The main symptoms of PTSD are:
Credit to Trauma Training.
Complex PTSD may be diagnosed in adults or children who have repeatedly experienced or witnessed traumatic events, such as violence, neglect or abuse.
Complex PTSD is thought to be more severe if:
Adults with complex PTSD may lose their trust in people and feel separated from others.
The symptoms of complex PTSD are similar to symptoms of PTSD, but may also include:
Credit to Trauma Training.
Emotional and psychological trauma can result from extraordinarily stressful events that impact your sense of security, often leaving you feeling helpless in a now dangerous world. Psychological trauma can lead to upsetting emotions, memories, and anxieties that do not seem to go away. You can also be left feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people.
While traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can lead to trauma, even if physical harm is not directly involved. It is not the objective circumstances that determine whether an event is traumatic, but rather an individual’s subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless a person feels, the more likely they are to be traumatised.
Emotional and psychological trauma can be caused by:
Credit to Trauma Training.
We like to say that anxiety is largely about “fake news.” The person is in a situation that is not a threat to their life, yet their brain is sending out the message that there is such a threat – and it releases hormones that put the person’s body into flight or fight mode.
The most common treatment for anxiety in the UK is CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy). However, this tends to have only limited success for many people. We believe that there are two main reasons for this
Credit to Trauma Training.
Depression is a complex condition; its causes are not fully understood. However, various contributing factors can lead to depression. These can include biological factors (for example, genetics or experience of physical illness or injury) and psychological or social factors (experiences dating back to childhood, unemployment, bereavement, or life-changing events such as pregnancy). Having a long-standing or life-threatening illness, such as heart disease, back pain or cancer, has been associated with an increased risk of depression.
Approximately 1 in every 6 people (more than 15%) living in England Scotland and Wales experience a common mental health disorder each week, with 3.3% of adults (16 and over) estimated to experience depression each week.
Depression symptoms may vary among people but generally encompass a feeling of sadness or hopelessness. These can include:
Depression symptoms can vary in severity, from mild to moderate to severe depression. Many people who have depression also have problems with anxiety. And as with anxiety, underlying issues can lead to depression being unresponsive to typical treatments.
Credit to Trauma Training.
It has been said that “pain is not pain until it reaches the brain.” While pain is not all in your head, part of it is. Advances in brain imaging technology are resulting in a better understanding of pain – and how complex the process pain is. It is affected by all kinds of changes in the brain, including sensory, structural, chemical, cognitive and emotional changes.
Chronic pain can change how the brain processes pain, and this, in turn, can lead to an increase in its intensity. The brain’s ability to transform in response to chronic pain helps us to understand that our reactions may also be altered due to changes in our brain – so it is partly in our heads!
Pain, whether new or chronic, can make life very difficult at times. Pain is an invisible and subjective experience – there are no objective tests to measure pain. This can make it difficult for doctors, family and friends to understand your experience.
Treating pain, like any other ailment, requires understanding the cause, how you experience symptoms, and how you respond to treatments, activity level, emotions and stress. When in pain, we automatically react in a way to try to minimise it. We may move less, protect the affected area more, socialise less, and stop participating in life as we know it. While these responses make sense, they tend to make the pain worse. If we don’t move, we get stiff and weak. If we guard certain areas, we become imbalanced, and this can lead to further injuries. If we isolate ourselves because it’s too hard to go out or focus on something else, we spend more time thinking about the pain, which makes it all-consuming.
How can you break this cycle? Doctors frequently recommend psychotherapy in conjunction with other treatment modalities. Psychotherapy can help you take control of your pain, as opposed to pain being in control of you. The goal is to break the cycle and not have pain consume so much of your energy. Pain likes to be in control which can lead to stress, anxiety and depression. One of our therapists can help you take control of your life by implementing strategies to reduce your pain. These could include learning how to monitor your body, adjusting your activity levels and finding more effective ways to cope with stress, as stress tends to intensify pain. Guided visualisations can also be an important weapon against your pain.
In addition, we strongly recommend utilising a specialised electrotherapy machine, such as the Alpha-Stim M, which can be used in several different ways to help alleviate chronic pain.
Together, we can work to reduce the impact of pain on your quality of life.
Credit to Trauma Training.
U Matter is a Psychotherapy and Trauma Center.
Our therapists provide interventions so that survivors can move forward positively in their lives, no longer being defined by the violence and trauma of their experiences.
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