Trauma & chronic stress
Too much, too soon, too sudden, too long
Trauma, chronic stress & PTSD
Trauma, chronic stress and PTSD are a result of major adverse events that were too much, too soon, too sudden or too long. Even years after the event(s), you may still notice the effects of it in your daily life.
When thinking of trauma, many people think of Trauma with a capital T: heavy accidents, war, natural disasters, rape, violent attacks, domestic abuse, neglect, and so on. But more ‘everyday’ adverse experiences can also cause trauma: gynecological or other medical procedures, a difficult birth of labor, a fall off the stairs of your bike, the loss of a loved one, losing your job, or other sudden major changes in your life.
These kinds of events can also disrupt your system significantly. You may feel that you have never been the same “since then”, and that your life and your person have changed forever.
Common symptoms of lingering trauma, chronic stress & PTSD
Lots of worrying and grinding
An almost permanent feeling of agitation, restlessness, fear or stress
Fatigue, exhaustion and feeling that nothing can really motivate you
Difficulty connecting with others and difficulty in intimacy
Shame, guilt and negative thoughts about yourself
Flashbacks and bad dreams
Never being able to truly relax
Unexplained pain and physical complaints
Often crossing your own boundaries, or actually not even knowing what they are
Feeling little or no connection with your body, numbness
Not every person who who went through adverse experiences or events will develop symptoms of trauma.
.In fact, trauma symptoms are not caused by the event itself, but by what happened afterwards: whether you were able to process the experience(s) you went through, and whether you processed them through and with your body, rather than in your mind.
What I can help with
Embodiment & contact with your body (when you are continuously 'in your head')
Moving on in life after sexual trauma
Talking about it helps, but often just a little bit.
.People who experienced trauma or live with PTSD often try to ignore or live around the symptoms for a long time before seeking help. Conventional therapy is often the first resort. Talking about it with a professional can bring relief and can lead to an understanding about your own situation.
At the same time, classical talk therapy often does not help enough to reduce or remedy symptoms. Talk therapy focuses on our thoughts and actions and how to change them. But trauma affects so much more than just our thoughts and actions. It affects the entire being and cuts deep into the depths of the nervous system, far beyond the reach of rational thinking and acting. That is why working with your body and your nervous system is so important.
Why are trauma, chronic stress and PTSD so challenging?
During a major adverse event or a long-term period of significant stress, the body feels so threatened that a fight, flight or freeze response is automatically set in motion to defend yourself. Whether you were actually in mortal danger during the event or not doesn’t even matter: it’s about how your nervous system interpreted the traumatic event – your ratio played no role in this!
If the event was not processed afterwards through and with the body, you can get stuck in the survival responses your body initiated. An enormous amount of energy of stress and tension then accumulates in the body with nowhere to go, and the body continues to receive signals that it is still in danger. In this way, the fight, flight or freeze modes will persist long after the danger has passed, leading to the symptoms described at the top of this page.
It's estimated 50-60% of the global population suffers significant trauma at least once in their life.
If you want to heal it, you need support that addresses your entire body-mind, not just your thoughts and behaviors.
How I can support you on your journey to heal trauma, chronic stress or PTSD
1:1 somatic trauma healing trajectory
Massage after trauma
Integral Pelvic Therapy
The first step is easy.
Free first call
In a free discovery call we discuss your wishes and the possiblities.
Book an appointment
You can easily book your appointment via my online calendar.
First session!
Before you know it we are on our way, working towards your transformation.
Are you curious what I can do for you? Contact me for a free discovery call.
What can you expect from working together?
Trauma healing is not a straightforward process and it will not make you immune to the challenges of life. You will still feel all the feelings that any human being can experience in life, including sadness, grief, anger or rage.
But what trauma healing will bring you, is a much greater ability to be with those so-called ‘negative’ emotions, while expanding your capacity to experience the vast range of positive emotions as well.
Somatic trauma healing brings more resilience and helps you regain a greater sense of personal power. It helps you increase your sense of well-being, can reduce trauma symptoms and complaints, and contributes to an overall improvement of your quality of life.
While no trauma (his)story is ever the same for any my clients, and neither is the journey of trauma healing, I notice time and time again how incredibly valuable somatic trauma healing is to help bring people closer to their true self.
Somatic Experiencing®: a world renowned approach to healing trauma
Somatic Experiencing® is a world-renowned method for healing trauma, PTSD and chronic stress. I use Somatic Experiencing® to help you (re)learn the language of your body step by step. So instead of going through all the details of the event(s) from your head, we examine how unprocessed pieces present themselves in your body.aa.
The process of reconnecting with your body often takes time. As a result of the trauma you have probably put in quite the (subconscious) effort to not feel your body. That’s why we take all the time needed to reconnect, and we will search for experiences of safety in your body in the here and now. We will go at a pace that is nourishing for your nervous system. Often that means going slow. Somatic Experiencing is about slowing down, and approaching trauma gently.
.
I apply Somatic Experiencing® in all the different options I offer. You can choose for treatments or sessions with more or with less focus on hands-on bodywork in which SE is integrated. In our discovery call we can discuss which option might be best for you.
Trauma healing sessions with Somatic Experiencing
In these trauma healing sessions we apply various techniques from Somatic Experiencing, which are aimed at gradually releasing the stress in your system. This tackles the cause of trauma symptoms at the root.
Based on what you have experienced, we examine bodily sensations, experiences, images and body movements, which teach us about the patterns of stuck survival energy in your body.
Where appropriate, I weave somatic coaching into the sessions to help you take new steps in your desired direction.
In these sessions we always start our work seated on a chair. Every now and then we will do exercises in the room or work with touch, possibly on the treatment table.
Hands-on bodywork with Somatic Experiencing
Sometimes hands-on bodywork is the best entry point for trauma healing. This can be the case when you are so much in your head that it is almost impossible for you to feel anything in your body. Or when you have developed an aversion to or fear of touch as a result of your trauma, or if you have experienced traumatic events in the pelvic area .
This is why I offer two forms of bodywork in which I apply principles of Somatic Experiencing: trauma-sensitive pelvic therapy (Integral Pelvic Therapy) and massage after trauma. In these sessions we mainly work on a treatment table. Touch is central to exploring and releasing trauma pieces.
We always follow the pace of your body, applying the principles of Embodied Consent at all times.
Hear it from my clients
“Elisabeth is incredible at what she does. She has incredible instincts that allows her to choose the perfect intervention for me time and time again. I’ve had more breakthroughs in a few months with her than previous years of therapy combined.”
– Snow, Melbourne, Australia