Counselling for trauma, bereavement and loss in Brighton and Hove

Trauma, bereavement and loss can often overlap in peoples’ lives.

Trauma is a word that clients do not use lightly but find that, once named, comes to fit their experience and how they need to express it. That experience may be a single dramatic event, like the loss through death of a loved one, or a series of experiences that build up over a period. Both can impact at the core of the person’s physical being and psyche and influence how they respond to others and the world in multiple ways. This can be felt strongly in intimate and personal relationships, as well as in subtle but troubling ways in everyday life.

All people have a fight, flight or freeze response that helps us manage danger and challenges in life, but trauma often leads us to skew and exaggerate danger and confuses our ability to cope with subsequent experiences. It will be important to gently explore the roots of your experience, and support you to express difficult feelings in safe and manageable ways.

Counselling for trauma, bereavement and loss in Brighton and Hove

My experience of working with people who have experienced loss and bereavement is often marked by their need to step away from family or loved ones and speak to someone outside of their immediate circle. Expressing the strong feelings of missing or losing something or someone special can feel overwhelming. That experience may be the loss of a parent, family member, child or partner. It can also relate to the loss of a job, position and reputation that impacts on your self esteem and confidence.

It will be important for you to feel safe in the counselling room to explore what are likely to be difficult feelings, and work through the everyday felt process of coming to terms with the loss. This needs to be done at your pace and in a way that respects the depth of the feelings you are experiencing.