Crisis and Trauma

Crisis and trauma are very often denied, and usually through comparison. Most people who come to me about it have spent a long time explaining it away first.

What people tell themselves

Each of those sounds reasonable, and each is a way of keeping the problem small enough to carry on. The first is the one I most want to answer directly. Someone, somewhere, always has it worse, and that has never made your own crisis any smaller. Your crisis or trauma is the biggest challenge in your life. What one person can manage, another finds overwhelming, and neither is wrong. It does not have to be the worst thing that has happened to anyone to be worth talking about.

Crisis, and trauma

The two are related, and they are not the same thing.

A crisis is a time of intense difficulty: an accident, an assault, a death, a diagnosis, a disaster, a betrayal, the sudden loss of income or security. In a crisis the need is immediate and practical. The first task is not to understand it, but to find the safest way through the next hours and days.

Trauma is what it can leave behind. Gabor Maté puts it well: trauma is less about what happens to you than about what happens inside you as a result. That is why two people can go through the same event and be affected very differently, and why it is never a measure of who is stronger.

A crisis can also turn into trauma when it does not end: when what follows is long, painful and unsupported.

When it builds slowly

Not every crisis arrives as a single event. Sometimes the first exposure is small, and it escalates so gradually that the rise in intensity is not obvious from the inside. People become slowly desensitised. You might begin to distrust your own thoughts with a controlling partner, or find that financial or other dependence makes it harder to see the situation for what it is.

If that sounds like something you are living with, it does not mean you should have seen it sooner. It is how this tends to work.

Naming it

Calling something a crisis, or traumatic, often takes tremendous courage. That courage deserves to be recognised, and I acknowledge it openly. It is met with kindness and validation, and then with care about safety: understanding your situation first, and working out with you the safest way forward.

A personal process

Experiences can look alike from one person to the next, but each person who asks for help should receive a process suited to their own situation, experience and needs, and to the outcome they want. I do not work from a standard programme.

Where I come from

Years ago, at the young age of 34, I had a flying accident. It was a crisis, and the loss that followed made it a prolonged traumatic experience: two months in intensive care, another three in a recovery ward, more than twenty procedures in theatre, months and years of acute and chronic pain, and the loss of abilities, of identity, of plans for the future, of what I could do with my children, and of certain dreams. I believe much of that could have been eased, had I asked for help earlier and found effective counselling and therapy.

I have also worked with people through crisis and trauma at a safe house for domestic violence and human trafficking, and in treatment centres with people affected by physical, emotional and sexual abuse. In my practice I see people in relationships with abusive partners, people who have been assaulted, people grieving the loss of loved ones, and families affected by addiction.

Small things that help while you decide

An overview from SACAP, a college where I studied, describes ordinary things that help in the first days and weeks. They are not treatment, only support:

• Look after the immediate needs first: being safe, eating, sleeping, and having somewhere steady to be
• Reach out to someone you trust instead of carrying it alone
• Let the feelings be there, without judging them or rushing them
• Slow your breathing, or ground yourself by noticing what you can see, hear and touch around you
• Keep a simple daily routine, and put your attention on what is within your control
• Notice when it is more than you can carry alone — that is the moment to ask for help

You can read the whole overview here: SACAP — How to deal with crisis and trauma.

When it needs more

Trauma can develop into conditions such as PTSD, which are diagnosed and treated by a psychologist or psychiatrist. If that is what will help you most, I will tell you so plainly and help you find the right person. However, who you choose to work with remains your own decision.

In person or online

Sessions are at my practice in Stellenbosch, or online by Zoom. In person can feel safer and more connected, but it is not essential. I have worked with people online, especially where they have family or other support around them. The practical details are on the FAQ page.

Getting in touch

Send me a message by email, WhatsApp or the contact form. You do not have to explain it well, or decide what to call it. “Something happened” is enough to start with.

Talking commits you to nothing — not a course of sessions, not a decision about anyone else, not a change to anything in your life.

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