My Heal Your Trauma Project
Image by Uniq Trek
In my decade of practising as a psychotherapist, I have worked with virtually every form of psychological problem. When you work in private practice, as I do, it’s a bit like being a GP – you work with all sorts of problems and end up helping whoever walks through your door. And that’s fine with me, because I love what I do and am passionate about helping people who are suffering, whatever form that suffering takes.
But in recent years, having trained as a schema therapist, I naturally found myself specialising in trauma therapy. That’s partly because schema therapy was designed to treat complex problems like trauma, which means that people seek me out to help them with long-term, deep-rooted problems resulting from trauma, abuse or neglect in childhood.
It is also because I believe there to be an epidemic of trauma across the globe. This was true before the pandemic but, sadly, we are now seeing a tsunami of psychological problems caused by the many layers of trauma that people have suffered because of Covid-19.
‘It would be better if it never happened, but trauma need not be a life sentence. Our bodies and minds were designed to heal, and we just have to know how to activate those powers.’
— Steve Biddulph
People around the world are struggling with grief, traumatic stress caused by time in an ICU, or the life-changing impact of long Covid, as well as the ongoing traumatic stress many of us have experienced due to living through a global pandemic. And, even more sadly, these problems will only get worse, as the impact of one of the most confusing, scary and stressful years in human history takes its inevitable toll.
Understanding trauma
Because trauma is so widespread, I think it’s crucial that health professionals like me understand the following things:
Trauma is at the root of most psychological problems. For example, the evidence shows that for most people, what we call ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’ is actually just the impact of complex trauma. The vast majority of people diagnosed with BPD experienced complex trauma as children. And the same is true for most other complex mental-health problems.
Trauma can be obvious, or subtle. It’s easy to see that a ‘single-incident’ trauma like a car crash or terror attack will cause traumatic stress. It’s less easy to understand the impact of day-to-day emotional neglect on a child; or how angry parents screaming at each other in front of their kids, day after day, is traumatic for those children. But it is – and the impact of that trauma can scar people for life.
Trauma affects your physical health, too. Dr Gabor Maté is a brilliant physician and trauma specialist. His groundbreaking book, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, reveals the impact of childhood trauma on your physical health as an adult. Every kind of health problem you might face today – from obesity to diabetes, cardiovascular disease to cancer – is, sadly, more likely if you have experienced trauma as a child.
If you are a trauma survivor, you need trauma-informed therapy. The treatment of trauma has undergone a revolution in the past 30 years. We now have a whole host of highly effective trauma-informed therapies, including schema therapy, trauma-focused CBT, internal family systems therapy, compassion-focused therapy, sensorimotor psychotherapy and many more. If you are a trauma survivor, please seek out one of these approaches. We know that just ‘talking about’ trauma is not a good idea, so traditional talk therapy could be retraumatising for you.
My Heal Your Trauma project
That’s why I have created my new Heal Your Trauma project. If you are a trauma survivor, or are struggling with your mental health for any reason, it will provide you with all sorts of healing resources, including guided meditations on Insight Timer, webinars, workshops and self-help books. I will develop this project over time – just like all good trauma therapy, it will be a long, slow, step-by-step process. I will start by adding resources to this site, writing posts for my newsletter and my Heal Your Trauma Blog – and do sign up using the form above to get my brand-new blog posts delivered straight to your inbox.
Through my writing and teaching I will use all of my knowledge, training, skills and experience to help you heal from your trauma, whatever it may be. I am passionate about this – it is my life’s purpose. I strongly believe that whatever you have been through, however frightening or painful it might have been, it’s never too much to heal from and it’s never too late to begin the healing process.
I know this from working with complex trauma every day in my consulting room. I see people who have been through truly terrible things make wonderful, miraculous recoveries. It is so inspiring and heartwarming to see these people heal, grow stronger, happier, calmer and more self-compassionate. This is why I have created Heal Your Trauma, so I can bring all of those healing resources to you, wherever you may be in the world.
Our core value is that we want to offer affordable help for anyone struggling with their mental health. So all Heal Your Trauma events offer half-priced, Reduced-Fee tickets for those who need them – but please do choose the Supporter Ticket if you are able to support the project.
I am so happy to start giving you all of the love, support and help that you deserve – and, as you embark on your healing journey, I will be with you every step of the way.
You can watch the video to find out more – and you can watch recordings of any of my webinars on this page.
Warm wishes,
Dan