Brad Peters has years of experience helping people understand and work through the long-term impact of 'relational trauma.'

This may include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Many of such cases identify a particular relationship, such as in child abuse or spousal abuse. Moreover, most psychologists view child neglect, whether it is physical or emotional, as a form of abuse.

The impact of abuse can be long-lasting and traumatizing. It can affect our ability to experience and express various feelings, leading to longstanding emotional problems. It can also negatively impact how we see ourselves and how we view and approach relationships with others.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

An experience is considered traumatic when the residual effects linger long after the initial event(s). With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, for example, the traumatic event is re-experienced through images, thoughts, dreams, flashbacks, or physiological distress. An individual may also experience psychological or physiological distress when exposed to reminders of the traumatic event. Avoidance can also play a part. An individual may avoid thoughts, feelings, conversations, memories, activities, places, or people associated with the trauma. While this can relieve immediate feelings of anxiety or distress, it may perpetuate it long term. Such responses can additionally impact meaningful relationships with others.

Complex PTSD

While not a 'formal' diagnostic disorder, clinicians and clients alike have greatly benefited from Pete Walker's description of Complex PTSD (Cptsd). Walker argues that extended periods of abuse or neglect in childhood, will create trauma responses that are hard to undo.

"Cptsd is a more severe form of Post-truamatic stress disorder. It is delineated from this better known trauma syndrome by five of its common and troublesome features: emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, a vicious inner critic and social anxiety" - Pete Walker

Those suffering from Cptsd often have intense, exaggerated, and reflexive responses to danger. This may involve a tendency to: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Although they are typically adaptive in the situation from which they developed, they can cause problems later in life. Sadly, those caught in this cycle are still coping as opposed to thriving.

Brad has integrated the Cptsd model into his own therapy work. Both he and his clients have found it incredibly helpful. In fact, Pete Walker's Book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, is one of the few books that Brad commonly recommends to clients. It is a 'heavy' read for some people, but well worth the effort.

Therapy for Trauma

Brad has experience working with survivors of trauma and will tailor interventions to suit the specific needs of his clients. He works within a logically informed and science-based model of practice that may include Cognitive-Behavioral and Short-Term Psychodynamic or Emotion-Focused Therapies. Brad's approach to trauma therapy is also strongly influenced by Attachment Theory.

It is especially important for therapist and client to develop a good rapport when addressing trauma. The client needs to feel safe to talk about their experiences without being overwhelmed or fearful of judgment. It can be hard work, though clients usually benefit from an exploration and reprocessing of trauma. This may include how past experiences impact present functioning and current relationship patterns.

Recommended Reading

The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma & Trauma Treatment (Babette Rothschild)

With lucid detail, the author describes Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and the very real impact of trauma, abuse, and prolonged stress on the body. The reverberating effects of trauma are the intense psychophysiological reactions responding to unresolved feelings. The trauma has yet to be consolidated into long-term memory. It instead remains alive and active in the present here and now. The author suggests ways of moving past the anxiety response, addressing the real feelings of trauma. In time, it becomes nothing more than a bad memory.

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists (Boon, Steele & van der Hart)

Aimed toward therapists and clients, this book explains many of the symptoms underlying PTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), and the lingering effects of psychological trauma. The authors describe trauma related dissociation in a clear language. They also provide skills-based approaches that can help to minimize involuntary numbness, depersonalization, amnesia, losing track of time, self-harm, and more. The goal is to circumvent these self-defeating reflexes to allow the body to reintegrate threatening psychophysiological states.