Susan Stubbings
Therapeutic Counsellor & Counselling Supervision

 

What is trauma?

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When we talk about trauma, we’re talking about an umbrella term encompassing a wide range of experiences and implications of profound impact upon a person, their life and how they live day by day.

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Trauma is a physical, emotional, psychological, biological and spiritual response to experiencing events that are out of our control and have no escape route, for example:

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• Anything which feels frightening.

• Childhood abuse, neglect, difficulties.

• Incidents that overwhelm.

• Life-threatening experiences.

• Living in situations that feel threatening that can’t be escaped from.

• Intergenerational - Trauma that is passed down from our family tree.

• Witnessing any of the above.

 

Trauma can stop us in our tracks and overwhelm our coping abilities, change how we think about ourselves, change our beliefs about the world and the people around us.

 

Trauma affects every facet of our being.

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We are never the same again.

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Trauma has many paths to what I call trauma island, feels like we have landed on an inhabitable Desert island, it is a lonely, long journey back to the main land. 

 

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Because we’ve all had different life experiencing, trauma affect us all differently, what’s important is how we personally experience what has happened to us and how we react and respond. 

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What's most important is you and what you are left with following your experiences. 

 

Trauma is a normal response to distressing events, our nervous systems and brain's job is to protect us so we survive and they do a bloody good job, by blocking out, suppressing, repressing, denying, creatively dissociating from the affects of what happened.   We can wonder at the marvel of their work because hey they've worked hard, strong and long, because

 

YOU SURVIVED

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If the trauma happened in childhood or years ago then it is most likely that the brain and nervous systems have held onto tried and tested patterns of coping and these are now out dated, restricting and stunting. 

 

 

It is important to seek support because it is difficult working through these patterns by ourselves, because perhaps we don't recognise them, they may feel comfortable and we sit in our 'comfort zone' not wanting to move for fear of the unknown. It difficult to reset our brain and regulate our nervous systems, because dysregulated nervous systems need a regulated nervous system to hold them so you can mirror them and regulate your own nervous systems. Slow the pendulums of the mind from swinging from one extreme to the other, gain balance re-empowering you to live a life of peace and contentment.   

 

This is the most  important bit you survived the tsunami all the waves thereafter and you, yes you, whatever the difficulties, no matter the trauma, you can survive the journey to recovery and heal, you can find peace and contentment and live how you want and choose to live.

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There is hope between your atmospheric disturbance and the deep blue sea when you find yourself in a storm by engaging in therapy you will be giving yourself the greatest gift of all.  I understand this might be hard in the beginning because you're probably not used to being kind or gentle with yourselves BUT it will be worth the effort to leave trauma island, the aloneness once and for all and find peace and contentment, thrive not just survive. 

 

You are worthy and valuable isn't it time to get to know yourself and live the life you want?

 

Trauma Informed Therapy - is a talk therapy, I use to support you to heal by:

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• Offering you a grounded presence of warmth, physical and emotional safety, in a nonjudgmental, safe space, within a transparent, open and consistent therapeutic relationship.

• Creating a collaborative and compassionate supportive relationship where you feel able to talk openly and honestly about what happened to you.

• To think differently about  your experiences and make sense without retraumatising, working at your pace to understand the wider impact upon your behaviours, thoughts, somatic, spiritual well-being.

• Be validated, believed, heard and understood by an empathetic experienced and knowledgeable therapist who cares about you as an individual unique person and can witness your individual account of what happened to you.

• Offer tools, coping techniques, recognising symptoms, build new skills and knowledge,  process memories and emotions associated with traumatic experiences.

• Restore daily functioning, awareness, skills and knowledge to support your self-understanding and manage your emotions and self, long after therapy has ended.

• Raise your awareness to events that you had no control over and support you to understand yourself, what happened to you and support you to take back your authentic control and power.

• Support you to understand the intersections of experiences and separate individual traumatic experience and work through each separately.

• Foster growth, resiliency and healing, voice and choice

• Foster autonomy, self-empowerment and personal agency. 

• Within a passionately human to human and consistent professional therapeutic relationship.

 

I'm no stranger to the journey you may be contemplating embarking upon; perhaps the only difference is I set sail before you, un-battened my hatches and am now the captain of my own ship, sailing in peaceful waters.

 

Trauma Credentials over the years I've  undertaken many trauma informed workshops, researched and read extensively on trauma including supporting others heal from life's toughest and traumatic experiences. 

 

• Complex Trauma Certificate 1 (C-PTSD) - Janine Fisher

  • Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma - Janine Fisher

• Complex Trauma Certificate 2 (C-PTSD) - Janine Fisher

  • Working with Complex Trauma & Dissociation

• Healing the Shame of Our Fragmented Self - Janine Fisher

• Carolyn Spring Working with Dissociative Disorder (DID) 

  • Working with Relational Trauma - Disorganised Attachment ​

  •  Mental Health & The Body - Treating Trauma

  • Childhood Sexual Abuse - Hope for Healing 

• I have undertaken qualifications to understand childhood development to understand our inner child needs e.g Piaget (cognitive), Bowlby (Attachment), Erickson (psychosocial) and Freud (Psychosexual). We have needs in all these areas and more, by exploring our need deficits and excesses we can regain balance or achieve balance for the first time. 

• Volunteering with Vitim Support I undertook their Serious Crime studies for supporting victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence. Consolidated my trauma studies with Janine Fisher Neuobiology-informed Complex Post Traumatic  Disorder (C-PTSD) Certificates I & II. 

• This is all on a foundation of lived experience of and healing from personal childhood trauma, C-PTSD, grief and high anxiety states.  I believe in you to heal because I healed myself with support before I became a counsellor to support others and believe its possible for you to heal too. 

 

I am a skilled, aware, knowledgeable practitioner with 20 years experience of supporting others heal from traumatic events in their lives and childhood trauma. 

 

If your ready to start healing, set sail into post traumatic growth, find meaning and purpose and begin living the life you want.  With a creative, curious, compassionate, experienced and knowledgeable counsellor with lived experience of post traumatic growth, contact me here.

 

I offer a free half hour telephone or video call so you can meet me before our first session.  Contact me at pendulumofpeace8@gmail.com or telephone, text, WhatsApp message on 07867938630 and lets connect and realise the possibilities and your potential.