an automatic experience in emotion and body as a result of something you have experienced, usually early in life that makes it seem “normal”
Trauma is dysregulation of body and emotions now, in response to what you have experienced or not received in life.
Trauma manifests itself in your body and in your brain. Your reactions to that unsafe feeling are not sick, crazy, or broken; your system does exactly what it is supposed to do: survive.
Since the cause of problems usually lies in trauma / attachment problems, you are also (or especially) welcome with DSM diagnoses such as ADHD / ADD, depression, anxiety disorder, burnout, PTSD, narcissism, borderline, bi-polar or other ‘personality disorders’. welcome! We start with a clean slate, with you.
Trauma manifests itself in your body and in your brain. Your reactions to that unsafe feeling are not sick, crazy or broken; your system does exactly what it’s supposed to do: survive.
Since the cause of problems usually lies in trauma / attachment problems, you are also (or especially) welcome with DSM diagnoses such as ADHD / ADD, depression, anxiety disorder, burnout, PTSD, narcissism, borderline, bi-polar or other ‘personality disorders’. welcome! We start with a clean slate, with you.
What is trauma?
Other than normally assumed, trauma is not about the story that happened. It is the traces of trauma that stayed in your brain and body. Trauma is all about losing connection to yourself first and then with others and your surroundings. The nervous system and neural pathways of someone with trauma are different than of someone without trauma. It causes a constant hypervigilant state.
Four kinds of trauma:
- Event trauma
- Developmental trauma
- Complex trauma
- Intergenerational trauma
Symptoms of trauma:
- Feeling overwhelmed by emotions and feelings
- Panic and feelings of anxiety
- Problems regulating emotions
- Always looking for a way out of yourself
- Trying to control external situations
- No control over behavior
- Thinking and analyzing the past and/or future
- Anger at yourself and others
- Problems with social attachment; co-dependence or isolation
- Problems with attention and concentration
- Dissociation (separation of feelings and thoughts) or splitting (good-bad thinking)
- No contact with the body
- Loss of confidence, hope and a sense of personal identity
- No long-term overview
- Substance and Behavioral Addictions
Trauma therapy & Coaching; focussing on re-establishing the connection with self and others.
When you are traumatised you are almost always running from overwhelming feelings of anxiety and panic. That is extremely exhausting and it makes the world in and around you even more confusing and chaotic. You have the feeling of no control over anything and of not being able to get in contact with yourself. This is caused by a hypervigilant nervous system and other survival mechanisms that have developed in your system. So, trauma is the traces that are left in your system because of what happened to you.
BODY: since most traces are left in your body, we start with looking at how you best can acknowledge and accept the sensations in your body and then regulate those so you won’t get flooded by them.
MIND: then there is space to look at beliefs and behaviour that have been formed during and because of the trauma. Is this still helping you? The answer is probably no. By transforming and healing your system you are able to make contact with yourself and others.
COGNITION: so now that you feel your true self again and are not led by automatic survival behaviour and anxiety, you can look at what your life values really are. How do you see your life now? And how do you want to make it happen?
When you are traumatised you are almost always running from overwhelming feelings of anxiety and panic. That is extremely exhausting and it makes the world in and around you even more confusing and chaotic. You have the feeling of no control over anything and of not being able to get in contact with yourself. This is caused by a hypervigilant nervous system and other survival mechanisms that have developed in your system. So, trauma is the traces that are left in your system because of what happened to you.
BODY: since most traces are left in your body, we start with looking at how you best can acknowledge and accept the sensations in your body and then regulate those so you won’t get flooded by them.
MIND: then there is space to look at beliefs and behaviour that have been formed during and because of the trauma. Is this still helping you? The answer is probably no. By transforming and healing your system you are able to make contact with yourself and others.
COGNITION: so now that you feel your true self again and are not led by automatic survival behaviour and anxiety, you can look at what your life values really are. How do you see your life now? And how do you want to make it happen?
“Over the past 20 years I have struggled to a greater and lesser extent with issues from my youth. I have spoken with various therapists and coaches and have started a bookcase full of self-help books. If there was any effect, it was limited and temporary. I understood the theory but nothing really clicked. After coming to the same point for the umpteenth time and I realized that something really had to be done, I came into contact with Nikki.
After the first session, special things happened immediately. So this clicked for me. A few sessions later, my environment also noticed that I was changing. I am reconnected with myself and am no longer controlled by the coping strategies I have carried with me for so long. It has even led me to make a very important decision in my private life that I had been putting off for years. I have experienced the sessions as very familiar, we worked hard, but the effect in a relatively short time is very special.”
At the end of the session I quickly say “Thank you very much” to you.. and that sounds so wafer thin because I also feel so grateful.. Only now do I feel that I really start, and the therapy you give me and how you do that… is so close to me. This suits me… I try to put it into words but it is more than that… a feeling! I am so grateful that you are on my path as my therapist and I learn so much but also that you make it work with your info and exercises, that I feel more clarification and only now get to know myself without all those parts. I really think it’s so special and beautiful that you know how to make me move… learning to detach from all that.
I am very satisfied with the partner I now see in front of me. I’m sure this has everything to do with the therapy. A happy person who does his best to stay grounded. Not because he has to, but because he wants to.
I get a lot of no’s, frustrating sometimes but that’s his way forward. He deserves that: to live an authentic life.
