Caroline O'Gorman Counselling
Trauma Counselling
My master's research, as part of my MSc in Counselling & Psychotherapy, investigated how creative interventions aid change when working with childhood trauma. When we are exposed to trauma at a young age for an extended period of time, overwhelming emotions become the default way of being, and any survival strategies that helped you survive adverse situations at the time may have ceased to serve you in the long term.
I work in a trauma-informed way, following Judith Herman's three stages of recovery: safety, remembrance, and reconnection. This involves helping you feel steady and resourced while we process your experiences at a pace that feels right for you, within a safe and empathic base where you can explore what happened. The final stage involves looking to the future with significantly less overwhelm about the past.
It's important to keep in mind that these three stages don't always follow a linear path, and you may move between them rather than through them in order. Recovery isn't a straight line, and that's okay.
