Complex Trauma & Difficult Early Attachment.

This is an old website page here from 2012, now it’s a blog post.

Trauma can be big T or little t, it may also be known or unknown trauma, none is less significant.

Trauma comes under many guises and often goes alongside growing up with a difficult or disrupted early attachment to the parent/caregiver, meaning there were significant times in childhood when you were not seen, heard or acknowledged and you had difficult later life experiences too.

I like the term unmothered/parented children to describe this early disruption. Together they result in complex trauma that comes from a variety of sources.

Unfinished Business

I believe coming to therapy is about exploring our unfinished business. All our unresolved life experiences and our early attachment patterns are deeply etched in the neuroplasticity of our brains, it’s hard wired if you like.

These patterns repeat physiologically, as neurons that fire together wire together, resulting in how we are in present moment time and in the replaying of flashbacks, or unresolved issues or trauma as current somatic symptoms.

If our symptoms and these old patterns or ways of relating to others and the world are triggered, this is usually what drives us to seek help as life or part of our lives is out of balance and perhaps unmanageable. The good news is we can change the plasticity of the brain, by working together with what is currently presenting.

Trauma – As well as being individual, it is now understood as generational and collective.

Short or Long Term Work
I understand that seeking professional help and sharing at this level is a powerful and courageous step to take. I very much respect the counselling/psychotherapeutic process and I will manage it in a calm and mindful manner. The work will unfold at its own pace and can either be short or long term to suit your needs.

Creative 
I enjoy being creative in my approach and I use a variety of creative means, if appropriate, to enable clients to have better understanding of their current situation all of which helps get beneath the surface of the problem and allows meaning that is beyond words or from an early place in your history.

Insurance
I have professional indemnity insurance which allows me to work online in private practice from my base here in Fife. I belong to National Counselling Society NCS as my professional member body and work to their code of ethics and practice. I attend regular CPD and have monthly supervision to support all of my work.