A car backfires on Marylebone Road and, for a second, someone is back at the scene of a crash from three years ago.
Someone else describes a frightening childhood in a calm, flat voice, yet can’t explain why a colleague’s raised voice sent them to hide in the toilets.
Neither of them would necessarily call it trauma, but both are the kind of story people bring to trauma therapy.
Experiences that can leave a mark
Trauma can follow an accident, assault, sexual or domestic abuse, sudden loss, a stay in intensive care, a difficult birth, war or fleeing your home.
It can also build up slowly: years of bullying, a parent who drank or was violent, or a home where nobody noticed a scared child.
If it still shapes how you live, it counts, whatever you call it. People describe it like this:
- memories or nightmares that arrive without warning
- sleeping lightly, checking exits, never quite able to relax
- avoiding a street, a smell or a conversation
- feeling cut off from yourself or from what is around you
- anger, tears or shame that seem too big for the moment
- headaches or pain that medical tests don’t explain
Recognising yourself here is not a diagnosis. In therapy we start from what you notice, not from a label.
Childhood and complex trauma
When fear or pain went on for years, especially in childhood, it often shows less in one memory than in how a person treats themselves and others.
People describe a harsh inner voice, sudden shame, freezing in arguments or pleasing everyone to stay safe. Closeness feels wanted and risky at once.
Complex PTSD, a diagnosis in ICD-11, adds lasting difficulties with emotions, self-worth and closeness to the core symptoms of PTSD.
How I work with trauma
I work with the effects of single-event and long-standing trauma, including PTSD.
My approach is integrative: I draw on several schools of therapy and adapt the work to you, not to a fixed protocol.
The first stage is about stability, not memories: sleep, what sets you off now, and what already helps when you feel shaken.
We notice what happens in your body as well as what you say. If a topic brings on panic or drifting away, we slow down.
You decide what to talk about and when. We take painful memories in small pieces.
She listens with care and never rushes, which helped me feel safe and understood.
