Your Guide to Trauma: PTSD, Complex PTSD, and the Path to Healing
We hear a lot about trauma, but it’s not always clear what it means. If you want to know more about trauma, you’ve come to the right place.
I outline why trauma happens and its impacts – focusing on post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and Complex post-traumatic stress (C-PTSD).
I explain how I work with both in my practice, including adopting a safe and holistic approach along with the techniques I use.
So, if you’d like to learn more about trauma and what to expect when working with me – read on!
“Our minds and bodies have evolved to escape from threats to our safety, by running away or fighting if we can.”
What is Trauma?
Disturbing experiences either as an adult or child, can result in trauma when they’re overwhelming, difficult to escape, and seriously threaten physical, emotional, and psychological safety.
A long time ago, living in tribes and remaining vigilant to threats from predators ensured human survival. Our minds and bodies have evolved to escape from threats to our safety (e.g. the sabre-toothed tiger) by running away or fighting if we can.
But what if there is no hope of active resistance? In this situation our bodies freeze, and our minds protect us by dissociating from what’s happening.
Yet without support that allows us to return to safety, we’re at risk of becoming traumatised and experiencing post-traumatic stress.
I recently did some training with renowned trauma specialist Bessel van der Kolk, who told the story of how people running away from the Twin Towers on 9-11 not only escaped the event but avoided being traumatised by experiencing support from others.
The impacts of trauma
Trauma leaves a legacy of impacts. Common responses to trauma include:
Alexithymia – inability to know what’s going on inside yourself/your body
Feeling anxious, worried, and unsafe in your body, environment, and with others
Difficultly being emotionally present
Hypervigilance for perceived threats
Panic attacks
Intrusive memories, flashbacks
Feeling emotionally overwhelmed or numb and/or moving between these
Self-blame and shame
Suicidal thoughts
Loss of trust in others and fear of relationships
Trauma and complex trauma are also associated with many psychiatric disorders including, Personality disorders (e.g. borderline personality disorder), PTSD, C-PTSD, Anxiety disorders, Dissociative disorders, Depression, Eating disorders, Phobias, OCD, Schizophrenia, Substance dependency.
AND
A range of physical illnesses including, Autoimmune diseases, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Irritable bowel syndrome, Hypertension, and degeneration of brain structures.
Post-traumatic stress
As alluded to above, not all traumatic experiences result in trauma. But if it does happen then the impacts of Post Traumatic Stress usually cluster into three main areas:
1. Re-experiencing – experiences are relived as if they’re still happening e.g. a flashback or strong physical/emotional response to something which reminds you of the experience. But you may not always be able to link the feelings to a past event.
2. Avoidance – It’s natural to want to avoid reminders of any past trauma. It might include avoidance of places, people, and related thoughts and feelings. And unhealthy ways of coping might be used to numb (avoid) pain.
3. Feeling threatened – hypervigilance to monitor your surroundings for any perceived threats. E.g. You may be easily startled or highly sensitive to other’s facial expressions and tone of voice.
4. PTSD can also include a fourth area, which is dissociation. It can feel like disconnection from the body, emotional numbness, and not being ‘there’.
Complex Post-traumatic Stress
There’s a difference between trauma experienced as a single event and that which is ongoing involving multiple events, repeated over a longer period, and/or experienced within relationships.
Complex trauma or C-PTSD happens when threatening experiences are repeated and inescapable. E.g. as in any abuse or neglect experienced during childhood.
In addition to PTSD impacts, C-PTSD also includes:
Emotional dysregulation – moving between states of heightened anxiety and numbness/depression.
Negative self-concept – low sense of self-worth and lack of a coherent identity. This can impair beliefs and thinking.
Interpersonal issues – It’s difficult to develop trusting adult relationships when you’ve been betrayed, abused, or abandoned in the past.
Both PTSD and Complex PTSD are caused by an inability to act and prevent being exposed to the traumatic event(s), followed by a lack of support e.g. not being believed.
There’s nothing wrong with you
It’s unfortunate that PTSD and C-PTSD are labelled as ‘disorders’, because traumatic stress is a normal response to a traumatic experience – it doesn’t mean you’re disordered, which makes it sound like a personality defect.
I would say PTSD and C-PTSD are adaptations rather than disorders.
But it’s worth remembering that use of the word ‘disorder’ comes from the medical world of psychiatry, which is focused on diagnostic labels.
The role of attachment
I want to say something about attachment because it plays a crucial role in preventing, causing and overcoming the impacts of PTSD and Complex PTSD.
As humans, we’re wired to seek comfort and connection with others. And we regulate ourselves emotionally through soothing voices and faces, which calm our nervous systems.
But while attachment provides support, it can also be a source of terror. Abuse and neglect in early development (usually in the first 3 years) makes it difficult for a child to become securely attached – creating chronic stress – which increases the likelihood of C-PTSD.
In therapy I help clients to regulate their emotions by providing tools and techniques, but also a place of safe and compassionate connection that provides a different experience of relationships.
One that involves being seen, heard, and understood.
Safe trauma therapy using EMDR
I work with trauma differently to general talk therapy because the emphasis is NOT on just talking about traumatic experiences but about helping clients to process and cope with its impacts, i.e. those mentioned above.
As trauma is linked to past events, many people think that we need to focus on talking about the events themselves to process the trauma. But doing this can activate stress responses.
And in high states of distress, the part of the brain that allows us to distinguish between past and present goes ‘offline’, propelling us back into the trauma.
So, it’s not that traumatic events can never be processed, just that it happens only once we’ve worked on containing emotions i.e. when clients feel able to tolerate them.
This is why my EMDR therapy involves building safety and stabilisation before processing any traumatic history.
Overall…
I hope this blog has been informative in providing a good overview of trauma. Whether it stems from a single overwhelming event or repeated experiences over time, the effects are real – but they’re also understandable and treatable.
It’s important to remember that if you’re living with the impacts of trauma, there’s nothing wrong with you. Trauma responses are natural, human adaptations to unbearable experiences.
In my practice, I use EMDR therapy to work with clients in a safe, supportive, and holistic way.
Healing is possible – and you don't have to do it alone. If you’d like to explore working together or find out more about my approach, you are warmly invited to get in touch.