Trauma Counselling
What describes trauma?
- Physical abuse
- Professional burnout
- Mental abuse
- Acute Stress
- Post traumatic stress
- Domestic Violence
- Death of someone close
- Serious Illness
- Sexual assault
Trauma
Emotional and psychological trauma can occur as the result of extraordinarily life events that shatter your perceived sense of safety and position in the world. Often, these events directly threaten your life or safety and can lead to feelings of isolation and being overwhelmed. Whether the event caused you physical harm, or not, trauma can develop as a reaction to the emotional impact of the situation. Fear and helplessness in the instant can be indicators of trauma.
Traumatic Events
Common events because trauma includes having someone close in your life die unexpectedly, seeing someone be injured or killed, seeing a dead body, being physically or emotionally abused, or being in a life-threatening accident. Physical assault, war, natural disasters, and losing people in your life can all be seen as a threat to your safety. Typically, emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by one of the three following options.
- Sudden Trauma which are time events including injury, violent attacks, or accident
- Chronic Trauma can include bullying, dangerous living circumstances, or domestic violence.
- Overlooked cases such as losing someone important, surgery, or deeply disappointing experiences.
The Impacts of Trauma
All of these circumstances would make anyone experience feelings of fear, sadness, guilt, anger or grief. However, having difficulty coming to terms with the event, losing the ability to deal with daily life, and noticing changes in your sleep, appetite, and social habits can be indicators that you are suffering from trauma. Shock, denial, confusion, anger, anxiety, guilt, withdrawal, sadness, or hopelessness are all feelings that you may experience as part of the trauma. Trauma, however, can also manifest in physical symptoms such as insomnia, nightmares, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, elevated heartbeat, muscle tension and aches. It can have significant impacts on a child’s brain development. Check out this Tedx Talk on how Trauma affects behaviours and the brain.
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How to Heal from Trauma
Trauma symptoms can last anywhere between a few days and a few months but can come back suddenly as a response to triggers. Anniversaries of the event, memories that bring up the traumatic event, or other reminders can bring the emotions back. If you are unable to move on from traumatic events, you may be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder where your nervous system remains in a state of psychological shock and is not capable of processing emotions. In these situations, along with getting active and moving, practising mindfulness, staying connected with friends and family, taking care of your health, making regular appointments with a counsellor can help ease your signs and symptoms. The counsellor will take a personalised approach to find the best methodology on how to help you overcome trauma.
When to Seek help from Trauma
While trauma symptoms and signs can go away over time, it is a good idea to seek help from a trauma expert if you find your emotions and memories are severely impacting your life. Having trouble functioning at home or work, suffering from anxiety or depression, inability to form close relationships, reliving terrifying memories, emotional numbness, or turning to drugs and alcohol are all clear signs to find a licensed professional.
Hi, I’m Katherine Nelson, a counsellor at Counselling at Voxen on the Gold Coast.
When working with clients recovering from PTSD, a few questions about the therapy process come up often. Here are three of the most common:
1. “How long does therapy usually take for PTSD?”
There’s no set timeline, as PTSD affects everyone differently. Some people experience significant relief after 10–20 sessions, especially with targeted approaches like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) or trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). For others, particularly if the trauma was complex or long-term, therapy can take longer. What matters most is creating a strong foundation of safety and trust, so healing can unfold at a pace that feels manageable.
2. “Why can PTSD therapy take longer than other kinds of therapy?”
PTSD often impacts the brain’s sense of safety, memory processing, and emotional regulation. Healing isn’t just about talking through what happened—it’s also about retraining your nervous system to feel safe again. This means we might spend a lot of time building skills like grounding, emotional regulation, and self-compassion before even approaching the trauma memories. Each step is essential to avoid feeling overwhelmed and to make sure the healing is lasting.
3. “Can I speed up the process?”
— Katherine Nelson, Counselling at Voxen
