Clinical Psychologist- Complex Trauma Therapist

• ​Complex PTSD: having experienced a pattern of abusive behaviour, including physical, emotional, sexual and/or severe neglect, especially in childhood. An abusive relationship, even later on in life, can lead to CPTSD. Symptoms that can signal CPTSD could be: persistent low mood, anxiety and state of constant alert, emotional dysregulation, flashbacks, difficulties in trusting others, dissociation from the body/reality as a form of protection, depersonalisation (not feeling in your body), derealisation (not feeling that the world is real). Having experienced CPTSD can severely affect someone's mental state and the ability to function, but often finding the courage to trust someone for help is very challenging that is why is very important to find the therapist that make you feel safe enough to be vulnerable.  

 

• Bipolar disorder: alternating period of depression with times of mania or hypomania, sometimes with psychotic features. In my experience, often people experiencing bipolar disorder have a history of CPTSD that has been neglected by mental health professional. Working with a therapeutic approach that try to make meaning of symptoms withing your life history can have positive long lasting effects. 

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• Border Personality Disorder: intense emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, difficulties in maintaining  relationship and/or keep a job, intense fear of abandonment, self harming of various nature, very often history of traumatic upbringing. BPD is a very stigmatizing diagnosis in our society and there is not enough knowledge and compassion around people experiencing these severe symptoms. 

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• Psychosis: hallucination and delusions, paranoia, fear, anxiety and social isolation. There is an increasing consensus in seeing trauma as a triggering factor in developing psychosis in predisposed individuals.  

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• Severe anxiety including palpitation, breathing difficulties, vertigo, nausea, panic attacks feeling like heart attacks, dissociation, lost of control over your body and mind. Very scary, especially the first time you experience it. 

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• Persistent depression: low mood with helplessness and hopelessness, disordered eating and sleeping, suicidal thought and feeling of being a burden of the loved ones.