1. When Therapy Feels Like Too Much: A Gentle Approach to Trauma Healing

Why Trauma Therapy Doesn't Always Start with the Trauma (Part 1 of 4)

Many people come to therapy expecting that healing means diving straight into painful memories. But trauma-informed therapy usually moves a little differently than that.

More often, we start by building "a felt sense of safety". This is process is known by lots of names; such as "psychological safety", "resourcing", and the term "pacing" is also used to describe how a psychologist might take things as slowly as the person needs. This process involves lots of different techniques to help the person feel more grounded in their ability to address their difficult past or present experiences.

• We build a relationship where you feel comfortable enough to be honest.

• We build emotional resources so that difficult feelings don't completely overwhelm you.

• And we help your nervous system learn that it can settle again after stress.

• You'll be asked how you feel about talking about 'it'

• We explore your somatic experiences to help you build emotional ans seonsory awareness, along with the words or vocabulary to help you describe it.

• This might look like talking about what’s happening in your life right now.

• It might look like learning tools to regulate emotions.

• Sometimes it looks like processing things that are connected to the past, even if we’re not naming the trauma directly.

Often, this process might look like we are working around the edges of difficult experiences rather than going directly into them.

There is clinical reasoning behind this approach...

During this process your brain starts making connections in the background. Without even realising it, sometimes the sum weight of all the issues may start to feel lighter. That your overall burdens are not as heavy. Sometimes though, people will often come into sessions saying they’ve been feeling more emotional than usual, or they’ve been tired, reflective, or having new insights pop up during the week. This also can be a sign that your brain is actually doing a lot of integration between sessions.

You might not even realise it’s happening. Another moment I often notice in therapy is when a client says something like: "I had you on my shoulder this week." This usually happens when they might be in a tough moment, and they rely on the knowledge of how I might encourage them to be kind to themselves. Me "on their shoulder" is a way of saying that they heard a different and kinder thoughts than they previously have experienced. This too, is a sign of integrating the therapy work into the day to day life.

Over time, the experience of therapy starts to become internalised. The safe voice, the compassionate perspective, the grounded way of looking at things… slowly becomes something you can access inside yourself AND you start to carry that voice with you. The feeling may even be that the person is starting to feel they can trust their thoughts to be kinder and that they feel safer in their own mind.

As a sense of safety and trust grows in themselves and also in the therapeutic relationship, people sometimes start to feel curious about the things they once avoided. They begin to say things like, “Actually… maybe I am ready to look at that now.”

The approach in trauma-informed therapy is to allow the client to lead, and for the therapist to have the skill to work with the readiness that the person does have. People come to therapy because they want change, even if there is a big part of them that is very scared, scarred or avoidant. It's ok to take care of all the 'differnet parts of self' within the persons experience.

Trauma healing isn’t about forcing yourself into painful memories before you’re ready.

It’s about creating a space where your nervous system feels safe enough that, eventually, your brain naturally moves toward the things that need to be processed.

So always remember, that just because you may not be working directly ON the traumatic memory, there is a very good chance you are working towards it.