What is meant by Psychological Trauma?
I focus on helping people to regain control over their lives following a traumatic experience.
In Psychology, a traumatic experience is described as:
‘a deeply distressing or disturbing experience that consumes a person’s thoughts, feelings, behaviours and physical responses’.
This can be experienced as a single event such as a road traffic accident or repeated events over a prolonged period of time such as abuse.
Trauma can be experienced differently by each individual; what may distress one person may not another. You may not recognise your experience as traumatic, however, as both the brain and the body remember traumatic experiences, you may develop symptoms such as anxiety, depression, anger or emotional numbing.
I support people to understand the process that occurs in the brain and body both during and after a traumatic experience. I work in a non-judgemental, person-centred way, helping you to manage your present day symptoms, develop positive ways of coping and only when you feel ready, to process the emotional distress from your traumatic event.
Emergency Services
As an emergency service employee, you work to ensure the safety of others. However, due to the nature of the role, at times you may encounter difficult experiences that threaten your own sense of safety. I work with members of the emergency services who have been affected by traumatic incidents as part of their role.
The focus of this work involves therapeutic work with individual staff members who are experiencing feelings of anxiety, depression and symptoms of post traumatic stress.
I also offer support and training to emergency service teams, in order to promote understanding and awareness of the psychology of trauma and to facilitate mental wellbeing.
A key element of my approach is to reduce fear of judgement and feelings of shame, that often prevent emergency service employees from seeking mental health support. This includes helping service leads to adopt a focus on employee wellbeing, in which team reflection and open discussion regarding mental health matters, are common place.
More details of how I work with teams can be found on the ‘Workplace Wellbeing’ page.
”Trauma compromises our ability to engage with others by replacing patterns of connection with patterns of protection.”
Stephen W. Porges
Contact telfordpsychology@gmail.com
Telford Psychology 