Get Rid of Childhood Trauma For Good

What Is Childhood Trauma?

Trauma can mean different things. So here's how I mean it: a psychological injury that still touches your life today.

A childhood trauma means that something happened in childhood that still impacts your life - how you think, feel and act. It gets in the way. 

Maybe you think "shouldn't I be over this by now!?" But that's not the way the brain works. If something happened to you that felt unsafe, the brain tells the nervous system to respond to it in future. It's trying to keep you safe.

The role of therapy is to rewrite those trauma responses so we can get rid of those that no longer help you.

Examples of Childhood Trauma

Nobody gets to tell you what was traumatic to you. If something left its mark on you, and is still getting in your way, then it counts. 

So if you look through this list and don't see what happened to you, remember that this list doesn't cover everything. But these are some childhood events that can leave us struggling in later life:

• Physical abuse
• Emotional abuse
• Sexual abuse
• Physical neglect
• Emotional neglect
• Domestic violence
• Divorce
• Losing a parent to illness, substance abuse or imprisonment
• Death of a parent
  
  

Other Things That Felt Unsafe

Perhaps you don't recognise your experience from the list above. What if the thing that has left its mark on you doesn't fit those examples? What if you don't even think of it as 'trauma' per se?

Remember that trauma is just a shorthand. It simply means any psychological injury that is still impacting your life today. There are no rules as to how big or small it needs to be. You don't even have to think of it as trauma.

All that matters is that it is having an impact today and you'd like to be rid of it.

You Are Not "Crazy"

You may feel a lot of shame, guilt, anger or resentment about what happened to you. Perhaps you were told to keep it quiet at the time. You may even doubt yourself and ask yourself if you are making too much of it or being dramatic.

These are common responses to such experiences. You are NOT crazy. It is popular these days to tell people that they have a "disorder". I see it differently. The stuff that is getting in your way today was originally your strategy for survival.

Take a person who grew up amongst violence. Say they are anxious and always on alert. Is that really disordered? Or was that a genius response to get through what happened? Imagine if they hadn't have learned to be on alert. Wouldn't that have been even more dangerous?

Bringing the nervous system up to date

The reason these responses get in the way today is because your situation is different. They are no longer needed anymore. 

We can update the brain's learning so that your nervous system responds to the present day again, as it was intended.

But is change possible after all these years?

Yes! Absolutely! You may think it snowballs and gets harder to change. The longer you go on, the deeper the groove. In fact, that's not the case. 

Instead, it's more like playing the same audio cassette. Even if you play the cassette every day, it doesn't make the cassette harder to record over. 

Once we record over it, the original songs are gone. Trauma response is much the same.

But how?

Recently, neuroscientists made a new discovery. They found a brain mechanism that results in permanent change. It is called Memory Reconsolidation. It's a revolutionary finding. When it happens, it's like recording over an audio cassette. It rewrites the trauma responses with something that serves you instead.

They also found the steps needed to make that brain mechanism happen. In my work, I follow those steps so the brain gets what it needs to update its learning. The result is that it gets rid of the trauma for good.

So what will the work look like?

At first the work involves talking to help you gain a real understanding of yourself. I'll guide you through some conversational exercises too so you'll know and understand yourself better than before.

Next, we often do some imaginal work. It isn't always needed but it's a great way to work directly with the nervous system. It is extremely effective, even if it may sound odd at first. Don't worry, it's not roleplay. In fact, you won't need to talk at all during this part. 

It's a little like hypnosis in some ways, except you won't need to be hypnotised.

What happens at the end?

Once we are done, those trauma responses won't reappear. You won't have to "manage" it. You won't have exercises to do for the rest of your life. It will be gone.

You'll still know what happened to you. But it will no longer distress you, and you won't be using those old survival strategies now that your situation is different. So you will move on and enjoy life.

Are you ready to change your life?

I'd love to work with you. You deserve a happy adulthood. Each session is £250 for 55 minutes. 

You can check my availability and book right away - click here for my diary