Trauma Aware Coaching - Childhood adversity and the latest perspectives on recovery
Hi and welcome to trauma aware coaching. I work with adults who have experienced multiple childhood difficulties and want to try a coaching approach to healing and recovery.
I also give talks and presentations based on my research into childhood adversities and how they develop across the lifespan. The essence of my work as a speaker and coach is how "psychology as usual", or clinical psychology can be best combined with positive psychology to support healing and sustained mental health recovery.
This means that as well as being interested in understanding how trauma leads to a range of difficulties... negative automatic thinking, suicidal thoughts, low mood, anxiety and stress, I'm also interested in the positive variables that support wellbeing... character strengths like kindness and love of learning, and positive emotions like joy and inspiration.
In my approach I bring the the positive and negative together... an equal understanding of the in's and out's of depression, and the in's and out's of flourishing. Always keeping in mind the context of ACEs.
I believe, that all too often positive variables aren't understood well enough in mental health treatment. When they are explored, it is perhaps too often met with difficulty and resistance. Instead of abandoning deep understanding of positive variables, I advocate instead, an equal understanding of both sides of the coin. This includes how they interact with one another, what comes first and when, how a change in one leads to change in the other. I see trauma aware coaching as a kind of dynamic and fluid inclusion of positive and negative variables in way that fosters positive growth towards lowered negative symptoms and increased positive ones.
My wish is to end the mental health crisis.
When I say trauma-aware I mean the chain of events that tend to unfold after Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs are defined as extreme, traumatic, or repetitive stressful events such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, and exposure to household dysfunctions like alcoholism, substance abuse, or a suicide attempt (Anda et al., 2006). Basically, the kinds of things that would cause a child to have to cope, adapt, and survive in various ways.
The influences of ACEs throughout the lifespan - the ways of thinking, feeling, and relating that develop - offer a compelling explanation for the mental health crisis. Greater awareness of how societal and environmental factors cause this process provides greater opportunity for acceptance, understanding, empathy, and equality.
What does Trauma-aware mean?
After experiencing childhood adversity, adults have increased chances of developing alcoholism (Dube et al., 2002), drug abuse, self-harm, suicidal ideation (Dube et al., 2003), depression, obesity, smoking, poor self-rated health, and low physical exercise (Felitti et al., 1998). In essence, a whole range of coping, self-medication, and self-support. This is taken on at different opportune moments in teens and young adulthood, using whatever is available and palpable to the self at each age. Before long, so many coping and surviving approaches are built upon one another that it's hard to make sense of it all.
About Me
Alongside my trauma informed work, I've been creating and running on-line businesses for over a decade which continue to grow. One, wisegoals.com, supports over 100,000 visitors a year in choosing their goals carefully and patiently, so that motivation is sustainable and wellbeing isn't disregarded. Another supports schools and educators with resources.
For decades I've been writing about and researching goals from many angles, particularly moving away from a success framework. Goals for happiness, contribution goals and goals in tricky relationships for example. This experience supports my trauma aware work because the idea of goals has usually been tainted by our success-obsessed society and has been turned into yet another club we feel we don' belong in. My expertise is in the fundamentals of motivation and how and when goals work and don't work when past-trauma is in the mix
My work can be considered to be bringing those, like me, with childhood adversities, who are coping with the impact as adults, a little closer to the psychology in area's such as hope, character strengths, meaning in life, self-efficacy, change processes, and growth mindset. I can do this in a way that bypasses the risks of toxic positivity, holding the hard parts with the useful parts.
Taken alongside my awareness and experience of trauma's impact, this provides you with a uniquely balanced and nuanced approach to recovery.
TESTIMONIALS
From my clients
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