Trauma therapy and the nervous system
When the body still responds as if danger is near
Trauma-informed psychotherapy in Shinfield, Reading, Berkshire, and online.
A note before reading: this page discusses trauma and its effects on the body, emotions, nervous system, and relationships. If reading brings up strong feelings, body sensations, shutdown, or overwhelm, you may want to pause and return only if and when it feels manageable.
When your mind understands but your body still reacts, trauma therapy can help work with the protective patterns your system learned under pressure.
You may feel anxious, on edge, shut down, disconnected, easily overwhelmed, or unable to fully settle. You may also notice that something in you still responds as though safety cannot quite be felt yet.
Trauma does not always look dramatic from the outside. It may show up through anxiety, shutdown, dissociation, people-pleasing, poor sleep, relationship difficulties, chronic tension, or a body that still expects danger.
It can also shape relationships, making trust, closeness, conflict, or emotional openness feel unexpectedly difficult.
Insight matters. And when trauma is carried in the body and nervous system, understanding alone is often not enough.
This may be for you if
You may recognise that:
part of you understands what is happening, but your body still reacts
anxiety, shutdown, dissociation, or hypervigilance take over under stress
closeness, conflict, uncertainty, or emotional openness can feel unexpectedly threatening
previous therapy or insight helped, but did not fully shift the deeper pattern
You may also find yourself people-pleasing, withdrawing, bracing, avoiding, over-functioning, or trying to stay in control.
You do not need to be certain whether to call what you are experiencing “trauma”. Sometimes it is enough to begin with what is happening now: anxiety, shutdown, overwhelm, disconnection, tension, relationship patterns, or a sense that something in you still feels unsafe.
Trauma therapy often needs to move at a pace the nervous system can tolerate. Rather than pushing quickly into painful material, the work begins by building enough steadiness for difficult experience to be approached without overwhelm, collapse, or shutdown.
Over time, this can help life feel less organised around survival and more open to rest, steadiness, choice, and connection.
If the shape of your symptoms feels more familiar than the word trauma itself, you may also want to read What I help with.
What trauma can look like
Trauma often shows up as a nervous system that struggles to settle, soften, or feel safe.
Some people live more in a state of high alert: scanning, bracing, startling easily, anticipating danger, or finding it hard to relax. Others are pulled into shutdown: numbness, fog, sleepiness, collapse, or a sense of being unable to mobilise.
Some people experience waves of panic. Others feel unreal, distant, or disconnected from themselves or their body. Sleep, concentration, energy, and emotional balance may all be affected.
For many people, the impact is relational. Trauma may show up through people-pleasing, withdrawal, conflict cycles, difficulty trusting, fear of closeness, or losing a sense of yourself in relationships.
When threat is experienced, the body often responds before there is time to think. The nervous system may move into fight, flight, freeze, collapse, submit, or appease.
These are survival responses, not signs of weakness or failure.
You might recognise patterns such as:
going numb or not feeling much
withdrawing, avoiding, or people-pleasing
perfectionism, over-responsibility, or pushing through until you crash
finding rest difficult, even when exhausted
becoming overwhelmed by conflict, uncertainty, or emotional intensity
losing your sense of yourself in close relationships
These responses usually began as attempts to stay safe, manage threat, or maintain connection.
The work is not to criticise these responses, but to understand them, respect their protective function, and help the system gradually find more choice.
When trauma changes how safety is felt
Trauma can affect how the nervous system receives and interprets sensory information.
After overwhelming experiences, the body may continue to scan for danger even when the present situation is safer. Sounds may feel sharper. Other people’s expressions may be read as threatening. The body may feel tense, numb, distant, braced, or difficult to inhabit.
These responses often happen before conscious thought. The system may decide that something is unsafe before the mind has had time to make sense of it.
This is one reason trauma therapy may need to include the body, the nervous system, and the felt sense of safety — not only thoughts, memories, or explanations.
The aim is not to force the body to relax. It is to help the system gradually recover more steadiness, orientation, and choice.
In therapy, I do not force change or rush towards the most painful material. We begin with stabilisation, capacity, and a pace that does not overwhelm the system.
Why trauma affects people differently
The impact of trauma is not only about what happened.
It is also shaped by factors such as:
the age or developmental stage at which it happened
how long it went on
whether it happened once or repeatedly
whether it involved people who were meant to provide care
whether enough support was available afterwards
whether the person was left with shame, guilt, betrayal, self-blame, or a painful conflict with their own values — sometimes described as moral injury
Some trauma comes from sudden overwhelming events. Other trauma develops more gradually through repeated stress, fear, criticism, emotional neglect, instability, relational injury, or long periods of needing to stay protected.
Developmental and relational trauma can shape the nervous system over time, especially where there was little room to protest, escape, be believed, or receive protection.
Some experiences may not look severe from the outside but can still leave deep marks.
Trauma is not measured only by how dramatic an event appears. It is also measured by what the person’s system had to do to survive it.
We can start with what is happening in you now.
You do not have to tell the whole story all at once
Many people fear trauma therapy because they imagine they will have to describe everything in detail before they feel ready.
That is not how I work.
Trauma therapy does not have to begin with a full narrative of what happened. For some people, trying to tell the whole story too quickly can feel overwhelming or destabilising.
Some trauma is remembered clearly. Some is carried more bodily.
It may show itself as pain, tension, shutdown, panic, dissociation, or a sense of threat that has no obvious story attached to it. Early medical experiences, surgery, hospitalisation, separation, or repeated procedures can sometimes contribute to this kind of nervous-system learning.
We may begin instead with what is happening in daily life: anxiety, shutdown, emotional flooding, numbness, dissociation, bodily tension, sleep disturbance, relationship difficulty, or the sense of never quite feeling safe.
The work may involve words, but it is not only a talking process. We may also pay attention to body responses, protective strategies, relational patterns, and the pace your system can manage.
The aim is not to force traumatic material into the open. It is to create enough safety and steadiness for what has been held in survival mode to begin to shift.
This careful approach may also be relevant after psychedelic, spiritual, or altered-state experiences, especially if traumatic material, fear, shame, grief, dissociation, or questions of identity and meaning have felt opened up too quickly.
Where appropriate, this can be explored as trauma-informed psychotherapy and integration for experiences that have already occurred. I do not offer psychedelic-assisted therapy, preparation, dosing advice, facilitation, or access to substances.
How trauma therapy begins
Trauma-focused therapy begins carefully. The first contact is usually a free 20-minute consultation, followed by early sessions where we build a shared understanding of what is happening, how your nervous system and relationships are affected, and what kind of support should come first.
We do not need to go into traumatic experiences in detail at the beginning. The focus is on understanding the pattern, your current capacity, and how to work safely.
For a fuller overview of the first steps, you may want to read Getting started ›
How I work with trauma
My work with trauma is relational, body-aware, and carefully paced. I do not rush toward the deepest material or apply techniques mechanically. The work is shaped around your history, your pace, and your current capacity.
A core component of my trauma work is Deep Brain Reorienting, which works with underlying threat responses that may sit beneath more visible symptoms. I may also draw on Relational Transactional Analysis, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, parts-informed work, EMDR-informed understanding, and ILF neurofeedback where appropriate.
These approaches are held within one relational, trauma-informed process rather than used as separate techniques.
How trauma work may unfold
With support, time, and enough patience, the nervous system can become more balanced and flexible again.
In everyday life, that may mean less bracing, more rest, more emotional space, and more capacity to stay present under stress.
Trauma therapy often unfolds through three overlapping areas.
Stabilisation and regulation
Building enough steadiness, orientation, and capacity for the work to feel manageable. This may include understanding triggers, supporting sleep and arousal regulation, noticing early signs of overwhelm or shutdown, and strengthening what helps you return to the present.
Trauma processing
Carefully approaching traumatic material, body responses, protective patterns, and meanings when there is enough support to do so. This does not mean forcing disclosure or pushing quickly into painful memories.
Integration and growth
Supporting changes to become part of everyday life, relationships, self-understanding, and choice. This may include noticing when old reactions have less pull, strengthening boundaries, deepening self-trust, and finding new ways to relate to yourself and others.
These are not rigid stages. Sometimes the work focuses mainly on stabilisation for a while. Sometimes deeper processing becomes possible sooner. Sometimes we move back and forth between processing, reflection, regulation, and integration.
Where useful, I may also integrate ILF neurofeedback in person to support nervous-system regulation, particularly where sleep, overwhelm, reactivity, brain fog, or instability are making daily life or therapy harder to manage.
Read more about ILF neurofeedback ›
When another kind of support may be needed
Trauma therapy with me is not a rapid processing model or a short intensive programme.
I am not usually the right service for someone who is currently in acute crisis, needs frequent crisis support, requires out-of-hours care, or needs a level of support that weekly therapy alone cannot provide.
I also do not encourage trauma processing when the first priority needs to be safety, crisis support, stabilisation, medical care, addiction support, safeguarding, or another more intensive service.
If you are unsure whether trauma-focused work is right for you, we can think about that together. Sometimes the first task is not to begin trauma processing, but to understand what kind of support would be safest and most useful.
Practicalities
Sessions are available in person in Shinfield, Reading, Berkshire, and online via Zoom.
ILF neurofeedback is available in person only.
Sessions are usually weekly, especially where trauma, shutdown, dissociation, or nervous-system instability are part of the work.
You may also find these pages helpful
Individual therapy ›
For a fuller sense of how I work in ongoing psychotherapy.
What I help with ›
If you recognise trauma more through anxiety, shutdown, dissociation, relationship patterns, exhaustion, or overwhelm.
ILF neurofeedback ›
If sleep, overwhelm, reactivity, brain fog, or nervous-system instability are making daily life or therapy harder to manage.
If you are considering trauma-focused therapy
You do not need to know exactly where to begin, or whether trauma-focused work is definitely the right route.
A free 20-minute consultation gives us a chance to talk briefly about what has been happening and whether carefully paced trauma-focused work may be appropriate.
There is no pressure to continue.
Need urgent support now?
If you are in immediate danger, please call 999 or go to your nearest A&E.
If you need urgent emotional support or mental health crisis support, please visit: