Psychoeducation

Understanding Trauma and Its Effects

Psychoeducation is a vital part of our work. By sharing knowledge, we support both survivors and professionals to better understand the impact of trauma.

Our resources and sessions include:

  • Trauma and Memory: Explaining why trauma can affect how survivors recall events, and why this should not undermine their credibility.
  • Mental Health and Asylum: Understanding conditions such as PTSD and Complex PTSD in the context of asylum claims.
  • Creating Safe Spaces: Guidance for legal representatives and support workers on preparing clients for medico-legal assessments.
  • Practical Resources: Information sheets, guides, and workshops tailored for survivors, legal teams, and healthcare providers.

By equipping people with knowledge, we reduce stigma, strengthen cases, and promote recovery.

For psychoeducational support, please contact our dedicated wellbeing team at:

https://umattercounselling.org/psychoeducation/

PTSD

The main symptoms of PTSD are:

  • Reliving the traumatic event through distressing, unwanted memories, nightmares or flashbacks. This can also include physical reactions when the memory of a traumatic event comes to mind, for example, heart palpitations or feeling unable to breathe.
  • Avoiding reminders of the traumatic event – including activities, places, people, thoughts or feelings that bring back memories of the trauma.
  • Negative thoughts and emotions – such as fear, anger, guilt, or feeling flat or numb. A person may blame themselves or others for what happened during or after the traumatic event, feel cut-off from friends and family, or lose interest in day-to-day activities.
  • Feeling on edge or wound-up – this might mean having trouble sleeping or concentrating, feeling angry or irritable, taking risks, being easily startled, or being constantly alert for danger.
  • It is common for people with PTSD to experience other mental health problems as well, such as depression or anxiety. Some people may overuse alcohol or drugs as a way of coping.

Complex PTSD

Complex PTSD may be diagnosed in adults or children who have repeatedly experienced or witnessed traumatic events, such as violence, neglect or abuse. Complex PTSD is thought to be more severe if:

  • the traumatic events happened early in life
  • the trauma was caused by a parent or carer
  • the person experienced the trauma for a long time
  • the person was alone during the trauma
  • there’s still contact with the person responsible for the trauma

Adults with complex PTSD may lose their trust in people and feel separated from others.

 

What are the main Symptoms of Complex PTSD?

The symptoms of complex PTSD are similar to symptoms of PTSD, but may also include:

  • feelings of shame or guilt
  • difficulty controlling your emotions
  • periods of losing attention and concentration (dissociation)
  • physical symptoms, such as headaches, dizziness, chest pains and stomach aches
  • cutting yourself off from friends and family
  • relationship difficulties
  • destructive or risky behaviour, such as self-harm, alcohol misuse or drug abuse
  • suicidal thoughts

Credit to Trauma Training.

What is Trauma

Trauma

Emotional and psychological trauma can result from extraordinarily stressful events that impact your sense of security, often leaving you feeling helpless in a now dangerous world. Psychological trauma can lead to upsetting emotions, memories, and anxieties that do not seem to go away. You can also be left feeling numb, disconnected, and unable to trust other people.

While traumatic experiences often involve a threat to life or safety, any situation that leaves you feeling overwhelmed and isolated can lead to trauma, even if physical harm is not directly involved. It is not the objective circumstances that determine whether an event is traumatic, but rather an individual’s subjective emotional experience of the event. The more frightened and helpless a person feels, the more likely they are to be traumatised.

Anxiety

We like to say that anxiety is largely about “fake news.” The person is in a situation that is not a threat to their life, yet their brain is sending out the message that there is such a threat – and it releases hormones that put the person’s body into flight or fight mode.

The most common treatment for anxiety in the UK is CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy). However, this tends to have only limited success for many people. We believe that there are two main reasons for this

  • There may be an underlying problem (possibly a trauma) that is feeding the anxiety, and until this is addressed the anxiety is likely to return or continue.
  • Anxiety is often illogical; you act as if there is a life-threatening situation, when there is none. As it is often llogical, it frequently does not respond well to the logical arguments of CBT. Instead, you need to use counterintuitive methods to combat anxiety.

Credit to Trauma Training.

Depression

Depression is a complex condition;  its causes are not fully understood. However, various contributing factors can lead to depression. These can include biological factors (for example, genetics or experience of physical illness or injury) and psychological or social factors (experiences dating back to childhood, unemployment, bereavement, or life-changing events such as pregnancy). Having a long-standing or life-threatening illness, such as heart disease, back pain or cancer, has been associated with an increased risk of depression.

Approximately 1 in every 6 people (more than 15%) living in England Scotland and Wales experience a common mental health disorder each week, with 3.3% of adults (16 and over) estimated to experience depression each week.

Unexplained Physical Pain

It has been said that “pain is not pain until it reaches the brain.” While pain is not all in your head, part of it is. Advances in brain imaging technology are resulting in a better understanding of pain – and how complex the process pain is.  It is affected by all kinds of changes in the brain, including sensory, structural, chemical, cognitive and emotional changes.

Chronic pain can change how the brain processes pain, and this, in turn, can lead to an increase in its intensity. The brain’s ability to transform in response to chronic pain helps us to understand that our reactions may also be altered due to changes in our brain – so it is partly in our heads!

Pain, whether new or chronic, can make life very difficult at times. Pain is an invisible and subjective experience – there are no objective tests to measure pain. This can make it difficult for doctors, family and friends to understand your experience.