Trauma what it is - Samantha Merry

Trauma

Trauma is one of the most common reasons people seek therapy, and one of the most misunderstood. It isn’t limited to combat or catastrophic events. It develops in families, in relationships, and in the accumulation of experiences that were too much, too soon, or too often, particularly when they happened in childhood and inside the relationships that were supposed to provide safety.

What Trauma Is

Trauma describes the lasting psychological impact of experiences that overwhelmed your capacity to cope at the time. That might be a single acute event, a road accident, an assault, a sudden bereavement, or it might be the cumulative effect of chronic relational stress, abuse, neglect, or emotional unavailability over many years. Both are real. Both deserve attention.

Common responses to trauma include:

Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or nightmares
Avoiding people, places, or situations that feel connected to the experience
Persistent hypervigilance, feeling on edge, startling easily, difficulty relaxing
Emotional numbing, a flatness or disconnection from feeling
Difficulty sleeping, concentrating, or functioning in ordinary ways
Shame, self-blame, and a persistent sense of being damaged or different

These are normal responses to abnormal experiences. They reflect a nervous system that learned to stay prepared for threat that, in the original context, was entirely real.

Developmental and Complex Trauma

When trauma begins in childhood, particularly when it involves the people responsible for your care, its effects tend to reach further and run deeper than single-incident trauma. This is often called developmental trauma or complex trauma, and it can include:

Emotional, physical, or sexual abuse
Neglect, including emotional neglect where physical needs were met but psychological ones weren’t
Growing up with a parent whose behaviour was unpredictable, frightening, or shaped by addiction or mental illness
Witnessing domestic violence
Prolonged bullying or humiliation

Because this kind of trauma happens inside attachment relationships, it doesn’t only leave memories. It shapes the nervous system, the internal working models of self and others, and the relational patterns that persist into adulthood. You may find yourself struggling to trust others, feeling chronically on edge, managing emotions with difficulty, or carrying a pervasive sense of shame without a clear understanding of where it comes from.

Complex trauma that develops over time can lead to Complex PTSD, a presentation that goes beyond the symptom clusters of single-incident PTSD to include significant difficulties with emotional regulation, self-perception, and relationships.

How Trauma Affects Relationships

Trauma that developed in relationships tends to resurface in them. Difficulty trusting others, a hypervigilance to shifts in mood or tone, a pull toward familiar but painful dynamics, or a tendency to withdraw before intimacy becomes threatening, all of these are common responses to early relational trauma. They made complete sense in the original context. In adult relationships, they can create significant difficulty and confusion.

Dissociation

Many people who have experienced trauma also experience dissociation, a disconnection between aspects of themselves that would normally be integrated. This can range from mild experiences, losing track of time or feeling briefly unreal, to more sustained disconnection from identity, memory, or the body. You can read more about dissociation and how I work with it on the dissociation page.

How I Work With Trauma

My work with trauma is rooted in relational psychodynamic therapy, informed by attachment theory and structural dissociation theory. I work with the full range of trauma presentations, from single-incident PTSD through to complex trauma, developmental trauma, and dissociative disorders including DID.

The work is relational and paced carefully. We don’t excavate the past for its own sake or push toward material before you’re ready. We pay attention to what’s present, in the room and in your body, and we work with what surfaces at a pace your nervous system can tolerate. The therapeutic relationship itself is central to the process, because trauma that developed in relationships tends to heal inside them too.

I also offer clinical supervision to therapists working with trauma and dissociation, including those encountering complex presentations for the first time.

If you’d like to explore whether working together might be a good fit, I’d be glad to have an initial conversation. Get in touch at samanthamerry.co.uk/contacts.