Trauma & abuse

Trauma is what happens when an experience overwhelms our capacity to process it. It might be a single event or years of them; recent or decades old; something done to you or something you witnessed. The mark it leaves is recognisable: intrusions and nightmares, a body that stays on guard, numbness, avoidance, and often a quiet, corrosive shame that was never yours to carry.

How therapy helps

Trauma work is paced work. It begins with safety and stabilisation — settling the nervous system, building resources — before any processing of memories, and it never moves faster than you can tolerate. Evidence-based approaches help the mind file traumatic memory as past rather than perpetually present, while relational and psychoanalytic work addresses what trauma does to trust, intimacy and the sense of self — especially where the harm happened in relationships.

What we'd work on

Feeling safe in your own body again; reducing intrusions and hypervigilance; processing what happened at a bearable pace; untangling shame from responsibility; and rebuilding the capacity to trust — others, and yourself.