Trauma Counselling in Newton Abbot
When you’ve experienced something painful or overwhelming, it can leave a lasting impact — emotionally, mentally, and physically. Even long after an event, you might still feel on edge, haunted by memories, angry or numb. Through trauma counselling in Newton Abbot, I offer a safe, compassionate space to help you begin processing those experiences and start to understand why you feel and react in the ways that you do.
How do I know if I have trauma?
Carrying trauma isn’t always obvious. For some people, what they feel can seem vague; going through life with complex experiences, but not really thinking of themselves as having been “traumatised”. You just know that something doesn’t feel right.
Maybe you just have this sense of dread that you can’t quite put your finger on. Or get startled easily. You might react strongly to certain things that don’t seem to bother most people. When your nervous system constantly feels threatened by old events, life can seem harder than it needs to be. Your nervous system might be carrying understandable responses to events that happened months, years or even decades ago.
Some common symptoms that you may still be experiencing trauma include:
*Feeling numb or disconnected from yourself
*Finding it difficult to trust others, including loved ones
*Often feeling like you’re experiencing emotions “too much” or “not enough”
*Constant anxiety, low mood or impending dread
*Flashbacks, unwanted thoughts, images or memories
*Difficulty sleeping, concentrating on things or feeling “grounded”
*Always waiting for or expecting something bad to happen
*Feeling like your relationships never work out even though you want them to
A traumatic event can be the result of one specific moment. Or it can be caused by lots of small events that you endured over a period of time. Maybe things happened that were repeatedly ignored, belittled or dismissed. Perhaps there were events you weren’t able to process at the time because your mind was flooded and you felt totally overwhelmed.
Have A Question?
What causes trauma?
Trauma can develop from many different causes. Modern psychology recognises that trauma is not exclusively the result of life threatening or catastrophic events. For some, the roots of distress can lie in more subtle, personal but repeated experiences that have happened over time.
Childhood Experiences
How we learn to think, feel, relate and understand our place in the world starts early on in our lives. Inconsistent or unreliable parenting, living with conflict or violence, bullying at school, or feeling repeatedly misunderstood and unseen can all affect your nervous system growing up. Traumatic experiences don’t have to be ‘extreme’ to leave a lasting impression.
Chronic Stress
Long-term and repeated exposure to stressful people or situations of any kind can have a long-lasting effect. Pressures from work, caring for others, finances, difficult relationships or any prolonged challenge can take their toll on the mind and body. Chronic stress can leave you functioning as if danger is still present, even when the original cause of your stress is no longer there
Emotional Neglect
Emotional neglect can be harder to pinpoint, because recognising what you didn’t have can be harder to see than things that actually happened. Not having your emotional needs met by your family when you’re young, or a lack of responsive, validating care, can leave gaps in your sense of self, your ability to trust others or manage emotions. Feeling you’re not good enough, feeling scared of intimacy can be the enduring effects of growing up without enough emotional warmth, support and acceptance.
What is complex trauma?
Complex trauma results from repeated or prolonged exposure to distressing events, especially early in life or in close relationships where we expect to feel safe and develop a sense of self. As a result, complex trauma often influences how we experience ourselves and others around us, rather than being based on one traumatic event
Forms of complex trauma can occur after:
— Persistently growing up in an emotionally abusive, unpredictable, or controlling environment
— Experiencing prolonged domestic abuse or coercive relationships, including prolonged childhood neglect
— Growing up in care, or losing parent figures repeatedly as a child, leading to unstable attachments
— Enduring problems in adult relationships over a long period of time where trust was broken
Sources: (Mind – Complex PTSD. NHS – Complex PTSD)
Many people who experience complex trauma describe feeling unclear on who they are at their core, chronic feelings of shame or not being good enough, and challenges in their relationships even if they yearn for connection. These patterns are not flaws in your personality, but developed for a reason and can be understood and changed with time.
How can counselling help with trauma?
Trauma counselling doesn’t have to involve talking through painful memories in detail. It can simply provide the conditions where change becomes possible.
Evidence-based trauma therapy starts with feeling safe and building trust. There needs to be a space where you feel comfortable — where you’re not rushed, and aren’t asked to do anything you’re not ready to do.
Therapy can help by:
☑ Feeling safe & secure – within the therapy relationship & in your day-to-day life
☑ Making sense of patterns you formed in response to what happened to you – with compassion
☑ Processing emotions & memories, gently and at a pace that feels okay
☑ Cultivating a healthier relationship with yourself & others
☑ Learning to manage difficult emotions without pushing them away or being flooded by them
You don’t have to come into therapy knowing it was trauma that caused your difficulties.
If you’re not sure if what you’re experiencing is linked to trauma, that’s completely ok, and a valid place to start from.
The BACP state that effective trauma therapy must be collaborative, going at the client’s pace and with careful attention to their sense of control through therapy. This is how I approach therapy.
What it's like to work with me
I practice trauma counselling from my office in Newton Abbot and online for clients in Devon and further afield. I offer trauma counselling that is calm, collaborative and client-led.
I work with a wide range of clients, from a broad range of backgrounds and life experiences – often people who have had a lot to manage and hold down. So they’ve been successfully ‘shouldering’ painful feelings for years rather than allowing themselves to truly experience them. If this sounds like you, don’t worry – you’re not alone and it doesn’t mean you’ve been doing anything wrong. It probably means you’ve just been managing for so long that coping feels ‘normal’ and you haven’t had a safe place to set it all down.
My approach is not like following a textbook or an A-B-C trauma manual. Our sessions will move at whatever pace you want them to, and I will go with your lead. We’ll make sense of your experience together – the patterns, the past, the parts of you that maybe haven’t had much of a voice – in a way that feels grounding and safe, rather than intrusive or clinical.
As a member of a professional organisation, I operate under a code of ethics which places your wellbeing and choice at the forefront of everything we do. You can read more about my ethical commitments through the BACP Ethical Framework (external link).
To read more about my approach to working with clients, my background or qualifications, jump to my About page here
Links to further information about trauma
You might be interested in finding out more about trauma and trauma-informed approached to counselling.
Some people who have symptoms of trauma also suffer with anxiety. To read more about anxiety counselling, jump to my ‘Anxiety ‘page here.
If you find that the impact of trauma is affecting your personal relationships, read about how individual counselling can help you with difficult relationships here
There are further links to information that could be useful to you on my ‘Useful Links’ page.
To find out more about how therapy can help with a range of other issues, jump to ‘How Therapy Can Help’ page here