Trauma Therapy & Counselling in Narre Warren

Trauma is not defined by the event itself, it is what happens to you when your nervous system is overwhelmed beyond its capacity to cope. It is less about what happened to you, and more about what happened inside you. When an experience leaves you feeling unsafe, helpless, or utterly alone, and your nervous system cannot fully process and recover from it, that is trauma.

Signs of trauma can include:

• Flashbacks, intrusive memories, or distressing dreams
• Feeling on edge, hypervigilant, or easily startled
• Emotional numbness, disconnection, or feeling detached from life
• Difficulty trusting others or feeling safe in relationships
• Anxiety, depression, or unexplained physical symptoms
• Shame, guilt, or a persistent sense that something is wrong with you
• Avoiding people, places, or situations that trigger distressing feelings
• A feeling that you have never quite felt safe, settled, or fully yourself

Big T traumas are the experiences most people associate with the word, accidents, assault, abuse, natural disasters, war, or sudden loss. These are significant events that threaten safety or survival and can leave a lasting imprint on the nervous system. Little t traumas are less visible but equally real, childhood emotional neglect, chronic criticism, bullying, relationship breakdowns, or years of feeling like you didn't quite belong. They rarely involve a single dramatic moment, and the nervous system doesn't distinguish the size of the threat when deciding whether it was overwhelming, which is why little t traumas so often go unrecognised, even by the person carrying them.

Yes. Early relational experiences shape the nervous system, your sense of self, and how safe you feel in the world. What happened, or didn't happen, in childhood has a profound effect on adult mental health, relationships, and how you cope with stress. Early adverse experiences become encoded in the body and nervous system, shaping how a person responds to the world long into adulthood.

Unresolved trauma doesn't stay contained to the individual, it moves into your closest connections. Arguments that escalate too quickly, silences that go on too long, or feeling fundamentally unseen by the person who's supposed to know you best, are often trauma responses playing out between two people. When you feel threatened or emotionally overwhelmed, you react from old survival patterns rather than your best self. This is one of the reasons couples counselling and individual trauma work often benefit from happening alongside each other.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can develop after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event such as an accident, assault, abuse, natural disaster, military combat, or another life-threatening experience. Trauma can disrupt how memories are stored, sometimes resulting in memory fragmentation, where parts of the experience remain disconnected rather than forming a coherent narrative.

People with PTSD may experience intrusive memories, flashbacks, nightmares, anxiety, emotional numbness, sleep difficulties, irritability, or a persistent sense of danger. PTSD is a treatable condition, and evidence-based therapies can help process traumatic memories and restore a greater sense of safety and control.

Trauma therapy is professional support for people affected by distressing or overwhelming past experiences. It helps process traumatic memories so they no longer trigger the same intensity of emotional and physical reaction, using evidence-based approaches such as EMDR and Schema Therapy.

No. One of the benefits of EMDR is that it does not require retelling the story in detail. You briefly focus on the memory while engaging in bilateral stimulation, which is often far less distressing than talk-based approaches to trauma.

Yes. Thoughtful Strides Counselling and Psychotherapy offers trauma therapy and EMDR via telehealth Australia-wide, as well as in person in Narre Warren, Victoria.