Holistic Trauma Treatments
I practice with consideration of the Mind-Body connection. As such, I treat trauma in a holistic way tailored to your circumstances and trauma experience. I practice Sensitive and Trauma Informed Care ensuring that we do not further harm and approach your response to Trauma in a hopeful and non judgemental fashion.
What is Trauma?
We can experience many events during our lives which we can describe as traumatic. Traumatic events are typically when we experience actual or threatened physical or psychological harm, and this can be to self or also to others. There can be different ways in which trauma can occur, here are 4 types of Trauma:
Simple Trauma
Experiencing a one-time traumatic event such as a car accident, a house fire, a natural disaster.
Complex Trauma
Experiencing several, or a lifetime worth of, repeated traumatic events.
Vicarious Trauma
Can occur when hearing, seeing, and learning about the experiences of people who have experienced traumatic events.
Moral Trauma
something that we have observed or participated in that violates our morals such as witnessing the harming of others.
Treatment for Trauma
It’s important to remember there is not just a one fits all Holistic Trauma Treatment with our Specialist, this is a very complex and multifaceted response to very distressing and overwhelming situations, and so it really does come down to what works for you. No two people are the same, and what may work for you may not work for someone else.
Kelly has been running DBT Programs since 2004. She is intensively training in DBT and has completed Level 3 practitioner training in Radically Open DBT (RO DBT).
We are a ‘Trauma Informed’ Practice
At our practice we believe in the Mind-Body connection, as such treat Trauma in a holistic way tailored to YOUR circumstance and trauma experience. We also practice trauma sensitive and trauma informed care ensuring that we do no further harm, and approach your response to trauma in a hopeful and non-judgemental way.
We hold in mind that “being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone’s mind and heart” (Van der Kolk, 2014) is a crucial part of our therapy stance, and that a visceral/body feeling of safety is crucial for our physiology and nervous system to calm, heal and grow, which we hope to achieve in therapy.
This practice uses trauma informed somatic approaches which are a holistic technique to address the underlying trauma affecting the physical, emotional and mental health of individuals.
How does the Mind & Body respond to Trauma?
Throughout our lifetime we may all experience various events which may to some extent elicit a trauma response, however, at times these responses pass with time without needing any intervention to help address our traumatic responses and reactions. It isn’t unusual, however, for these responses to keep going, and to therefore need some support from professionals who can help address the common symptoms that are arising in reposes to the trauma.
Re-experiencing the event
Where the traumatic event is replayed, and can happen in the form of:
- Flashbacks
- Dreams/ nightmares
- Ruminating
Hyper-arousal:
Fight/flight’ response activation and increased startle response
- Always being on the lookout for something “bad about to happen”
- General irritability and frustration
- Becoming angry very quickly
- Getting startled by loud noises
- Difficulty sleeping
- Difficulty concentrating or focussing on one thing
Hypo-arousal:
‘Freeze’ response, dissociation and shutting down
- emotional numbness
- feeling disconnected from people, your surroundings, your body
- feeling paralysed and not able to move
The Poly Vagal Theory — How & Why Trauma gets stored in the Body
Bessel van der Kolk states that Porges theory moved us beyond just understanding the fight and flight response and “put social relationships front and centre of our understanding of trauma”. He highlights that “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to a meaningful and satisfying life”.
This practice is for those who want to gain more tools and skills in effectively addressing trauma patterns by providing a comprehensive and holistic framework to address stored trauma in the body.
Contact me.
Kelly is supported by Radically Open Ltd which is the international training and development organisation of the RO DBT treatment developer Professor Thomas Lynch.