Not everyone who seeks counselling thinks of themselves as having experienced trauma.

Whether you do or not, my approach to the work is informed by a number of insights about how we engage with the world around us, and how our life experiences can limit our ability to engage helpfully with all that is happening in the ‘here and now’.
A trauma-informed way of working includes:

• Paying attention to issues of safety from the very beginning: physical safety, emotional safety. Creating and maintaining a safe environment where healing can occur.
• Talking about self-care, boundaries, and how to ‘ground’ and ‘resource’ yourself.
• Recognising that behaviour always has meaning (even when it is causing you and/or others distress); exploring this meaning in a non-judging way holds a vital key to change. 
• Working to identify your coping skills, how you have survived difficult experiences, and helping you build new skills that serve you better.
• Keeping you 'in the driving seat' and moving at a pace with which you are comfortable. Collaborating with you all the way, and working to keep you within your window of tolerance of emotions.

For more information about trauma-informed ways of working:

• Reversing Adversity The website of Carolyn Spring, an 'expert by experience'.
• Is Your Therapist 'Trauma-Informed'? (And Why It Matters)   An article in Psychology Today by Barbara Markway (2015)
• ​Rhythm of Regulation The website of Deb Dana, known for translating theories about how our nervous system is affected by trauma into a language and application that is directly relevant to therapy.

​'Therapy is a safe space to bring and process my trauma.  It is a safe place to bring and explore the dissociative parts of my personality. It is a safe place to bring and explore the templates for relationship that I have grown up with.'

​Carolyn Spring