Does anyone know about or have experience of techniques for recovering from trauma?

I've had a bit of EMDR and it seemed to work. I didn't have to talk about the trauma at all.
In fact I found it hard to trust the process for exactly that reason, it seemed too woo for me.
There's also OEI, which is an offshoot of EMDR. I've had a couple of sessions of that too and again, weirdly, it seems to work.
This site says:

"Unable to talk or use language

"OEI is also effective where a person cannot even bear or is unable to put into language the thoughts, feelings and sensations they are experiencing when they float back to the traumatic incident(s). With OEI they can merely bring up the memories without speaking and the healing can take place."

jasmine, it's great to hear that you have found someone who allowed you to heal from the damage done to you. it's very encouraging to hear that people do recover. Hope in itself is healing.

"..it's the relationship that heals" So, so true. It's the key to healing. I believe that my relationship with DH is what ultimately allowed me to recover and heal from the damage done by the trauma I suffered early on in life.

I second the recommendation for Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman. It will be in line with your thinking OP wrt the political, environmental and many other issues external to the victim that contribute to the trauma and that need addressing outside of the victim. The larger context seems to be missing from a lot of theories out there. The NICE guidelines recommend Trauma Based CBT (note that it 's different to the standard CBT and DOES involve retelling the story with a view to de sensitise us to the story) and EMDR.

I work in the field of trauma and have myself been through it, and am myself work in progress. Personally, I don't believe that there is a single technique that works for everyone. Its more important that you click with the therapist and feel met and understood.

The technique you mention earlier involving tapping sounds like EFT (emotional freedom technique). can be very powerful, again, it all depends on the relationship with the therapist because it's the relationship that heals.

Native Americans have some powerful techniques that have been used with Vietnam vets so it's worth checking out Shamanic healers but obviously, recommendation is necessary, I am not sure what professional registration is required for their field.

Talking to others who experienced a similar type of trauma can help too.

I wish you find the right healer/ therapist/ whatever works soon.

Another very good book I can recommend is Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herrmann. I thought it was one of the best books I have read on this subject.

Another recommendation for The Body Remembers here!

And also for EMDR. Not many NHS trusts offer it; can be easier to find privately. (Though check what types of trauma the therapist is experienced in working with.)

As for upsettingness, it varies a lot. The couple of others I know who have had it have also found it amazing.

My experience of it is that it gets right into the non-verbal stuff: imagery, feelings, that lies underneath everything else and it sorts things out from the emotional side first - whereas CBT tries to go from the intellectual side down which is not as effective for some.

If you are the sort of person who is used to living with clear repetitive images of stuff going round your head frequently (I was), EMDR can be a relief almost straight away, compared with just sitting around like that. Insights start to dawn, you will see things differently and it fades to become a far less charged memory. Things finally move rather than just being there all the damn time.

But if you are repressing or hiding from upsetting memories and finding them very hard to think about in detail, you need a lot more preparation work around things like constructing safe places to go to in your head when the EMDR work becomes too hard.

Following on from DeckThe's recommendation, I would recommend also The Body Never Lies by Alice Miller. It's not technical, more about how emotional memories are stored by the body even though the conscious mind may have 'forgotten' the traumatic event (s).

Thanks beachcomber for starting this thread, it's as if you read my mind. :)

Thanks also to everyone else who has been so supportive to me in various of my not exactly cunning guises over the years but especially recently. Will no doubt be back all too soon but deregistering (is that really a word?) for now.

I didn't mean to sound defensive. I apologise if i did.

Re Antonovski...what i take from it is not victim blaming, rather I try to help clients re frame events and their responses to and opinions towards. The sense Of Coherence 'model' can be very useful.

It can actually be used in an anti victim blaming manner when you look at how many women and men experiencing domestic violence will falsely 'ratiionalise' their 'role', blaming their own behaviour or environment for what is done to them.

A person does not have to go into any detail regarding traumatic events in order for a therapist to assess whether CBT is suitable.

For example if a client presented with negative self image, negative self talk and anxiety, all the therapist needs to know is that an 'abusive' relationship lies in the persons past or triggered the problems. We do not need to know the details and that is why CBT is only useful with certain issues.

If trust can be built over time, then that can allow for the safe discussion and treatment of trauma. True PTSD requires specialist treatment and support strategies for when clients are not in the therapy room.

What i find sad is the amount of trauma suffered by clients because of the psych system. Some of it due to poor explanation, some due to uncaring 'professionals' whom I would not allow to care for a rock if i had my way and some is 'historical'-clients who are old enough to have experienced horrid discredited practices.

Jasminerice

Good for you! It is a 'break through' in that your psyche was clearly telling you what you needed to do. Doctors are not equipped to 'do nothing' (as they see listening and being with). They only see 'dysfunction' and cannot take the approach that yours was a perfectly logical reaction.

Odd really when the medical Model itself accepts pain as a perfectly normal response to, and symptom of, physiological illness!

The best book I've read recently on treating trauma is The Body Remembers by Babette Rothschild.

It's aimed at practitioners rather than trauma survivors but is clear, with lots about the brain/nervous system stuff involved in trauma response and some helpful case studies showing how she works with trauma survivors.

Nursenic I think you talk a lot of sense. I experienced a terribly traumatic event as a child, when I was 10. I involuntarily repressed the memory and associated emotions for 25 years. Then the memory resurfaced but not the emotions. 5 years later, the emotions came out in the form of a 'nervous breakdown' as labelled by the doctor, but actually I see it as a 'breakthrough'.

I am a perfect example of a person where mental health issues are not the correct diagnosis, and actually I am reacting in a perfectly normal way to a terrifying experience I had as a child.

And we do not sit around applying Freudian concepts to our clients experiences.Most mental health work deals with practicalities of life-assisting chronically ill people with activities of daily life, giving them practical 'tools' to cope with voice hearing, problems of thought disorder, helping minimise social isolation and stigma. We carry out interventions such as Thorne nursing with suitable clients.

We use Maslow's model to ensure that eating, sleeping are prioritised and kept healthy because lack of sleep is a huge precipitor of relapse. We work with families to support them in supporting their loved ones.

We do work with clients to identify early warning signs of relapse. We help educate on medication and provide health promotion advice ensuring equality of access to primary health care like smears and dental health. We monitor medication, administer depot injections and monitor and educate on side effects. We constantly liaise with psychiatrists on all of this.

We do mountains of CPA paperwork. We arrange and attend review meetings regularly for the client and all involved. We refer to inpatient care when necessary and accompany and work with the inpatient staff to expediate a smooth transition home. We do post discharge monitoring, crisis intervention and assertive outreach. If a community client is imprisoned, in hospital or sent to a secure unit on the other side of the Uk, we still have to attend CPA reviews for that client wherever he is. Our paperwork is a legal document and is kept by the trust for at least 7 years as a legal minimum and longer. If it is not documented then legally it is deemed to have not been done and we have to be able to explain the evidence base and clinical rationale for every action/decision.

So, little time is spent on theoretical debating- what I call 'Psychological Masturbation' because we are too busy doing the real job of trying to keep our clients functioning as well as they possibly can in society.

We are morally and legally accountable and responsible for everything we do. We have to maintain our evidence base and practise research/evidence based nursing. We are accountable to the client/patient, their family, our employers, the Trust, the NHS, the NMC and society as a whole. We cannot go off and re start our practice elsewhere if we make an error or are unprofessional like some other unregistered 'therapists' can and do.

I don't think it has anything to do with resilience.

As a mental health professional I do address trauma and traumatic events but regarding what was stated by an earlier poster about traumatic events not being addressed in assessment interviews, that is not necessarily the right tima and place for it.

Trust and safety need to be built slowly. An admission of trauma or a suspicion on the part of the assessor may well lead to a discussion of the broad natgure of what the client/patient is experiencing but the intial assessment process is not the time for in depth work.

It really does take time-years sometimes for some clients to feel able to do the 'work'. And it is long, hard, emotional work for both client and 'professional' because a good professional is empathetically engaged and uses her own personality to foster forward movement and growth in her client.

And in my experience, most women presenting for help in psych services have trauma embedded in their lives.

As for the comment that CBT is not appropriate for trauma work because it goes over past traumatic events in a re lived manner-that is precisely what it does not do. It does not focus on more psycho analytic approaches. It deals with maladaptive thoughts, feelings and behaviours and seeks to change these for those more conducive to harmonious lived experiences.

The CMHT model of a ten week course of CBT is not suitable for many mental health problems. It is best for phobias, negative self talk, self esteem, anger management that kind of thing. I detest the way we are expected to push CBT as some kind of cure all gold standard. It takes several sessions for a good psych nurse to establish a good trusting rapport with her clients before starting the CBT work.

Antonovski says it is not what happens to us that causes us to topple but rather how we can make sense of what happens to us.

Not sure if this is answering the op but I find yoga good for stuff that is to do with the body. I am referring to trauma stuff but being intentionally vague. It has to be proper woo yoga though. No gym racing through shit - proper engaging the mind body and spirit stuff.

I'm glad this thread is bringing up "woo". I think energy work is very good for trauma.

I'd never heard of 'woo' until MN, when someone said it of cosmic ordering. Which works actually, although things like the backbone, integrity and £2million lottery win which I ordered ages ago are taking a long time to arrive :(

Don't really get reiki although I did the thing where you are supposed to be able to do it, first and bit of second level. I like yoga though, bit indirect but think it is more helpful than Tai Chi which they tried to make everyone do in hospital. Think I am back to the list of Positive Coping Things my cpn came up with orginally as ways to stave off misery.

Okay, if you're open to woo, dowsing can be helpful as well. Again it takes away without you having to be conscious of the trauma itself. And something else I can't remember the name of right now.

It's absolutely crucial that you trust the practitioner not to go further than you can cope with - some alternative/holistic therapies will recreate the feeling which can of course be traumatic if you're not able to deal with that directly. I know my mum had some shamanic healing from a "friend" where she felt pushed into it, and it really shook her up, for months in fact, it was bringing up feelings directly. It really affected the friendship too and she would get shaky when thinking about the person, they've recently got back in touch though.

It can be done long distance, yes. I don't know whether it's more effective if you're physically there, or whether that's slightly a placebo effect as it feels like it should be? I know that if anything is brought up it is better/safer to be with the practitioner so that they can work through it with you rather than you having to cope with it alone. I've also been affected when my mum has had substantial stuff coming up, which is weird, I don't always connect it at the time but the times always seem to tally. We are quite close. But it can be problematic if I don't know why I'm suddenly emotional about something or having some feelings come to the surface which I perhaps haven't thought about for months or even years.

On the "woo" word, I know that mum is really into the alternative/complementary therapies and would love to see a time when they are integrated into conventional medicine. She tends to see the science/provable things as "masculine" and the intuitive, "woo" things as more feminine and she says she thinks that is why they will not integrate unless things change quite a lot.