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Trauma
Trauma counselling in Lewes and Brighton.
For things that happened and did not finish. Work that goes at the pace you set, with a counsellor trained in Internal Family Systems approaches to trauma, and no requirement to tell the story before you are ready.
In person in Brighton or Lewes, or online across the UK. £80 per 50 minutes, and the first fifteen-minute call is free.
- BACP accredited, member 374395
- Trained in IFS approaches to trauma
- You set the pace, every session
- No requirement to tell the story
How I work with trauma.
Through Internal Family Systems, on a humanistic base. Rather than treating a reaction as a symptom to remove, the work gets curious about the part of you producing it: how old it feels, what it was protecting you from, and what it still believes is about to happen.
Most people arrive having been told, in one way or another, that they are overreacting. Usually they are not. They are reacting exactly as something learned to react, at a point when reacting that way was the sensible option available.
Some people arrive with a diagnosis already attached, PTSD or complex PTSD among them. Both are areas I have worked in a great deal. Complex PTSD is recognised in ICD-11, the classification the NHS uses, and it describes what builds up over years rather than what follows a single event. I do not diagnose, and you do not need a label to come.
That reframing does more work than it sounds like it should. A response you have been fighting for years becomes something that was once doing a job, and a part of you that has been treated as the problem turns out to have been the protection.
The practical version is slow. We build a way of approaching difficult material that does not flood you, we go toward it in pieces you choose, and we stop when stopping is the right call. There is no benefit in getting through a memory quickly.
The training behind that, stated precisely.
My core training is a Postgraduate Diploma in Humanistic Psychotherapy from the University of Brighton. For trauma specifically I completed Frank Anderson's Internal Family Systems Trauma Treatment Programme, a four-month intensive with live consultation, through PESI UK.
I am also BACP accredited, member 374395, and I take this work to regular clinical supervision, which for trauma is not optional.
Worth being exact, because these terms get used loosely. That is training in the IFS model. It is not certification by the IFS Institute, which runs a separate pathway of its own, and I do not claim it.
Is it trauma, or is it something that has been missed?
Worth settling early, because the two look alike from outside and want different things.
Frequently both, and they are regularly mistaken for each other. Autistic and ADHD traits overlap with trauma responses closely enough to catch out experienced clinicians: hypervigilance, shutdown and avoidance appear in both. An autistic or ADHD person often has genuine trauma and a history of being misread, tangled together.
Autistic and ADHD traits overlap with trauma responses to a degree that catches out a lot of clinicians. Hypervigilance, shutdown, avoidance, exhaustion after ordinary social contact, a nervous system that will not settle. Those appear in trauma presentations and they appear in a neurodivergent adult who has spent years masking in an environment that does not fit, recognised or not.
The consequence of getting it wrong is not neutral. Trauma work aimed at something that is actually an unmet sensory and social need does not resolve it, and being treated for the wrong thing for years is its own injury.
Often it is both. An autistic or ADHD adult frequently has genuine trauma and a history of being misread, and the two are tangled. I have done specific continuing professional development on exactly this overlap, and part of the early work is usually working out which conversation we are having.
Two other things this can turn out to be. Worry that has run constantly for years, with no single event behind it, is usually better approached as counselling for anxiety. Exhaustion that came from sustained load rather than from an event, and that rest has not touched, is usually burnout.
What is trauma counselling?
Counselling for trauma is regular one-to-one sessions working with experiences that are still shaping how you respond, long after they finished. It is not a retelling exercise. Most of the work is about what the experience taught your nervous system to expect, and about giving that somewhere to go.
Trauma is not defined by the size of the event. It is defined by what it did to you and by whether you were alone with it. A single incident can leave very little, and something that would look unremarkable written down can leave a great deal, particularly where it went on for a long time or where the person who should have helped was the person causing it.
What trauma does that people do not expect.
Clients often arrive not connecting these to anything, because they do not look like memories.
It arrives in the body first.
A reaction that is already happening before you have thought anything. The thinking arrives afterwards and writes an explanation, which is usually about your character rather than about what actually triggered it.
It shows up as anger.
Other people rarely receive it well, and it is easily misread. Anger is frequently the part that kept you safe, still on duty long after the danger.
Time does not work normally.
Something from twenty years ago can be more present than last week. That is not a failure to move on. It is how unprocessed material is stored.
It affects what you expect of people.
Patterns in relationships that look like bad luck and are usually prediction. If you learned early what people do, you will keep finding people who confirm it.
It can look like competence.
Plenty of people who function extremely well are managing something constantly. Doing well is not evidence that it has been dealt with.
It gets quieter and then it does not.
Long stretches of nothing, then a smell or a tone of voice and it is entirely present. People often take that as proof they have gone backwards. They have not.
What I take, and what I do not.
Set out plainly and early, because being turned away three sessions in is worse than being told now.
A good fit
Adults or teens (16+), working at a pace you set, with experiences that are still affecting how you live. You do not need a diagnosis, and you do not need to have told anyone before. You do not have to describe what happened in order to start.
Also a good fit
If you are neurodivergent as well, whether you have known for years, found out recently, or only suspect it. That combination is a large part of what I work with and it is not an obstacle.
Not what I offer
I am not trained in EMDR, and I do not offer it. If you have been told EMDR is what you need, that is a reasonable thing to look for elsewhere and I would rather say so than approximate it.
Where you would be better served elsewhere
Acute post-traumatic stress needing specialist intervention, a diagnosed dissociative disorder, or anything where you are currently unsafe. Those need a specialist team, and your GP is the route to one. I will say so on the first call rather than start something that is not the right help.
Not a crisis service
I work by appointment. If someone's life is at risk, call 999. For urgent mental health support at any hour, call NHS 111 and choose the mental health option. Samaritans are on 116 123, free, day or night.
How it usually goes.
- A free 15-minute call. By telephone. You do not need to say what happened. Saying that something did is enough.
- A first session. Fifty minutes, mostly about what you want and what would make this feel safe enough to continue.
- Building the ground first. Usually several sessions before anything difficult is approached. That is the work, not a delay to it.
- Then at your pace. In pieces you choose, with stopping always available and never treated as a setback.
On going at your pace. You will not be pushed toward material you are not ready for, and you are not obliged to describe anything in detail for the work to be useful. Going too fast with trauma does harm, and a counsellor who does not know that is the wrong counsellor.
How much does trauma counselling cost, and how long does it take?
£80 for a fifty-minute session, payable a week in advance, with a free fifteen-minute call first. Trauma work is usually not brief. There is no minimum number of sessions and no contract, and anyone quoting a number before meeting you is guessing.
What I can say is that the pace is the thing that determines whether it holds. People who push to get it over with tend to end up back where they started, and the slower route is faster in the end.
Session
£80 for 50 minutes
First call
Free, 15 minutes, by phone
Cancellations
24 hours' notice moves a session rather than losing it
Where
Brighton, Lewes, or online UK-wide
Questions people ask first.
Do I have to talk about what happened?
No. Not on the first call, not in the first session, and not ever if you do not want to. A great deal of useful work happens without a detailed account, because what we are working with is the effect rather than the record.
What if I do not remember it properly?
That is common and it is not a problem. Memory for difficult events is often fragmented, and I will not be helping you reconstruct it. Whether a memory is complete has no bearing on whether the effect is real.
Is what happened to me bad enough?
If you are asking it, that is worth noticing rather than answering. Trauma is not ranked by event. If it is still shaping how you respond, it qualifies.
Will it make things worse before it gets better?
It can be hard, and that is different from making things worse. The pacing exists precisely to avoid that, and if a session stirs something up we deal with that as the work rather than pressing on.
Does this work online?
Yes, and some people prefer it, because being in your own space gives you more control. You need somewhere private where you will not be interrupted. If the work reaches a point where in-person would be better, I will say so.
Do you do EMDR?
No. I am not trained in it and I will not approximate it. If EMDR is specifically what you are looking for, look for a practitioner trained in it.
In their words.
“I have been working with Amy to unpick and work through my emotional difficulties and recurring patterns in my life that have always caused me pain and confusion. The supportive and open space provided by Amy has allowed me to explore these feelings, thoughts and my past safely, and I have started to make lasting shifts in my perspective and understanding of myself.”
Fifteen minutes, free, and nothing you have to explain.
The first call is deliberately small. You do not have to say what happened to book it, and you decide afterwards rather than during.
Usually a reply within a working day. BACP accredited, member 374395.