Trauma and PTSD therapists in Alexandria, Scotland Scotland, United Kingdom GB
Trauma and PTSD
Angela Sterling-Noel
Counsellor/Therapist, PG Cert. Systemic Practice, Dip HE Counselling, PG Cert., Supervision, NLP Practitioner Cert, PG Cert. Teaching in Higher Ed.
Trauma and PTSD are a result of life events were frightening experiences. Some of these experiences include, car accidents, childhood abuse, (emotional, neglect, sexual and physical) rape, domestic abuse/violence, death, and environmental events like fires, earthquakes, floods, and war. These incidents affect the brain’s ability to recall a coherent understanding of the events and the effects can be debilitating. In trauma-therapy, the aim is to help you rewrite the story and regain a feeling of safety and stability. I am a trauma-trained specialist and a PICT Practitioner – please click the link to find out more about Parks Inner Child Therapy
21 Years Experience
Trauma and PTSD
Dr Aneliya Gonsard
Psychologist, DClinPscy, MSc, BA
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are unfortunately way more common than many people think. A strong link has been found my many studies between ACEs and physical and mental health problems in later life. Traumatic experiences can also take place in adolescence and adulthood. For some, the impact is greatly distressing and life-limiting, such as in the cases of having post-traumatic-stress disorder.
Many of the people I have come to work with have lived through often multiple adversities and traumatic experiences, throughout their lives. I offer a confidential space where we can think together about the way such experiences have affected you and the parts of you that can change and develop in order to integrate and move on from past traumas.
14 Years Experience
Trauma and PTSD
Sara Aicart-Pendlebury
Art Therapist, Human Givens Practitioner (HG.Dip.P), Member of Human Givens Institute, IFS therapist Levels 1&2, Narm Practitioner
PHOBIAS, PANIC ATTACKS AND POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS
The brain has an emotional alarm system designed to keep us safe. When people suffer from panic attacks, phobias or post-traumatic stress, it is because the system has gone into overdrive.
What happens is this. There is a small, structure in the brain, known as the amygdala (Greek for almond, which is its shape), that has access to our emotional memories and learned responses. It evolved in the distant past and its job is to match new circumstances to what is already in the store and alert us to anything that previously represented a risk and might do so again. In the distant past, this might have been a movement or flash of colour that could have signified an approaching predator. The amygdala would then have triggered changes to help the body get ready to fight or flee the danger – pounding heart, racing pulse, quick, shallow breathing, etc.
Now imagine this. A young woman, who has had a highly stressful day, is waiting in a long supermarket queue, worrying whether she’ll be out of the shop in time to catch the bus to school to collect her little girl. It is one pressure too many. The amygdala responds as if she is under threat and she starts to feel her heart pounding strangely and her breathing quickens. She becomes terrified that she is having a heart attack and that makes the symptoms escalate – her palms sweat; her chest feels as if it is bursting and she struggles to breathe. Soon she feels overwhelmed and may collapse or run out of the shop. The amygdala, fearful that this could happen again, files away the fact that there were bright lights and lots of people queuing when the ‘threat’ occurred. Then, when the woman is queuing in the post office the next day, the bright lights and queue may be sufficient for the over-vigilant amygdala to trigger another panic attack to deal with the new ‘threat’.
Phobias start the same way – the amygdala makes associations with what was going on when a person first felt threatened, not all of which may be relevant. So, while it is understandable that someone who is attacked by a vicious dog may well develop a fear of dogs generally, it could equally be the case that someone develops a fear of broken glass because, on a previous occasion, when they had had a panic attack, there was broken glass lying near to where they collapsed. Agoraphobia develops when someone is too frightened of panic attacks even to leave the house.
In the case of post-traumatic stress, someone who was in the back seat of a car when a collision occurred may find it frightening to travel in the back seat again but there may be other, unconscious, connections with the accident too, such as the smell of petrol. So the person may experience seemingly inexplicable panic when filling up their own car with petrol.
Fortunately, human givens practitioners are taught a simple and effective way to deal with all these circumstances. If a traumatic memory is causing panic attacks, phobias or post-traumatic stress, they can use a powerful, painless visualisation procedure, known as the rewind technique, to take the emotion out of the memory and enable the memory of the event to be stored away as history, instead of as one that continues to intrude on the present. The memory remains, and always will remain, a deeply unpleasant one but no longer is it emotionally arousing. This method can work swiftly and reliably even in the most extreme of cases.
15 Years Experience
Trauma and PTSD
Kyle Davies
Psychologist, BSc MPhil CPsychol AFBPsS
Trauma is the buzzword is the therapeutic world at the moment, and about time too. Trauma research has shown that trauma in early life can contribute to a host of mental and physical health challenges throughout our lives and needs
I adapt a somatic, psych-spiritual approach to trauma rather than a cognitive approach. We heal trauma through the body, by reconnecting with the body and learning to feel safe with our feelings and emotions.
25 Years Experience
Trauma and PTSD
Vanessa Abraham
Registered Psychotherapist, BSc (Hons) Pharmacology, Pg Dip Psych, UKCP registered, Cert. Supervision
I work with a lot of people through trauma and PTSD. Most of the people that I have seen have had some major traumas and if not then they have suffered from a develomental trauma. I am attending a training in November 2019 to learn further how to help -people in processing their traumas further and healing from them.
10 Years Experience