Counselling For PTSD

what ptsd feels like

Post-traumatic stress can occur at any time after a traumatic experience. Research shows that it can occur in 1 of every 3 people who experience a traumatic event.

 Trauma can occur from an infinite number of experiences.  Some common ones are, road traffic accidents, child birth, sexual assaults, war or natural disasters, serious illnesses, threat of death to yourself or a loved one, childhood trauma, domestic abuse, military action amongst other traumas. It can be characterised by intrusive thoughts, flash back or nightmares.

Increased arousal can include insomnia, irritability, severe anxiety, poor concentration, panic attacks or periods of aggression.  Sometimes the sufferer may experience feelings of emotional numbness or hyper arousal that impact on daily life.  Symptoms may also include persisting defences of avoidance and repression which may include avoidance of reminders of the event or events, difficulty recalling events, detachment and lack of interest in external activities.

There may also be intrusions of the memories of the event or events that break through the defence of repression and are repeated in an intense imagery occurring in a flashback or dream. These flashbacks or dreams may even feel so vivid that it feels like you are reliving the trauma and you feel all the waves of emotions once again.

Anxiety will be heightened at these times. There may also be a tendency to increase the use of manipulative coping mechanisms including the use of drugs and alcohol.

 The causes of PTSD are different to other anxiety conditions as they are due to external events. Not all people involved with trauma will react with PTSD there are other factors involved. These include individual responses to and appraisal of events and the support network a person may have. There may even be a build-up of traumas that have then manifested into more complex PTSD such as domestic abuse over time. 

Counselling can be helpful to challenge those thoughts, feelings and behaviours in a safe and secure way through cognitive behavioural therapy. This may involve talking through the experience and helping and desensitising you to the event or events or challenging thoughts to move forward.

Avoidance can often reinforce negative patterns or not allow us to deal with difficult situations. We will work at your pace to support you to have the emotional strength to face the traumas. It is like packing a bag and carrying it. At some point in time you will have so much in the bag you cannot lift it. Counselling allows you to start to take each item out of the bag at your pace so that you can lift it and it becomes lighter and lighter.

 Counselling will help you come to terms with the trauma or traumas you have faced and begin to start a future where it is no longer all encompassing. Delaying treatment can make PTSD permanent for the sufferer so intervention as soon as possible is very important.

 Complex PTSD can be more difficult to treat. Complex PTSD can occur in adults or children if violence, neglect, trauma, or abuse is ongoing or sustained over a long period of time.

 Complex PTSD can occur if the trauma happened early on in life, the trauma was created by a care giver, the sufferer was alone during the trauma or the sufferer is still in contact with someone who inflicted the trauma but other reasons can also apply. Symptoms of complex PTSD may include feelings of shame or guilt, relationship difficulties, being unable to trust, destructive behaviours such as risk taking, alcohol or drug misuse, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, dissociation and emotional difficulties that cause a magnitude of problems in daily life.