I am committed to the treatment of trauma, in all its forms. Ranging from one-off or multiple life threatening events to long lasting, repetitive stress. This could include family violence, childhood sexual abuse, bullying, growing up with parental mental illness/substance abuse and childhood neglect and rejection.

Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to physical safety. With emotional and psychological ‘wounds’, you can’t necessarily see the bruises, but these things can be just as damaging. In fact, they are mediated by the same stress hormones/nervous system activation as physical threat. So any situation that leaves us feeling overwhelmed, powerless or isolated can propel us into ‘fight-flight-freeze’ mode.

This can result in our brains and bodies processing and storing these experiences/memories differently to non-threatening ones. It’s like our nervous system adopts a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach. It wants us to remember these threatening experiences in ‘high definition’, so that anything vaguely reminiscent triggers our internal alarm to keep us on guard.

Moving into ‘fight-flight-freeze’ is a hugely important survival response (and needed if the threat is still present). But chronic activation becomes less helpful when the threat is in the past. The mind and body can become ‘stuck’ – unable to move on from what happened.

Often early childhood traumas will remain below our conscious awareness while still shaping how we respond in our current lives. When we find ourselves ‘overreacting’ with strong emotions in the present, this can be the result of past threats triggering us.

Understanding these ‘stuck’ patterns of ‘fight-flight-freeze’ reactivity shifts the question from ‘what is wrong with me?’ to ‘what happened to me?’. It may help to explain many mental and physical health issues including anger, anxiety, depression, numbness, shame, low self worth and hopelessness, self blame, unexplained physical pain, dissociation, panic attacks, sexual dysfunction, avoidance, insomnia, flashbacks, nightmares, relationship issues and fear of the future. In turn, this can lead us to seek unhealthy coping patterns to manage the distress, like drug and alcohol dependency, disordered eating, social withdrawal, self-harm and suicidal thinking.

Thankfully trauma is treatable (whether more recent or from our deep past). Due to significant advances in trauma therapy, even severe trauma is now treatable. I am committed to continuing professional training and supervision to keep abreast of the latest theories and innovative techniques to make my work with clients as effective as possible.

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is extensively researched and proven effective for resolving traumatic life events. As a treatment option it is endorsed by prominent organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, The Department of Veteran’s Affairs and the World Health Organization.

EMDR is not simply the use of eye movements. Rather, it is an integrative psychotherapy approach with the goal of reducing distress in the most effective way. It works to reprocess memories of traumatic experiences by reducing the vividness (or ‘charge’) attached to these memories. This in turn, allows connection to other parts of the brain that know the original danger/threat is now in the past. This reduces the reactivation of the ‘fight-flight-freeze’ response linked to unprocessed memories.

As you process a series of key memories or issues in EMDR therapy, over time, your trauma symptoms reduce as the memories no longer trigger you. This allows more adaptive, healthy patterns of thinking to develop, reducing distressing emotions and changing behaviours. Because EMDR addresses the source of your distress (rather than just managing the symptoms of your distress) these changes are profound and lasting.

EMDR has been successfully used to treat:

• PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and dissociation
• Anxiety, stress and panic attacks
• Phobias
• Complicated grief
• Addictions
• Depression
• Chronic pain

Useful websites/resources:

EMDRAA website: https://emdraa.org/emdr-resources/
EMDR UK and Ireland: www.emdrassociation.org.uk
Bessel van Der Kolk describing how EMDR helps in working with
trauma: https://bit.ly/2ex0zBH

Accredited Mental Health Social Workers (AMHSWs) are regulated private practitioners who hold Medicare Provider Numbers and are eligible for rebates from Medicare for clinical mental health services. AMHSWs are accredited members of the AASW and represent one of the highest standards in professional recognition. They are subject to the same accreditation requirements as both their registered and self-regulated allied health counterparts, such as psychologists and physiotherapists, in adhering to professional and ethical standards, maintaining Continuing Professional Development and engaging in professional supervision. In order to achieve AMHSW accreditation, social workers must be able to demonstrate appropriate use of evidence-based mental health treatment interventions and the use of psychosocial assessment and formulation.