Trauma Service

The Trauma Service accept referrals from GPs, counsellors, IAPT services and other mental health or social care professionals.

The Trauma Service offer an introductory meeting which provides an opportunity for you to meet a member of the team, let them know about your current circumstances, and hear about their services. Following this, they offer an extended consultation over four sessions to understand the nature and impact of the trauma, using a trauma-informed psychoanalytic approach. They also explore the most suitable approach to treatment.

As part of the consultation they will work with you to construct a personalised package of care which may include:

• Trauma–informed psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• Specialist groups including a women’s group, a trauma-focused mentalisation-based therapy group, art therapy, a yoga for trauma group and a gardening therapy group
• A trauma psychoeducation group 
• Social work interventions or practical support from another team member
• Support from experts by experience – practitioners with lived experience
• A trauma information session for families, friends or professionals

They usually treat individuals, but occasionally see couples and families who have experienced traumatic events.

A trauma occurs when our usual way of coping and managing our day to day experiences is overwhelmed. It is frightening, and we feel helpless. Watch the video below to learn more. 

Visit the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust website to learn more about trauma.

• NCL Waiting Room: PTSD UK 

• NCL Waiting Room: The School of Life: 12 signs you might be suffering from C-PTSD

• NCL Waiting Room: Podcasts about trauma
• The Survivors Trust: Trauma
• International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation: Public Resources
• Psychology Today: Why Emotional Neglect Can Feel Like Abandonment
• Health Innovation: Trauma Informed Care

• YouTube: Trauma and the Nervous System: A Polyvagal Perspective
• YouTube: Understanding Pain in less than 5 minutes, and what to do about it!
• blueknot: Trauma and Memory Fact Sheets
• Zaks Dental: Trauma informed dental care

• Psychology Today: Life with dissociative identity disorder
• Psych Central: Dissociative identity disorder: 5 myths busted
• The Dissociative Initiative: About dissociation
• TST: Dissociation
• “I Wasn’t Created in a Therapy Room: My Experience of Dissociative Identity Disorder”

• Jane O’Rourke: Breathing Work

• The Survivors Trust: Dissociation

• Compassionate Mind 
• The Mighty: 8 Tips Complex Trauma Survivors Need to Know About Living With Chronic Suicidality
• The BMJ: Effect of exercise for depression: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

Many people who go to the Trauma Service have had previous contact with mental health services and are on a variety of medication, often at times of crisis. They have found that sometimes this means the medication is simply continued without a conversation ever happening with either a psychiatrist or a GP to see if this is still needed.

It is also important to note that coming off some medication (anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, benzodiazepines, many pain medications) can cause withdrawal. It is really important that a clear plan of slow reduction with support is implemented.

You are welcome to discuss this with your case manager or therapist and they may support you in having this discussion with your GP and / or psychiatrist. 

• NHS: The Benzodiazepine and Opiate Withdrawal Service (BOWS)
• The Pharmaceutical Journal: NICE has ‘failed to listen to patient evidence’ on prescription drug withdrawal, claims parliamentary group
• BJGP: Antidepressant withdrawal syndrome and its management
• TST: Dissociation 

• NCL Waiting Room: Podcasts about trauma
• I Weigh with Jameela Jamil: Podcast. Listen to the latest episode below

• NSPCC – Information about and how to report non-recent abuse

• Respect Phone Line: A service that works with perpetrators and survivors. There is a phone line you can use to have a conversation about your behaviour and/or your partners behaviour
• DFV Benchbook: Information about victims as alleged perpetrators
• The Duluth Model: Video’s helping to understand the power and control wheel
• How to tell if your partner is changing their behaviour [PDF]
• Womens Aid Survivors handbook

• Mental health and money advice: How the cost-of-living crisis might affect your mental health
• Debt Free Advice
• The Trussell Trust: Help through hardship helpline
• The Trussell Trust: Emergency food

• Survivors Voices
• The Survivors Trust
• Trauma Queen podcast
• Challenging Silences: Breaking Silences: Survivors, researchers and practitioners speak about Child Sexual Abuse
• The Flying Child – in person peer support groups and online creative writing
• Slice/Silence is a survivor-led space that offers a non-violent, non-pathologising alternative to psychiatric services. Watch the video below that tells the story of the beginnings of the project.

• What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

In this book Dr. Perry and Oprah Winfrey emphasise how early experiences shape who we become. They advocate shifting from blaming behavior to understanding what happened to us, offering hope for repairing relationships and living better lives.