Can Your Trauma Really Be Healed?

Image by Roberta Sorge

In the UK alone, we know that millions of people have experienced some kind of trauma in their lives. I think about trauma as being on a spectrum, from mild at one end to severe at the other. So for many of these people, the trauma they experienced is probably at the milder end of the spectrum. This doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful, of course, or that it doesn’t have an effect on their daily life now. But they are still able to function, be mums and dads, have jobs and friends and do all the normal stuff of life.

If your experiences were more severe, then I’m afraid the impact on you will also be much worse. The thoughts, beliefs, emotions and physical symptoms you experience might be so intense that it’s hard to live a normal, enjoyable life. If this is true for you, I am deeply sorry – whatever you experienced was categorically not your fault, so it’s completely unfair that it is affecting you so much today.

It’s never too much and never too late

But whether your experiences were milder, more severe, or somewhere in the middle, I passionately believe that all trauma can be healed. And this belief sustains me in all that I do, from founding my Heal Your Trauma project, to writing blog posts like this, teaching webinars and workshops, recording guided meditations and in my day-to-day clinical work with clients, most of whom come to see me precisely because they have a trauma history.

Something I often tell my clients – and a useful mantra if you have a trauma history – is that it’s never too much and never too late to be healed. Whatever you have been through, whether it happened once or many times; however bad it was; and however long you have been living with the impact of those events. We now have a whole range of cutting-edge, evidence-based therapies that are proven to help.

Alongside trauma-informed therapies such as schema therapy, internal family systems therapy, EMDR, trauma-focused CBT, compassion-focused therapy and sensorimotor psychotherapy, we also have a whole range of techniques and strategies that are research-backed to help with your healing process. Some of these are thousands of years old, but have been adapted to help with the specific problems that trauma survivors face, such as trauma-informed yoga and trauma-sensitive mindfulness.

Breathing yourself better

Breathing techniques can also be incredibly powerful and helpful for reducing stress and anxiety, as well as soothing and stabilising dysregulated nervous systems (one of the hallmarks of trauma). I teach a few of these techniques to my clients, in webinars and on the Insight Timer app, such as Compassionate Breathing and Box Breathing. Again, some of these techniques (such as pranayama breathing) have been around for thousands of years, but we are incorporating them into evidence-based Western psychology and finding them highly effective and helpful for hard-to-treat problems like trauma.

It’s important to note that, especially if your experiences were up the higher end of that spectrum, you will definitely need the help of a kind, skilled, trauma-informed therapist. Programmes like Heal Your Trauma will be helpful, but cannot replace the systematic, step-by-step healing of warm, compassionate, effective psychotherapy. But attending webinars and workshops like mine, reading self-help books, meditating, listening to podcasts, doing yoga and other exercise you enjoy, having a loving partner, supportive friends and meaningful work is all part of your healing journey.

And I will do all I can to help – starting with the first of my bi-monthly Heal Your Trauma webinars on Saturday 26th February, from 3-5pm, which you can find out about in the video and book using the button below. I hope to see you there.

Warm wishes,

Dan

The Revolution in Trauma Therapy – and Why Your Trauma Can Be Healed

Image by Frank McKenna

Over the last 30 years, there has been a revolution in the treatment of mental health problems. Gone are the days when some stern, unsympathetic psychiatrist would give you a scary diagnosis and tell you, ‘Sorry, but there’s nothing more we can do for you,’ before showing you out of his office.

We now understand so much more about how the mind, brain, nervous system and body are involved in any kind of mental health problem, whether that’s an anxiety disorder like OCD, a mood disorder like depression, or the deep wounds caused by traumatic experiences in childhood. We also understand how to treat these problems – even the most complex problems people can experience, like dissociative disorders or so-called personality disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder.

There are now a number of trauma-informed therapies such as trauma-focused CBT, schema therapy, internal family systems therapy, compassion-focused therapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy and somatic experiencing therapy. All, in their different ways, are highly effective at understanding and treating the effects of traumatic experiences on the human mind and body.

The impact of trauma

As an Advanced Accredited Schema Therapist, Trainer & Supervisor, helping people with their mental health is my life’s mission. That’s why I specialise in treating complex trauma, because I believe that the experience of trauma, usually in childhood, is at the root of most psychological problems.

We increasingly understand this, because of research like the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study in the US, which found that traumatic experiences in childhood (like having a parent with a mental health problem or addiction, or witnessing domestic violence in the family) made people vulnerable to both mental and physical illness in later life.

There are 10 ACEs covering all aspects of childhood trauma, abuse and neglect, including socioeconomic issues like growing up in poverty – we know that these can also have a profound impact on young people’s mental health.

Sadly, the more ACEs you experience as a child, the more likely you are to develop mental health problems, have issues with substance abuse, or develop illnesses like multiple sclerosis, stroke, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. That’s because the highly stressful experience of trauma – especially ‘developmental trauma’, which happens at a key developmental stage in your childhood – has a profound and long-lasting effect on every part of your mind-body system.

Reasons to be hopeful

When I explain this to my clients – most of whom have experienced a number of ACEs in childhood – I know it sounds really depressing. So I quickly follow it up with the good news. I passionately believe that, whatever you have been through in your life, however bad it was and whatever wounds it has left you with, you can always heal. It’s never too late to start (I have worked with elderly people and seen them make deep and long-lasting changes) and, however daunting it may seem, you can always heal, change and grow.

One reason for my cast-iron hopefulness is understanding the theory of neuroplasticity. This tells us that your brain is ‘plastic’ (which means it is malleable, like clay). So when you learn anything new, your brain has to create new wiring and even new grey matter to accommodate that knowledge.

The famous example is of London’s black-cab drivers, who have to take an incredibly arduous test called the Knowledge. This means that they have to study around 320 routes and 25,000 London streets and get to know them all by heart.

This is seriously hard! So the would-be cabbies have to store a huge amount of new information their brain. And, when they do this, a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which has a major role in learning and memory, actually increases in size. New wiring. New grey matter.

How the brain heals itself

And exactly the same thing happens when your brain heals from whatever trauma you may have experienced. Whether that is through a trauma-informed therapy like schema therapy, reading self-help books or blogs like this one, or enjoying a loving, supportive relationship with your partner, as you heal from trauma your brain is literally rewiring itself.

This helps you replace negative self-beliefs with more positive and helpful ones. It increases your ability to regulate painful or overwhelming emotions. And it helps you process old trauma memories, so they don’t plague you in the present and can be consigned to history, where they belong.

My desire to help you with this journey is why I created my Heal Your Trauma project and why I write this blog. I aim to share all of my knowledge and experience with you, distilling my 10-plus years of clinical experience, during which I have helped hundreds of people overcome their mental health problems. Pass on everything I have learned from studying with some of the world’s foremost trauma experts. Share with you the incredibly powerful theory and techniques I have learned from cognitive therapy, schema therapy and many more trauma-informed therapy models currently available.

And give you powerful, effective techniques you can start using, right away, to regulate your nervous system, soothe the hurt little boy or girl inside, develop greater self-compassion, and start feeling calmer, happier and more peaceful day by day – do sign up using the form below to read my latest blog posts, hot off the press.

Helping you heal your trauma

When healing any kind of psychological problem, I strongly believe that knowledge is power. So do read my blog posts, where you will find a huge amount of information, available for free, forever. In the future I will be offering a whole host of other resources, like guided meditations, workshops and self-help books. But you should start with my blog, which will be updated regularly and is packed with a wealth of resources to help you on your healing journey.

Whether you experienced trauma as a child or some other painful experience, such as emotional neglect, I look forward to helping you with the most important project of your life – freeing yourself from the painful shackles of your past and embracing a kinder, more compassionate, more meaningful present and future. I will be with you every step of the way.

Warm wishes,

Dan

Why You are a Trauma Survivor, Not a Trauma Victim

Image by Ben White

I am often amazed by the strength, resilience and innate healing capacities of my clients. They truly are an inspiration to me – and are one of the reasons I am so passionate about my work. Trying to help people like them is also why I write this blog, so I can reach out to many more people than those I am able to work with, one-to-one, in therapy.

I think all of my clients are incredible people, but especially those who have survived the most awful childhoods. These are people who have endured some of the worst things life can throw at you, whether that is some kind of trauma, abuse, emotional neglect, or cold, unloving and punitive parents.

And of course these people carry the wounds of their trauma. Many of them have struggled with lifelong bouts of depression, one or more anxiety disorders, volatile or unhappy relationships, and often deep-seated feelings of shame or self-dislike.

Trauma survivors may also need extreme ways of coping with their extreme, painful emotions. That might be using substances such as weed, alcohol or other drugs to numb out painful feelings. If you are coping with the impact of trauma, you might use food as a way of coping, whether that is restricting or over/comfort-eating. You may also use activities like gambling, shopping, obsessional use of TV/internet/social media to distract you from the hurt little boy or girl inside.

You are stronger than you think

But if you are reading this, whatever horrible or hurtful things you have been through in your life, you have survived. You have endured. You have persevered. And that is why you should think of yourself as a trauma survivor, not a trauma victim. Surviving trauma takes strength, resilience and tapping into the miraculous, wonderful healing inner resources we all possess.

That is why I always tell my clients that all of the problematic behaviours in their lives are probably coping responses they learned as a child. And in schema therapy, we see those coping responses as parts of the person (known as modes), which as a child were absolutely healthy, adaptive and necessary to survive your trauma with mind and body reasonably intact.

What is your survival story?

If you are struggling with the effects of trauma you endured, either as a child, or what we call a ‘single-incident trauma’ in adulthood, such as a violent crime or car crash, here is a technique that might help. You can write this by hand, in a journal, or type it, whatever works best for you. But I want you to think about your ‘survival story’.

For example, if you were unlucky enough to have cruel, unloving, harshly critical parents, that will of course have left a mark. You might feel extremely anxious, suffer from depression, or have problems with your self-esteem. But you also drew on a rage of inner resources to help you survive that traumatic childhood.

Maybe you found a grandparent, favourite aunt or teacher at school who could give you some of the love and care you so badly needed. Perhaps you survived by retreating into a fantasy world, imagining a happier family life, where your parents actually showed their love to you. Or maybe your imagination ran wild, conjuring up visions of living on Mars, or inhabiting your favourite cartoon or TV series.

Coping against all the odds

You may have lost yourself in Nature, or video games, or books, where you felt safe and could forget about your horrible parents for at least a short time. What this tells us is that you used incredible creativity, resourcefulness and determination to make the best of things; to be independent and self-sufficient; to cope, the best you knew how.

This is your survival story, so please write it down. I want you to see yourself as the hero of this story, because, if you are reading this now, you survived whatever horrible things life through at you. You made it through – battered and bruised, but still alive, with a whole host of wonderful qualities, despite your struggles.

And this tells a different story than the harsh, self-critical one about everything that’s wrong with you. It tells a story of courage, of strength, of incredible resilience and of survival. And the more you believe this story, the stronger and better you will feel – because you deserve to, as much as any other person on this planet.

Warm wishes,

Dan