Speaking Out About Trauma Recovery with Yildiz

Trauma has become a buzz word of late, as has trauma informed counselling and therapy. 

While knowledge and acceptance of trauma as a significant impairment to functioning is gratifying to see, there remains many misunderstandings and mistruths circulating of facts or beliefs about treatments that remain unclarified and unchallenged. Of course the general public and many in the mental health industry are following the latest medically approved protocols and doing the best they can with what they know, but largely remain confused and not informed of latest innovations in this area.

The problem is, I have noticed a big reaction within me growing when I listen to radio or podcasters interviewing ‘experts’ or sufferers of trauma who are advocates for raising awareness of what trauma is and how it damages the brain and effects peoples’ lives; they say, forever. This includes PTSD and sexual abuse or sexual assault sufferers. Such interviews give the impression of little hope for trauma sufferers of a normal life.

While such advocates have and continue to suffer the effects of their trauma, I do understand and empathise with their need to be heard and believed and to somehow seek justice. However, their experience of the help they have received. often from the most prestigious in their fields in the Medical model, often confirms the belief that they are survivors at best, for the rest of their lives, as there is nothing more that can be done, other than managing symptoms. Usually with strategies or medication or both. 

Further, many advocating trauma awareness with the public, find it can inadvertently overtake their lives. It can become a career that involves reliving their traumas and breaking out in anger or tears in public speaking, and gaining emotional responses from their audiences. This often rides on a belief that somehow this open emotional and highly personal exposure helps them heal, or assists others with similar traumas and somehow prevents many from entering into such abusive situations.

I do not have a PhD in this area, am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, so don’t belong to the Medical model mode of practice. 

I come from a science teaching background with twenty three-year’s experience in private practice, as a psychotherapist with a Masters’ degree in counselling with clinical hypnotherapy, Family Constellations and my founded methodologies Emotional Mind Integration and Rapid Core Healing. What I know and what I say comes from thousands of hours of work with my clients who have been and remain my greatest teachers. I am a pracademic. This has been a grounded practical learning about what has gone wrong and what is required for recovery.

Many people come to me as a last resort having been through all that their GP, psychologists and frequently a wide range of alternative practitioners in seeking more effective help, who have remained highly traumatised. 

Talk and trauma informed therapies often focused on the therapeutic relationship, hearing and listening, noticing emotions, understanding, raising awareness and attempting to understand their reactions or symptoms. 

However, for many I notice that telling the stories, attempting to understand their reactions to what has happened, although these may feel good at the time, rarely resolves the trauma felt in the mind and body or changes their reactions, thoughts, feelings or symptoms. Further it is often retraumatising. As is sharing of their stories in self-help groups or group therapies, or on stage in front of an audience. These do not resolve the trauma for most. 

While these approaches may provide some benefits in gaining empathy, being heard or believed and receive accolades for their courage; reliving  traumatic experiences repeatedly, keeps them stuck in the experience as victims. This deepens the neural pathways of their traumatic experiences. It also often causes vicarious trauma in others or triggers other traumatic people in the audience, in switching on their deeply repressed traumas as well.

There are many approaches for trauma treatment. EMDR is used for trauma treatments, but often requires many sessions. While this may be a great solution for some, as is Mindfulness practice, I have received many former EMDR patients who were re-traumatised simply by filling out the EMDR registration forms in having to list former events. Many have come to me after sessions of EMDR searching for trauma recovery who had not found EMDR to be the solution for them.

In my book Rapid Core Healing I go into great detail about how I have found that through my practice, that trauma as a diagnosis in itself, is also often at the core of many mental health diagnoses, such as depression and anxiety. My clients helped me to realise that none of the present methods of treatment were suitable for the level of recovery my clients and I sought. 

I needed a methodology that can accurately use the problematic symptoms that a client is experiencing, without having to risk re-traumatisation, by hearing their life story, or a need to know all of the significant events of their lives. 

Rather, I wanted something that could work with the symptoms, feelings, behaviours or thoughts that they find problematic directly and neurologically. Be able to quickly and accurately follow the symptom back to the cause with safety and gentleness as a top priority. Guide the client to safe release and find their own solutions. I needed a clear and structured approach to guide the client through a healing pathway that is client-centred for their individual needs. 

A process that provides a way of off-loading pent up emotions, fear, anger, sadness, injustice and allows expression and assists them in self-healing and developing a protective inner voice for the present and future.

Going deeper, a process that quickly accesses the deeply repressed memories pertaining to their symptoms through a safe, highly structured process that completes with integration within each session. Thereby clearing one neural pathway at a time, so that complex PTSD and Sexual Abuse cases require only 3-5 sessions on average to defuse and reset the nervous system without re-traumatisation. 

This is Emotional Mind Integration.

This means that people who come to me or to anyone who has done my EMI training can work effectively with trauma processing as required. I have found that for a large proportion of depression, anxiety or panic attack cases are often started with a traumatic event. This becomes repressed in the subconscious mind where it erodes their sense of worth, leaving them flat and fearful and often sends out triggers of involuntary feelings or reactions into their daily interactions.

Many people in society are affected by unresolved trauma. As one person working in this field, I know there is only so much I can do by myself. This is why I am keen to train as may Emotional Mind Integration practitioners as I can in this modality, so that more of the public can receive the help they require for recovery of not only trauma, but a wide range of disturbances, self-esteem. and mental health issues as well.

The facts I work with are.

1 People who are ready for change are my clients. Many people are happy to take medication for life and uncomfortable with going deeper to their own beliefs, feelings and behaviours to discover their own solutions.

In addition, I don’t work with those who have the secondary gain of creating a career that requires them to remain in their traumatised state. However should this change, I am happy to assist them if they come to a point where they seek self-healing or focus on advocacy for trauma recovery instead. Let people know they don’t have to live with it.

2 Trauma may be resolved completely, so that the person still knows their history, but it no longer has the charge it had as it recedes into the past and they come out of the process feeling resourced and empowered. They have learned something about themselves, or the event and are empowered through the process to look after themselves in a better way. 

Neuroscience research shows the brain is capable of self-healing under appropriate circumstances. Details

With Emotional Mind Integration, this requires a few sessions for recovery of each complex issue or symptom.

I am really open to the medical model using Emotional Mind Integration to conduct tests and research to observe its effects in mental health and trauma recovery.

Emotional Mind Integration (EMI) training is an 9 week online training with 5 days of face to face experiential learning and practice. Suitable to anyone who is already a counsellor, psychotherapist or to alternative health practitioners and new practitioners looking for a better way to make a difference. 

EMI training is also available for trauma and sexual abuse recovery centres professional development for mental health practitioners.

The next EMI training starts on 6 February. This is a nine week online training with 5 days of online face to face learning and practice. Join me in becoming an advocate for trauma recovery in letting people know they can recover and quickly.

Details of training HERE

For more details about me see Yildiz