Childhood Trauma Counselling – For Adults

We will begin by assessing together the impact of childhood trauma on your life. As this is a sensitive and delicate journey, we’ll only go as far and as deep as you’re able and comfortable to and at a pace that works for you. To avoid being retraumatised, it’s important that you not go too deep too soon into the abuse you experienced. We’ll therefore tread carefully and slowly to identify associated emotions and body responses, and examine how the abuse has affected your self-esteem, your body, your relationships, and overall well-being. I will help you gain insight into your current unhelpful response patterns that were developed in your past experiences, and to change them.

Therapy sessions allow you to process the range of emotions and physical responses that are triggered by memories of childhood abuse. Feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, and a sense of shame are likely to emerge. You might experience associated muscle tension or ongoing fatigue, or feel generally unwell. You’ll begin to process these feelings that your body holds as we travel along your healing journey together. And you’ll gain a clearer and more developed sense of who you are. This will contribute to you beginning to feel empowered and feel ready to find and develop an inner voice – your unique inner voice – that may not have ever been allowed or that others regularly shut down and therefore never heard.

You’ll be able to identify and befriend those inner aspects that make life difficult for you, or that lead you to feeling guilty, or have you blaming and shaming yourself. This may seem counter-intuitive but I’ve witnessed this healing process with clients many times. You may also find that you’re holding onto unhelpful beliefs.

I will support you to remain open and friendly towards what comes for you in your sessions, to remain curious about your inner wounds that are specific to you.  Allowing your self-awareness to grow in turn allows your self-compassion and self-esteem to grow. Childhood abuse is likely to have impacted your self-worth. A central focus in counselling is exploring your patterns of relating that impact establishing and maintaining a healthy connection in your relationship with yourself, and in your relationships with others. This will lead to a positive self-identity and to having a forward-looking outlook on life.

As you progress through childhood trauma counselling, I will help you to continue to engage in ongoing self-care and support to further enhance your healing journey. Depending on your level of self-esteem and sense of self-worth, and when the time is right, you may wish to drop back to fortnightly or monthly sessions. Having periodic check-ins over time ensures that you are able to lift the quality of your daily life to the way you want it to be. They will also allow me to follow up new issues or challenges quickly before they take hold and impact your life negatively again.