Trauma Counselling

What is trauma counselling? 

Before answering this, it might be helpful to clarify what trauma is first. There are a couple of ways to think about trauma. The first is often referred to as macro trauma; a sudden and significant event like injury, death or natural disaster. The other is referred to as micro trauma; smaller painful events like bullying, rejection, or heartbreak. What many people don’t realise is that repeated experiences of these micro traumas can have the same impact on the brain and body as a single macro trauma. In other words, being continually picked on, ignored, excluded, criticised, or dismissed can be just as traumatic - neurologically - as going through something life-threatening. Often, the long-term effects of trauma have less to do with the event itself and more to do with what came after. How did you respond? How did others respond? What beliefs did you take on about yourself or the world because of it?

So then, what is trauma counselling? You’ve probably heard the saying, “time heals all wounds” and while there’s some truth in that, time on its own doesn’t actually do the healing. More often, it just gives us distance from the pain. But when something hasn’t properly healed, it stays tender and vulnerable to being hurt again. When someone says, “that triggered me,” what’s really happening beneath the surface is that an old wound is being reopened, one that perhaps never fully had the chance to heal. I often hear people say, “But this happened so long ago, why am I feeling it now?” or “I thought I’d moved past this. Why does it still hurt?” The thing about trauma is that it gets stuck in time. It remains trapped until we give it the attention it needs. 

Trauma counselling offers a space to gently unfreeze those moments, process what happened, and release both the pain and the distorted beliefs we took on about ourselves and the world as a result. Trauma counselling is experiential, depth work and includes approaches such as Internal Family Systems Therapy and Somatic Therapy. 

Most importantly, trauma counselling moves at your pace. It’s not about rehashing everything that’s happened, but about creating a space where your body and mind feel safe enough to gently explore what’s been held. For healing to happen, the focus is on safety, trust, and connection, without pressure or judgment. It’s a collaborative process, grounded in compassion and care. If this speaks to you, reach out below.