Help yourself to heal

Recover from trauma and develop resilience

Register your interest

About this programme

'Help yourself to heal' is a programme to aid recovery and foster resilience. Talk therapy, which uses thoughts to change the brain, is valuable but in order to deal with overwhelming stress, PTSD and residual trauma symptoms, we need to change the brain through working with the body and the autonomic nervous system.

Course outline

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What you'll learn

  • How to get back in touch with the inner sensations that allow you to recognise and regulate emotional responses
  • How to self-regulate your nervous system
  • How to use movement and physical activity to repair your nervous system
  • How to overcome the tendency to withdraw and connect with others to help yourself to heal.

Is this programme for me?

If you have been traumatised by specific events in your life, serious, repeated or ongoing difficulties arising from intolerable situations, and you still carry the burden of those events, this course is for you.

This course is designed to treat issues arising from trauma, such as:

  • Psychological difficulties
  • Intrusive moments
  • Hypervigilance
  • Anxiety
  • Numbness
  • Physical fatigue
  • Muscle tension
  • Susceptibility to illness

About David

Participation

It takes time and practice to produce permanent changes in the way your brain is wired in order to allow you to feel significantly better. If you only use a technique when you feel desperate, you may feel some benefit at the time, but you are less likely to achieve permanent change.

Participating means that you need to engage with suggested activities on a regular basis. If you practice for some time each day you will benefit from permanent changes for the better.

Fees

For individual sessions, the fee is £75.

Programme outline

I

How to heal your brain – a
little neuroscience

II

Working within your window
of intolerance

III

Regulating your emotions through sensory awareness

IV

Body-based techniques for stabilising the autonomic
nervous system

V

Developing mindfulness

VI

Rewriting your life story to
make a difference

VII

Resilience and
post-traumatic growth

  • Breathing exercises
  • Sensory sensitisation
  • Relaxation exercises
  • Movement for grounding, calming and safety
  • Yoga and Tai Chi
  • Enhancing awareness and acceptance
  • Confronting and disempowering traumatic memories safely
  • Third-person perspective
  • Focusing near and focusing away


What is emotional and
psychological trauma?

Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of unusually stressful events that may shatter your sense of security. Psychological trauma can leave you struggling with upsetting emotions, memories and anxiety that won't go away. It can also leave you feeling numb, disconnected and unable to trust people.

Traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, but any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated may be experienced as traumatic. It's not the circumstances that determine whether or not an event is traumatic, but your experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless you feel, the more likely you are to be traumatised.

What causes psychological trauma?

Psychological trauma can be caused by:

  • One time events such as accident, injury, the loss of someone close or the breakup of a significant relationship.
  • Ongoing traumatic stress such as battling a life-threatening illness, bullying or domestic violence.
  • Adverse experiences in childhood that disrupt early attachments and the ability to feel secure. This may result from neglect, abuse or as a result of coercive or controlling behaviour.

Symptoms of psychological trauma

People react to trauma in different ways and may experience a range of physical and emotional reactions. Your responses are normal reactions to abnormal events.

  • Emotional and psychological symptoms may include denial, anger, irritability and mood swings; anxiety, guilt, shame and self-blame; feeling sad, hopeless, disconnected or numb as well as difficulties with emotional self-regulation and relationships.
  • Physical symptoms might be insomnia, fatigue, aches and pains; being easily startled or agitated, racing heartbeat or muscle tension.

Trauma symptoms caused by single events typically last from a few days to a few months, gradually fading as you process the unsettling event. But even when you're feeling better, you may be troubled from time to time by painful memories or emotions – especially in response to triggers such as an anniversary of the event or something that reminds you of the traumatic experience.

While symptoms of emotional trauma are a normal response to highly-disturbing events, they may present as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), when your nervous system gets 'stuck' and you remain in psychological shock, unable to make sense of what happened or process your emotions.

Healing from trauma

There are several ways of mitigating the effects of traumatic experiences. Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) effectively targets specific traumatic memories. Mindfulness and body-based techniques are effective in developing a calmer state of mind and improved emotional regulation. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a way of changing limiting beliefs formed in childhood and Internaal Family Systems Therapy helps to relinquish the pain from the past.