Trauma Therapy

Causes of trauma

Accidents and other distressing events happen to all of us at some time in our lives. Sometimes we take these in our stride and live through them unscathed, but some events can leave a residue that continues to affect us years later. Some examples of the causes of trauma are given in the list below:

Our brains are immensely complex pieces of machinery, vastly more complex than the computer you might have on your desk. As a complex and delicate machine the brain is vulnerable to damage or trauma.

The brain is in fact extremely well protected - it is encased in a hard skull and surrounded by fluid to cushion it from shocks. The blood-brain barrier serves to protect it from chemical damage from substances in our blood stream, and there are mechanisms for filtering out information which threatens to overload it. Nevertheless events can occur which overwhelm these protective mechanisms, and trauma occurs.

The list above shows some of the events that can cause trauma. - it is divided into three groups - human causes which are intentional (deliberate and malicious), human causes which are unintentional (accidents, unintended consequences) and those with natural causes. Generally events in the first list are the most traumatic.

You will notice that it is very diverse, and it covers events that can happen to most people in their lives. Yet not everyone develops symptoms of trauma. This is because the likelihood of having an adverse reaction to trauma depends on many factors. One is the nature of the trauma (the degree of threat, how long it lasted, whether it was a single event or repeated, the degree of powerlessness the individual felt). The age at which a traumatic event occurred can be significant, as well as any previous traumatic experiences, how well we were able to cope, our ability to take action to protect ourselves, and the availability of post-trauma support.

The list above shows some of the symptoms of trauma. It covers a very wide variety of symptoms and many people will identify with one or more of these. Experiencing a single symptom does not necessarily identify trauma as the cause, but if a number of these are present, combined with having experienced some of the events in List 1, then a picture of stress due to trauma starts to emerge.

Because of the wide variety of symptoms that can arise from trauma, there is no one particular model of therapy that can claim to have all the answers. Among the psychological therapies there can be a place for counselling, cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), psychotherapy and techniques such as EMDR. When there are strong somatic effects, some form of bodywork may be helpful, such as therapeutic massage, Bowen technique, and reflexology.

Some of the components of the psychological treatment of trauma which have been found helpful are:

• explanation and education about how the body and mind respond to trauma.
• anxiety management techniques, including relaxation, thought stopping and regulated breathing.
• working on unhelpful fear-related beliefs which may be maintaining the problem.
• graduated step-by-step revisiting of traumatic memories in imagination.
• exposure to situations that are being avoided in real life.

Therapists providing Trauma Therapy

	Mike Johnson	Mike Johnson practices counselling and psychotherapy, with a particular interest in Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy.
	Jessica Woolliscroft	Jessica Woolliscroft is a psychotherapist, trauma therapist, supervisor and trainer based at the Hope Street Centre.
	Dr Mike Lloyd	Mike Lloyd is a chartered clinical psychologist, registered with the BPS and the HPC. He has worked in a local child and adolescent mental health team, and with NHS adult mental health services, as well as running a private practice at weekends.
	Dr Meryl Forse	Dr Meryl Forse uses a number of psychological approaches including Cognitive Behavioural, Systemic, Narrative, and Attachment based approaches. Areas of particular interest and specialism include Gifted and Talented children, self-injury and/or harm to others, and complex presentations as a result of difficult early life experiences.
	Maurice Tomkinson	Maurice Tomkinson has worked as a counsellor and psychotherapist since 1999 in Sandbach, where he founded The Hope Street Centre. He works with a full range of problems and issues, with special interests in stress, trauma and personality disorders.