, may react strongly to cues that resemble past danger, even when there is no actual threat in the present.
It's starts operating like a faulty car alarm, sounding the alarm every time the wind blows instead of just when there is a real threat. In the same way, a traumatised nervous system can respond to reminders of the past as though they signal danger now. This can help explain why triggers, flashbacks and intense physical or emotional reactions can continue long after the original trauma has ended.
Avoiding people, places or situations that trigger difficult memories can feel like the safest option. In the short term, avoidance can reduce anxiety and help you feel more in control. The problem is that when we continually avoid something that feels threatening, the brain doesn't get the opportunity to learn that we are safe. Over time, avoidance can reinforce the fear and make the list of things you feel unable to do increasingly long.
Because triggers can be part of everyday life, living around them can gradually become exhausting and restrictive. You may stop going to certain places, avoid relationships or situations, or give up activities you once enjoyed simply to prevent feeling overwhelmed. This can leave your world feeling smaller and reinforce the belief that you aren't able to cope.
The solution isn't to force yourself to face everything at once. Recovery is about creating enough safety, understanding and emotional regulation to respond differently when triggers arise. In therapy, we can work at a pace that feels manageable, helping you understand your triggers, strengthen your ability to regulate difficult emotions and process the experiences that continue to fuel your reactions. As the emotional intensity of those experiences reduces, triggers can become less powerful and you can begin to reclaim parts of your life that avoidance has taken away.
Changing the way we respond to triggers can help break the cycle of fear and avoidance. When a trigger activates your nervous system, reacting with fear or then criticising yourself for that reaction can reinforce the message that the trigger is dangerous. The brain learns from these repeated experiences, strengthening the association between the trigger and the perceived threat.
Instead, the aim is to create a different experience. Rather than automatically avoiding, fighting or judging yourself, you can learn to pause, ground yourself and recognise that a trigger is a reminder of something that happened in the past, not evidence that the same danger is happening now. With the right support, repeated experiences of safety can help your brain and nervous system update these old associations.
This doesn't mean forcing yourself to face overwhelming situations or simply telling yourself not to be afraid. It means gradually developing new ways of responding, at a pace that feels safe and manageable. As the brain learns that you can experience a trigger without being overwhelmed by it, its power can begin to reduce, giving you greater freedom to respond to the present rather than automatically reacting to the past.
The first step is recognising that you are being triggered. You might notice a sudden change in your thoughts, emotions or body - a racing heart, tight chest, feeling sick, becoming angry or tearful, wanting to escape, or suddenly feeling numb or disconnected. Simply noticing these changes can create a small amount of space between the trigger and your automatic response.
Try to acknowledge what is happening without judging yourself for it. You might gently remind yourself: 'Something has triggered my nervous system. This feeling is real, but I am safe in this moment'. You don't need to push the feeling away or make it disappear immediately. Instead, notice the thoughts, emotions and physical sensations that are arising and remind yourself that they are part of a protective response.
A trigger can feel incredibly powerful because it carries an association with something that happened in the past. But a trigger is not the original trauma happening again. It is a reminder, a signal from a nervous system that has learned to look out for danger. You survived what happened then, and you can learn that you are safe now.
With practice, noticing your triggers in this way can help you move from automatically reacting to becoming more aware of your choices in the present. This doesn't mean you should force yourself through overwhelming situations. It means learning to recognise the difference between 'this feels dangerous' and 'I am in danger' - an important step towards feeling safer and more in control.
When you're triggered, your nervous system can respond as though you are facing danger, even when you are safe in the present. In these moments, thinking clearly can become more difficult because your brain and body are focused on protecting you. Rather than trying to force the feeling away, the first step is to help your nervous system settle enough for you to reconnect with the present.
Grounding and self-soothing techniques can help you do this. Slow, steady breathing, noticing your surroundings, feeling your feet on the floor or gently naming what you can see, hear and feel can bring your attention back to the here and now. You might also remind yourself 'This is a trigger. It feels familiar because it reminds me of something that happened before, but I am safe right now.'
As your nervous system begins to settle, you can access more of your ability to think clearly, reflect and make choices about how you want to respond. Over time, these experiences can help your brain learn the difference between a reminder of past danger and an actual threat in the present. You don't have to fight the fear or convince yourself that everything is fine, you are helping your mind and body recognise that the danger has passed and you are here, now.
A suggested technique for 5,4,3,2,1
This simple 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise uses your senses to bring your attention back to the present moment. By deliberately noticing what you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste, you shift your focus away from distressing thoughts and imagined threats and towards the reality of your immediate surroundings.
This can be particularly helpful when you are triggered, as your mind may be responding to a reminder of past danger as though it is happening now. Focusing carefully on each sense can help reduce the intensity of the emotional response and reconnect you with the present. The aim isn't to tell yourself that your feelings aren't real. Instead, you're giving your brain and body new information: this is where I am, this is what is happening around me, and I am safe in this moment.
Look for 5 things you can see – the object furthest away from you, the object nearest to you, the object you are most drawn to, the object you can’t quite work out – be creative, don’t go for the obvious, the idea is to get your senses working hard to enable a fully functioning thinking brain.
Find 4 things you can touch – Notice the texture, is it a calming and soothing feel or irritating and uncomfortable. For example, you might feel the cool surface of a table, the softness of a blanket, or the texture of a houseplant. Pets are a great object here – if you have a dog or cat notice how different the ear fur is to the back fur, the tummy hair compared to the leg hair.
Listen for 3 sounds – we are hearing noise constantly, but unless we are having a conversation, we rarely stop to consider what we can hear, or differentiate between sounds. Notice what you can hear, from the very subtle to the really obvious.
Identify 2 things you can smell – the sense of smell is intricate, but we often don’t take the time to identify the various scents that make up our environment. You might notice the scent of fresh air, plants, flowers, coffee, food, or perfume. Explore both pleasant and neutral smells around you.
And finally, reward yourself with something you can taste – whether that be your favourite drink, a boiled sweet you can take your time with or indulging in a sweet or savoury snack of your choice. Eating and drinking is not associated with the survival response. It tells your body that all is well, there is no danger and normal activity can resume.
You can change the order of the above to suit your environment, to make the exercise more challenging or easier. Make a note of this exercise somewhere easily accessible so that you can refer to it as soon as you have those visceral feelings that ‘something is not right’. Catch the sensations before they escalate.
After the exercise, notice how you feel, any reduction to traumatic symptoms is positive. Practise the exercise at times when you are not triggered, so that you become familiar with the process, and it is easier to implement when really needed.
The facts-based information centre - Do low level mental activities such as puzzles and quizzes. Employment and volunteering in roles that aren’t too complex and don’t have relational conflict or risks can be stabilising factors for the front left thinking brain engagement.
Relationships – human attachments switch on the front right thinking brain. This could be bonds with a partner or close friend, or the effects of an established therapeutic relationship. Seek out companionship and conversation with those you have a positive connections with.
Noticing – the front middle brain is associated with self-awareness, thoughts, emotions and sensations. It is the part of the brain that allows self-reflection – How am I feeling? What is going on for me right now?
Trauma survivors often struggle to stand back and observe what is happening in the moment and may become quickly overwhelmed by automatic body responses. Put your experience into words, without judging or beating yourself up.
A part of the brain that shuts down during trauma is the speech centre (Broca’s area). Voicing your experience (or writing it down) switches this part of the brain back online. It allows you to rationalise that this is ‘just a feeling, thought or emotion’ it will pass and is not something that defines you. Feelings and sensations are temporary states – they come and go.
By developing grounding activities and repeating them consistently we develop new ways of thinking. It allows the brain to establish new, healthy pattern matches with our current environment and differentiate between past trauma and the ‘here and now’.
Gradually the hypervigilance will dissipate, and our over sensitive ‘emotional alarm system’ will slowly but surely start to regulate itself.
When we are no longer ‘stimulated’ by our triggers, we can work on helping our brain to recode the way the memory is stored – so it goes into a part of brain where memories fade and feel less recent. You will never forget the event happened, but recollection will be voluntary and wont pack the same punch.
Research continues to shed light on how traumatic experiences can affect the brain and influence the way we process memories, emotions and perceived threats. The research below explores the neurobiology of PTSD in detail:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3181836
I am passionate about helping people to heal and move forwards after traumatic or deeply stressful life events. Whether you have experienced a single-incident trauma, a series of difficult life experiences or long-term complex trauma, I can help you to process what happened and reclaim your life. If you're ready to move beyond the effects of trauma and 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.
You can read A Complete Guide to EMDR Therapy to learn more about the therapy process, what to expect and how it could support your recovery.
