Counselling for Trauma and C-PTSD
What trauma and C-PTSD can look like
Trauma can carry on shaping how you feel and relate to people long after the event itself is over. You might know exactly where it started, or just have a sense that something from the past is still running in the background of your reactions now. It doesn't always come from one clearly defined moment. It can follow an accident, an assault, a loss or another frightening experience, but it can also build slowly, through childhood neglect, bullying, an unsafe relationship, or years of not feeling safe.
The effects can be obvious: flashbacks, nightmares, panic, feeling constantly on guard, or going numb. They can also be quieter and easier to miss: shame, harsh self-criticism, trouble trusting people, difficulty setting boundaries, people-pleasing, feeling disconnected from yourself, or finding your way into the same painful relationship pattern more than once. You don't need a diagnosis of PTSD or C-PTSD for any of this to be worth bringing into a session. What matters is whether something you've lived through is still affecting your life now.
How I work with trauma
I work in a trauma-informed, carefully paced way, broadly following Judith Herman's three-phase model of trauma treatment: safety and stabilisation first, then processing the memory itself, then reconnecting with the parts of life it affected.
I won't assume that describing what happened in detail is the right place to start. For many people that's too much too soon, so we begin with understanding your reactions and finding ways to manage panic, shutdown or overwhelm when they show up, moving toward the memory only if and when that feels right.
With complex or childhood trauma, that first stage of building safety and trust can end up being most of the work, and it still counts as real progress even when nothing dramatic seems to be happening.
Integrating approaches to working with trauma
My core approach is relational and person-centred, because trust in another person is often exactly what trauma damages, and I draw on psychodynamic thinking to understand how earlier experiences shape current relationships and defences.
Beyond that base, I bring in other tools depending on what might fit, not a fixed protocol that’s meant to work for everyone. For example, the Rewind Technique might work for certain intrusive memories, and Internal Family Systems (IFS) for understanding the different "parts" complex trauma tends to create, from wounded ones to protectors. If emotions are arriving faster than you can process them, we can slow them down with grounding and distress-tolerance tools from DBT .
If drinking, drugs or other habits have been doing the job of blocking things out, that's worth exploring too, without judgement.
You can find out more about my approach to therapy on the About my practice page.
I see adults interested win working with their trauma in person in Brighton and Hove, or online anywhere in the UK and beyond.
The process starts with a free 15-minute consultation, so we can talk through what's brought you here before either of us commits to anything.
In-person and online therapy sessions
Common Questions about Trauma Therapy
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It's a visualisation-based method for reducing the emotional intensity of a specific memory, sometimes described as low-disclosure because you don't usually need to give a detailed account of the event for it to work. We'd still spend time understanding your symptoms and whether it looks like a good fit before using it.
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It can help with a specific intrusive memory, but it doesn't address everything complex trauma affects. Where trauma developed over years or within important relationships, the wider work usually needs to include trust, emotional regulation and relationship patterns too, with Rewind used as one part of that rather than the whole approach.
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IFS treats the mind as made up of different "parts," each trying to protect you in its own way. Some carry the original pain of your trauma, often called exiles, while others developed coping strategies like people-pleasing, anger or numbness to keep that pain contained, often called protectors. IFS gives us a way to work with those parts directly, without needing to overwhelm the whole system to do it.
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Yes. Trauma, addiction and neurodivergence often overlap, and I have clinical experience across all three. You don't need to have one sorted before addressing the other.
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Both. I see clients in person in Hove and central Brighton, and online anywhere in the UK. For online work, it's worth thinking beforehand about privacy and what helps you feel grounded, so sessions feel as safe as they can.
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Yes, in person in Brighton and Hove or online, alongside English.
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PTSD usually follows one or more distinct traumatic events and involves flashbacks, nightmares, avoidance and a lasting sense of threat. Complex trauma tends to come from repeated or relational experiences and can also affect self-worth, identity, trust and emotional regulation.
You don't need to work out which one fits before getting in touch, and you don't need a formal diagnosis to start.
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No. You stay in control of what you share and when. We can start by looking at how the experience affects you now, without going into the details of what happened, and move toward the memory itself later, only at a pace that feels manageable.
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There's no fixed length. Work on a single specific memory can sometimes move fairly quickly. Complex or developmental trauma usually takes longer, because it involves rebuilding safety and trust as well as processing memory. We review progress together rather than working to a set number of sessions.
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We slow down, pause, or move away from the subject for the time being. Trauma therapy shouldn't rely on pushing you through distress, and part of the work is noticing when something's becoming too much and helping you settle before deciding what to do next.
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In trauma work, co-regulation means a calm, attuned therapist helping to settle your nervous system through tone, presence and body language, not just what's said. It matters here because trauma often damages someone's sense of safety with others, so time spent with a consistently regulated person can do part of the repair on its own. Allan Schore's research describes this as right-brain to right-brain attunement.
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In trauma therapy, it's the range of arousal within which you can feel difficult emotions without being overwhelmed by them or shutting down. Trauma narrows that range, so something relatively minor can tip you into panic or numbness. Much of the pacing described above, especially early on, is about gradually widening that window again rather than pushing you outside of it.
