Retraumatisation and Unprocessed Trauma: Overcoming the Challenges

As therapists, can we prevent the onset of retraumatisation? How do we decode the symptomatology to detect early signs of retraumatisation, whether hidden or overt? These challenges are significantly multiplied if the client’s trauma response includes aversion to therapy and / or a higher propensity to revictimization.

In the context of unprocessed Trauma, while there is a large choice of efficacy-proven Trauma Therapy techniques – the challenges for a Trauma Therapist are manifold:

• The risk of retraumatisation is ever-present throughout the therapeutic journey
• Some clients may complain that therapy is ‘making them worse’
• Therapists themselves may feel frustrated at the slowness of progress or confused by the risk-taking or self-injurious behaviours exhibited by clients

This one-day workshop with acclaimed Trauma expert Miriam Taylor utilises experiential elements and case vignettes, to highlight the most important considerations for therapists in this context:

• How do we identify the initial signs of retraumatisation?
• How do we stay attuned to the ongoing nature of traumatic response and can we spot hidden retraumatisation?
• What are the aspects of revictimization, power and oppression we need to keep in mind and how do these relate to self-harm, risk and arousal
• How do we manage a phobia of therapy while working with parts and the internalised abuser?
• What exactly is relational retraumatisation and why is Traumatic Attachment relevant?
• The best ways of handling therapeutic backlash and understanding why retraumatisation is hard to avoid

About the speaker

Miriam Taylor is a British Gestalt psychotherapist (UKCP registered), supervisor and trainer who has been in private practice since 1995. Her background was in adult education before training as a counsellor and psychotherapist. She was clinical lead of a young peoples’ service and for several years worked in a specialist trauma service. Miriam’s particular interest is in the integration of trauma and the role of the body from a wide relational field perspective. She supports her work in part through her deep connection to the natural world and has undertaken a Wilderness Experience in the USA. She teaches in the UK and internationally, has been a trainer, Academic Consultant and examiner for Metanoia Institute, London, and is on the Leadership Team of Relational Change. Publications include her book  ‘Trauma Therapy and Clinical Practice: Neuroscience, Gestalt and the Body’ 2014, and several peer reviewed and invited articles. Her second book ‘Deepening Trauma Practice’ is due in mid-2021.

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