Truly Healing Trauma – Part 1
Updated: Apr 9, 2024
Written by Dr Janet Williams, Trauma Specialist
Dr Janet Williams is a trauma specialist working in the UK but now mainly online. Her doctoral research explored the biopsychosocial impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the systemic implications of intergenerational trauma.
This ‘Truly Healing Trauma’ series of articles explores the increasingly public topic of trauma, defining what it is, what types there are, and what we can do to truly heal it.
This introductory article offers a foundational understanding of what trauma is from a physical, emotional, and psychological perspective. In simple terms, trauma is the experience of stress and distress at levels we are unable to manage.
In psychology, we describe the stresses and strains of modern life as occurring within a ‘window of tolerance’, where we have the capacity to deal with the highs and lows everyday life throws at us. If we have experiences, either as a single event or recurringly, that take us beyond what we can cope with, we go beyond the limits of the ‘window of tolerance’ into either hyper-or hypo-arousal.
Hyper-arousal is another term for our ‘fight/flight’ instinctual responses when we feel threat or danger. In these instances, our nervous system activates, our systems produce chemicals such as adrenalin and cortisol to provide the appropriate fuel for the body to survive, our heart rate increases, our breath quickens, and so forth.
In hypo-arousal, we go into a ‘freeze’ state, we become numb and disconnect from our bodies, often entering what is called a ‘dissociative state’. This state psychically protects us when we are in situations where we cannot fight or flight. Our physical systems replicate this shutting down, ‘playing dead’ state.
Our bodies are designed to respond to danger by adopting these survival strategies, however, once the danger is over, animals in the wild generally shake off the shock and release the trauma out of their system. However, we as humans tend not to do this, instead harbouring the effects of these distressing events in our nervous systems, impacting our physiological systems, creating imbalance and disease over time if left unaddressed.
Living in an activated or shutdown state affects our mood, sleep, vitality, and productivity. It increases the risk of anxiety and depression (and suicidality) as well as a wide range of adaptive behaviours resorted to as coping mechanisms. Moreover, people who experience some form of trauma tend to not feel safe in the world, as bad things have happened in the past, they doubt that things are going to work out okay for them. Unresolved trauma can create a vicious cycle of social isolation and a breakdown in relationships resulting in loneliness and a sense of despair.
The good news is that it is possible to truly heal all types of trauma, and over the subsequent articles we will discuss the different presentations of trauma, with a ‘Big T’ and a ‘little t’. As the impact of trauma is held in the body, it is possible to locate it and support the body to release it. It simply a matter of – you have to feel it to heal it.
Dr Janet Williams is a trauma specialist working in the UK but now mainly online. Her doctoral research explored the biopsychosocial impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the systemic implications of intergenerational trauma.
She has run a successful Trauma Counselling Programme in Bath, UK, these past three years and is now making the 10-week programme available online to increase accessibility. She works with all types of trauma and has remarkable data evidencing the efficacy of the programme in a matter of weeks. Her work is founded on a deeply relational person-centred approach, with an eclectic mix of evidence-based techniques and a strong focus on the somatic experiences within the body.
