Your therapist will be trained in the specialised skills of traumatology, and be experienced in treating PTSD.
They provide a safe, structured process creating the space and holding for you to make sense of what has happened, help restore your well-being, and move forward in your life.
You will need to commit time and energy to the process, during and between sessions, and be willing to gently and carefully explore aspects of your history and its impact on your life and perhaps relationships.
For your safety you will be asked to enter into a contractual agreement to ensure the therapeutic process is given enough sessions to leave you with choice and control in your life.
Therapists follow the NICE guidelines (see resources), which ensure your treatment is evidence based and tailored to you.
Your therapist will understand any drug regime you are on, and be able to liaise with other health professionals, such as your doctor or psychiatrist, to ensure the best combination of treatments.
Assessment is emphasised in order for the process to be safe and informed. Both interviews and questionnaires are used to give a full picture. Once this is clear the therapist can give you an approximate estimate of the number of sessions required, the type of techniques that may be employed, with full explanation so you can make an informed choice about your commitment.
Before any deep exploration of your history, you will learn ‘safety’ skills, called ‘containment and stabilisation’. These ensure your psychological safety, and avoid re-traumatisation.
You will learn ways of thinking, feeling and acting that will help you calm yourself, find ‘safe space’, and reduce the harmful effects of flashbacks and intrusive thoughts and feelings.
‘Grounding’ techniques will help draw your awareness away from anxiety about the past and fear of the future by anchoring you in the ‘here and now’. You will learn mindfulness and many other tools to help encourage you into the present.
These therapeutic tools have been researched for many years with many different types of PTSD and your situation will be matched to the evidence-based best ones.
All techniques have the aim of building a coherent narrative of events that makes sense to you, integrating as many aspects as possible. The process of building the narrative allows your mind to eventually come to terms with the event(s) and make them part of history, allowing you to get on with your life free from intrusion.
Where there have been more than one event, this process can take longer to deal with the complexities of the experiences and their effects.
Chiron takes an integrative and person-centered approach to trauma and recovery. You will be involved in ‘understanding’ first, and then ‘processing’. This ensures you will not be overwhelmed by trauma memories, and more able to integrate them into the coherent narrative.