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What do I mean by Trauma Informed Supervision and Consultation?
I am a BACP; BABCP and EMDR accredited psychological therapist. I am also a fully qualified (having completed Levels 1,2 and 3) Internal Family Systems Therapist.
I am fully trained in and can therefore offer supervision in CBT; EMDR; IFS; Humanistic Integrative Psychological Therapy; Transpersonal Perspectives in Psychological Therapy. I am also trained in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) and Lifespan Integration Therapy (LI).
I have over 30 years of experience and expertise in working with clients with a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). I have a preference to name Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as Post Traumatic Stress Injury. This is because in order to get a diagnosis of PTSD or CPTSD there has to have been a traumatic event/injury.
Over the course of my career, I have also worked with and ongoing work with clients presenting with many other mental health presentations and diagnoses. In my experience most of the people I have worked with have been/are being psychologically or emotionally harmed or injured in some way. And/or they are attempting to live in a world that doesn’t fit/accommodate their needs.
From my observations and experience we are living in a world with increasing demands on our capacities on all levels. We have also all been part of the collective trauma of the Covid 19 pandemic.
In my work as a Trauma Informed Supervisor and Consultant, I integrate the essential principles of trauma informed care into the supervisory process both for the professional themselves and for their clients.
I work from the premise that trauma is an intrinsic part of the human condition. It shapes our inner worlds and the fabric of society.
By understanding and naming the impact of trauma on both a personal and collective level my hope is that we can foster more compassion and recognition of our interconnectedness.
Trauma permeates individuals, families, communities, and nations.
Collective traumas are shared psychological and emotional wounds that result from large-scale events or systemic oppression. These traumas shape collective identities and cultural memory, creating ripple effects across generations. Events such as the Holocaust; Slavery, Colonization and Genocide have left/are leaving enduring scars on entire populations and research is now showing that collective trauma can cause epigenetic changes.
I am imagining that most who are reading this website can relate to the collective traumas and impact of hearing about and/or being directly impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic; Terror Attacks; War; Adverse weather events; The rise in the cost-of-living; etc etc as having had an impact in some way on their threat/survival brains. (Covid 19 was the first time in recent history where all of us working in the caring professions without exception were working with the impact of a trauma that we were also experiencing ourselves). All of the above can have and has had an impact on many of us. It has meant that many people have needed/are needing to simply focus on ‘survival.’ This means many are consistently operating from a threat-based stance.
Some therapists and clients will have also experienced/be experiencing the impact of the above-named traumas (and/or others) as well as related additional trauma and/or separate traumas resulting from their biological gender; their gender identity; their ethnicity; their religion; their sexuality; their income; their mental health; their age; to name but a few marginalised groups. Within my work I see it as essential to hold awareness to this and to be consistently aware of my own privileges and differences as well as my relationship to power. One of the key principles of trauma informed practice/care is not to cause re traumatisation.
Therapists and clients may also be impacted by their own personal traumas from childhood/adolescence and/or adulthood.
Trauma informed supervision and consulting aims to create a safe and supportive environment for personal and professional growth for the practitioner and therefore their clients too. Vicarious trauma is not uncommon in mental health professionals, and I see a key part of my role as helping to recognise and prevent this.
I see it as vital to hold a multi-dimensional view of the system I am working with when working with a supervise/consultee. This means attuning my awareness to the clients system; the supervisees system; the therapeutic relationship; the supervisory relationship; and the wider system which could be organisational and/or environmental both individually and/or collectively. I equally see it as essential to hold and constantly be in relationship with how my own system as a supervisor is impacting the rest of the parts of the whole.
I give essential importance for professionals (and I fully include myself as supervisor and consultant) to be aware of their own experiences of trauma; how that impacts them; and how that might impact their work. And how that might change according to current life events; fatigue; self-care etc. This includes feeling traumatised by the material clients are bringing. I endeavour to hold a safe; supportive; non shaming space for professionals to share what is present for them personally and professionally in their work.
I also hold the value that professionals need to be aware of their own biases and particularly their own relationship with power; and their own societal and cultural privileges (or lack of) and how this may impact their work. These awarenesses (and others) are vital in working as a Trauma Informed Practitioner. I endeavour to hold due diligence in addressing these issues within a safe and non-shaming space.
