Types of therapy

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing – This is the first type of therapy to recommend after experiencing a traumatic event, as what it aims to achieve is to neutralise the emotional charge around the event. It will allow you to separate the emotions from the event and not get so upset or triggered when you think back to it. This is a relatively new treatment that can help with PTSD symptoms like getting startled easily. It entails revisiting the painful incident while making rhythmic eye movements. The fast eye movements are meant to mimic the way your brain processes memories and events while you sleep. 

EMDR UK and Ireland – This is a professional organisation of EMDR Clinicians which can help you find a therapist and provide more information on the topic.

Internal Family Systems Therapy – This philosophy recognises that we are all made up of different parts. These parts are not just feeling but distinct ways of being, with their own beliefs, agendas, and roles in the overall ecology of our lives.  Learn more on this type of therapy by clicking here.

Neurofeedback is a non-invasive way to measure and control your brain waves, which all your thoughts are composed of. It mechanically disrupts negative brain patterns. Then stimulates more constructive brain circuits that create new patterns of thoughts

Dr. Sebern explains how neurofeedback can help with a traumatic past “with neurofeedback we hope to intervene in the circuitry that promotes and sustains states of fear and traits of fearfulness, shame and rage. It is the repetitive firing of these circuits that defines trauma”. Patients need help to change the habitual brain patterns created by trauma and its aftermath. When the fear patterns relax, the brain becomes less susceptible to automatic stress reactions and better able to focus on ordinary events – it is a function of how we label and react to them. Neurofeedback simply stabilises the brain and increases resiliency, allowing us to develop more choices in how to respond. 

You can find out more about it in the book ‘the body keeps the score’ or  here.

This is a type of therapy that can either be in group form or individually with a therapist. In group form the people in the group will represent key individuals in your life and around your problem and the therapist will allow you to work through the issue with them. Otherwise, objects in the room can be used to represent these key people in your life. It is useful as it allows you to bring you inner reality to the outside world and restructure inner maps. Find a London based therapist here.