I find trauma to regularly be part of someones’ journey in the Counselling space to one degree or another. The author Peter Levine has written a great book called ‘ Waking the tiger: healing trauma.’ This is a great start point for anyone who feels impacted by trauma.

It’s as if with trauma we are having a normal response to an experience which was unexpected, something out of the ordinary. The term ‘rabbit startled in headlights’ can sometimes explain what occurs.

It’s as if through a shock all our energy in our body which would have come out , e.g. in the rabbits case if they’d just hopped across the road gets all trapped inside. There is a freeze with a lot going on inside but the inability to move and to act.

Memories and emotions often stir around us and can become problematic. The term ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ is used for when this doesn’t get solved and people start to have nightmares and are constantly triggered by seemingly smaller events that of their own accord are not so problematic. I’ll always remember being in Manchester (my home city) in 1996 when there was in fact a bomb in an area which I overheard from a long distance away. I chatted to a young man who had been closer to it who looked extremely nervous and seemed as if he was going to jump out of his skin when someone walked by and just happened to kick a can on the street by chance. To a level this person was traumatised.

Speaking through a trauma in an empathic Counselling forum allows the shock to come to the surface and to come out in a safe space. It’s here that the space to truly ‘process’ what has gone on can occur so our body comes back into balance again.

Trauma always strikes me as a strong word and there are different degrees of trauma and post traumatic stress. I find it can be helpful to use it as a general term that more often than not people have experienced to one degree or another. It’s never a case of who has had the objectively ‘bigger’ trauma but rather in an empathic space to find out what is your truth about what had occurred and for this to be given respect.

I find the space of Counselling typically very healing to begin with and then however long it takes there is usually a pushing out to do new things in this direction. Being traumatised from a past relationship a person may have a space of feeling through it fo a long time and simply not want to date at this stage whatsoever. Usually overtime there is a natural level of a growth and a wanting to move on. This should never be rushed but is typically an organic process of growth.

Feel free to reach out should you feel a level of trauma and wish to work on this and feel free to share any personal thought son trauma.

Take care