What happens when you have suffered a wound so profound in your life that it becomes difficult to distinguish whether the impact occurred in the past or is still lurking around every corner?
In medical terms, trauma is defined as a lasting injury caused by an external mechanical agent.
Similarly, in psychological terms, trauma refers to a wound inflicted by external influences. These experiences are typically characterized as unexpected events in our lives that are so profoundly disturbing they overwhelm, at least temporarily, our internal resources. People who experience significant threats to their psychological integrity can suffer just as deeply as those whose traumas stem from life-threatening physical injuries.
These wounds may have been inflicted during childhood or could have occurred under catastrophic circumstances later in life.
Although our brains share a more or less universal programming (common to other animals) for responding to life-threatening events through fight, flight, or freeze reactions, not everyone develops the same adaptive responses afterward. Some individuals go on to experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
PTSD is primarily associated with events involving death, violence, or sexual abuse. The individual may have been a direct victim of such an event or affected by its consequences for someone close to them. PTSD is characterized by spontaneous sensory memories of the event, difficulties recalling certain aspects of it, avoidance behaviors, and sometimes feelings of detachment and social withdrawal.
In the treatment of post-traumatic stress, there is broad agreement across therapeutic approaches on the importance of revisiting these unresolved past events with extreme care and within a safe context. This process aims to facilitate closure and foster potential post-traumatic growth by restoring the individual’s ability to connect with themselves, others, and their environment in the here-and-now.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
I invite you to get to know me and decide if I could be a good companion on the road.
within Reach
About me and how my practice offers mental health care to bring a sense of home to nationals and internationals.
Before we meet
Practical information before you start your therapeutic process so we can establish the boundaries of our relationship.
Here-and-now
The bridge between the different forms of human suffering we face and the therapeutic support to alleviate it.
Our next
Once your need for support has been addressed, you can decide which setting seems most appropriate for you to begin your journey to feeling better.
Psychology within Reach
Vuurvlindersingel, 403
3544 DB Utrecht
Netherlands
Phone +31 30 636 8981 info@psychologywithinreach.com
Mon.-Fri.– 9 am – 7:30 pm
