The Cheltenham Centre for Relationship & Trauma Therapy

Related Clinical Guides

• Clinical Guide 2 - Why do I keep ending up in Toxic Relationships
• Clinical Guide 3 – Why do I fear that others will always leave me? The terrifying Threat of Abandonment.
• Clinical Guide 4 – Why do I have such low self esteem and feel so anxious around other people?

The Foundation Guide explains the developmental understanding that underpins all of our Clinical and Practice Guides.

You do not need to read it all at once. Use the headings below to explore the sections that are most relevant to you, or follow the links above to go to our more focused Clinical Guides:

Contents:

• A brief introduction.
• Why infant experiences shape our adult relationships.
  • How is there a relationship between how I feel now and my early life?
• How does attachment theory relate to how I feel now?
• How can I have confidence that I will feel better?
  • Neuroplasticity and evidence based practice.
  • Why do I feel and relate as I do? – the relationship between early experience, feelings and behaviour.
• Why are trauma and relationship difficulties relevant to who I am?
  • Past trauma experience and how it shapes our present being.
  • How come my feelings don’t reflect my present?
  • Why have I become who I am but don’t want to be? – understanding patterns and the creation and role of our defences
  • How do our minds develop – why do I behave as I do?
  • How childhood trauma and complex PTSD affects trust and relationships – a trauma scale.
  • Why do I find it so difficult to trust others and believe I am judged negatively?
  • How is my early life experience relevant to my difficult couple relationships?
  • The trap of negative beliefs about yourself and your unmet needs
• Why is my infant trauma so important in understanding my adult behaviour?
  • Infant trauma becomes adult assumption (about the world)
  • Where our feelings originate.
• The developmental needs of a child and the origins of childhood trauma: how this comes to form the basis of our relational world and relational patterns.
  • Why is fear related to trauma and my feelings of worth about myself in my world?
• What is the relationship between experience, feelings and behaviour and why is early life so important to who I am?
  • The neuroscience of early life – the formation of our assumptions about self in the world.
  • Why do I have these awful feelings all the time? part 1: we are just a bunch of chemicals.
  • Why do I have these awful feelings all the time? part 2: the neuroscience.
• A summary of the journey from infant trauma to adult difficulty.
• How do you help me to feel better?
  • Working with unprocessed childhood trauma at CCRTT: resolving unhelpful relationship patterns.

HOW EARLY LIFE TRAUMA AFFECTS TRUST AND RELATIONSHIPS.

AN EXPLANATION FOR COUPLES, FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS OF RELATIONSHIP PATTERNS, ATTACHMENT & TRAUMA (and its presentation in adolescence and adulthood).

Have you ever wondered:

• Why do I keep ending up in unhappy relationships?
• Why do I feel anxious even when everything seems fine?
• Why do I need reassurance from people I love?
• Why do I struggle to trust others?
• Why do the same arguments keep happening?

Many people come to therapy asking these and other similar questions.

Often the answer lies not in what is happening today, but in the way earlier experiences shaped our expectations of ourselves, other people and relationships.

The Cheltenham Centre for Relationship and Trauma Therapy (CCRTT) exists to help you to unravel this conundrum and resolve these often painful difficulties.

Why infant experiences shape our adult relationships.

This first guide represents the overarching framework from which we work with clients where life has ceased to work. Where the experience of daily life has become so intolerable, the feelings so difficult and it is so difficult to understand what is happening.

Our experience, the theoretical concepts and the neuroscientific evidence is that: recurring relationship patterns are usually expressions of failures and difficulties, often experienced as childhood trauma and complex PTSD (CPTSD), in past developmental relationships from infancy onwards that have shaped our perceptions of, and feelings toward, others. Throughout this guide, the term early life trauma includes experiences during infancy and childhood that shape trust, attachment, emotional development and later relationships.

This core purpose is to create a greater awareness for you of how the relational difficulties that you encounter first came to exist. You will often not be aware of how it is that difficult and uncomfortable feelings and behaviour patterns exist and happen for you. Our purpose is to help you to greater understanding and in that awareness to feel comfortable with yourself and others.

How is there a relationship between how I feel now and my early life?

This guide will summarise what Early Life Trauma and Complex PTSD means, the developmental implications and the relevance to relationship difficulties in adolescence and adulthood for both individuals and in couple relationships: how the trauma experience of childhood lies unprocessed in the mind of the adult.

Such patterns generally lie at the heart of our relationship difficulties whether, for example, romantic, family, friends, workplace. You may be particularly wondering why you keep encountering the same problems with romantic relationships; perhaps it might be how is it that my family constantly descends into terrible arguments; or perhaps how come I always feels so inadequate and insignificant when I am with others, how come I am so awkward and uninteresting.

Here at CCRTT we work with you to uncover the route of these uncomfortable feelings that can so blight lives and walk together into a brighter future. And we have a great track record in doing so.

How does attachment theory relate to how I feel now?

The conceptual description of the quality of childhood care known as ‘Attachment Theory’ researched by John Bowlby and his team in the mid-1960s is now an accepted element of the impact of that quality on personality development.

In particular, such terms as the original ‘secure attachment’, ‘insecure-resistant’ and ‘insecure avoidant’ attachment symptomologies have now been joined by descriptors such as ‘anxious attachment’ ‘disorganised attachment’ and ambiguous attachment’. Through his research he was able to show the significant impact of the differing quality of response from the primary caregiver to the differing developmental outcomes as an adult of the infant.

In this Clinical Guide the content is largely based on an expanded clinical understanding of Bowlbys theory as demonstrated by the evidence provided from neuroscientific research. Research that demonstrates the impact, in particular, of uncertainty, fear and anxiety created in the developing mind of the infant. Responses that themselves varied from appropriate and caregiving to dismissive, ignoring and variable. The responses of the caregiver too are consistent with their own developmental experience.

The implications to generational trends of relational patterns has been important in the work of CCRTT in helping clients to understand and reconcile with their parents and also with partners in couple relationships. A clearer understanding of the implications to relational difficulties of these complicated relational patterns can help develop a more compassionate understanding of the difficulties for some caregivers in their ability to respond appropriately to the needs of the infant.

How can I have confidence that I will feel better?

Until recently there was only qualitative evidence for the benefits of therapy in healing mental health difficulties.

Scientists now have a much greater understanding of the precise workings of each area of the brain in minute detail. Through neural imaging they have been able to observe the way in which neurons connect through their dendrites. Each connection represents a new or reinforcing experience and there are trillions of them.

Neuroplasticity and evidence-based practice.

What is perhaps most amazing and helpful for Therapists and clients alike is the significant advances in neuro-scientific research. This has meant that we now have the reassurance that our work is both clinically and scientifically evidence based. For example: the work on neuroplasticity demonstrates that neuron patterns formed in childhood can be changed through giving the mind different experiences.

This results in the old patterns (neuron connections) being ‘pruned’ and new patterns being formed creating a new more beneficial set of assumptions for and about ourselves in the world. In turn, the horrible feelings from which you may suffer that presently seem to be inescapable, and which result from our old assumptions of the world, will dissipate.

The therapist will clarify with you the source of your unhelpful patterns that are biologically represented in our mind by specific neural connections and in that clarity will work with you as you explore different ways of being that aim to change the neural connections and therefore your unhelpful patterns; the way we work therapeutically with individuals is covered in greater depth in our Practice Guide 2 here.

Why do I feel and relate as I do? – the relationship between early experience, feelings and behaviour.

Feelings can be very confusing especially as they exist both in the present, consciously, and from the past in our unconscious. What we mean by this is that our feelings can be based on assumptions formed in our minds by past experiences which exist outside our awareness and feel completely alien in the moment; it can even feel as though we have been ambushed by something that we cannot actually see or understand.

So, you may experience a constant generalised anxiety that does not make sense when you look around you, which we refer to as a disproportionate response. You may wonder how it is that you end up in relationships that to begin with seem ideal but then descend into hurtful chaos.

The underlying explanation for these and other mental health difficulties usually exist outside of awareness created in what is known as our pre-conscious stage in infancy. Furthermore, feelings and behaviour are inextricably linked: our feelings drive behaviour and if our feelings do not accurately represent what is happening in the present moment then our behaviour cannot either.

We can become, for example, overly defensive or overly aggressive or withdrawn and depressed; we may not be able to go outside we feel so anxious; we may feel constantly threatened by our partner; we may feel that we are constantly in the wrong our self-esteem is so low; having all these unwanted feelings and behavioural responses without understanding why.

At CCRTT we work with these feelings and behaviours to uncover the probable reasons and in doing so create understanding and, crucially choice: the choice to change into something better, comfortable, safe as the person you were truly born to be.

Why are trauma and relationship difficulties relevant to who I am?

This question introduces what is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts that we work with in therapy: the unconscious and the power of the unconscious to hijack and ambush us in adulthood.

One of the key attributes of the infant brain and childhood is that in important areas it is under developed. One of these areas is the pre-frontal cortex where experience is processed.

In this section we explain the binary nature of the infants experiencing. How experience lies in our memories in a way that shapes our adult world and our assumptions about the world in a manner that is outside our awareness.

The key element perhaps is that this can help us to understand how we can come to experience feelings for which we cannot understand any reason existing in the present.

Past trauma experience and how it shapes our present being.

These experiences, the way in which you may be experiencing life as a very uncomfortable, sad, unhappy, lonely, hopeless place, is exactly what happens when we have unprocessed trauma from our pasts residing deep in our minds.

Where our past experiences exist in our unconscious in this way our minds are constantly scanning our present environment for threat: we may not be aware of the underlying reason for this threat but our minds try and keep us safe by constantly checking for threat.

How come my feelings don’t reflect my present?

Generally speaking when therapists talk about ‘a threat in our external environment’ we mean the assumptions that our minds place on our external environment based on how others have related to us in the past. Where this has created a sense of fear, threat, danger, lack of safety through relationships that may have been characterised by emotional, physical, sexual and other forms of neglect and abuse then the evidence to our minds is that there is a constant ever-present existential risk to our very being.

This is how it felt to our infant selves when our infant experienced fear and an absence of safety (‘love’): the terror of being destroyed. The infant brain is unable to process experience; life is navigated only by those feelings of terror and creating a survival response known as ‘defences’.

Why have I become who I am but don’t want to be? – understanding patterns and the creation and role of our defences

Our defences are the behaviours we adopt to feel acceptable to others where we have been left feeling, for example, that we have little value, that others will judge us negatively. Common behaviours adopted may be different ways of earning our worth known clinically as ‘conditions of worth, i.e: we are only worth something conditional upon have done or said something to generate an affirmative response from another.

These behaviours typically may be at our cost to ourselves and therefore operate in fact to leave us feeling either emotionally or practically worse off. For example, extreme generosity leaving us short of cash; taking on doing too much for others and becoming exhausted or constantly late; trying to please all of the people all of the time.

How do our minds develop – why do I behave as I do?

No wonder that as we develop and these unprocessed experiences reside unconsciously in our minds that our present that can be so uncomfortable and so difficult to understand. Our minds operate from birth like a sponge soaking up experiences which form the basis of our perception of who we are in this moment; in a sense we are the accumulation of every split second of our life’s previous experience.

This is the only evidence that our mind has from which to create an assessment of this moment: how we should feel and therefore how we behave. Where our minds assessment of our lifes’ environment is based on an assessment that the world is a place full of threat then not surprisingly it keeps us on high alert and maintains the conclusions that we have been left with about ourselves and our relationships with others but of which we can be wholly unaware. This is so uncomfortable and can lie behind perhaps inevitable feelings of hopelessness.

How childhood trauma and complex PTSD affects trust and relationships – a trauma scale.

Experiences from conception in the womb, especially in our first 3 years and into our pre-adolescence are especially influential in shaping our understanding and expectations of the world as we develop into adulthood.

These earlier life experiences are particularly insidious because these are the ones that exist out of our awareness. They inform our perception of circumstances and create our behavioural responses in a way that is very confusing: the feelings we encounter are based on our past which our minds now use to make sense of the present using those unprocessed past experiences.

At CCRTT we think of difficulties on a trauma scale resulting from 0-10 where 0 is a mild anxiety that we feel from time to time and do not understand, 5 is a fear or generalised anxiety that exists most of the time (and for which there is no reason in the present moment) and 5-10 exists from some form of more or less complex trauma that exists in your unconscious.

Why do I find it so difficult to trust others and believe I am judged negatively?

Another helpful concept in terms of trying to understand emotional difficulties is ‘trust’: [DS5.1]can I trust that this person or that person will view me beneficially. One of the most unhelpful conclusions that you may suffer from is a view of yourself as worthless, insignificant, valueless and a belief that this is how others perceive you. If you suffer from anxiety and fear this may go hand in hand with this perception of yourself.

Where you carry this sense of low self-worth you may also find that you respond strongly to perceived criticism and wish that you could take it in your stride. You may often end up responding to circumstances in a way which you which simply makes no sense. This may too underlie depression as we encounter a hopeless helplessness in struggling with our feelings of worthlessness.

At CCRTT it is our work with you to make sense of those parts of your life that can make existence so miserable and to work with you to understand how this has come to exist and create a different way of being that truly reflects who you are.

How is my early life experience relevant to my difficult couple relationships?

When we meet someone it takes about 1/100th of a second for our brain to decide what me make of the person we have just met not purely from a physical perspective but who and how they are going to be. In other words our memory goes into overdrive to decide whether or not this person will be a threat.

This is another area where this unconscious stuff can so profoundly unhelpful. Lying in our unconscious are all our unmet needs that we hope and imagine (again unconsciously) will be met by who we believe this person is imagined to be.

The trap of negative beliefs about yourself and your unmet needs

In couple relationships there can be a particular minefield that goes with our conscious hopes and expectations of a specific long term partner. You, and your potential partner, will both have an unconscious history of unmet needs that will shape what you have experienced and hope for in a romantic relationship; more of the application of these developmental principles to our work with couples can be found here.

For example: You may meet someone who is fun and generous but who themselves has learned to obtain their own worth from others by being this gregarious person which in fact is a mask to generate a response to meet their own unmet needs. You may have met them as meeting your own unmet childhood need for fun and being valued. Yet, when you get together you find that you both have unmet needs and neither can meet the expectations of the other. You encounter that what lies behind the mask of the gregarious person is someone who has unmet needs based on requiring constant adoration. This is both covered by the mask and the gregarious nature that generates the attention that is craved.

Why is my infant trauma so important in understanding my adult behaviour?

As an adult we tend to make sense of life with our ‘adult’ head from our adult perspective. We have already explained the underdeveloped nature of the infant brain. This means that the infant brain processes experience differently especially when it comes to fear.

What is therefore difficult for an adult to understand from an adult perspective is how the infant and developing child may have experienced any particular experience especially where it is frightened, not comforted and especially on a regular and frequent basis. In order to fully understand ourselves we need to fully understand our infant experience.

Infant trauma becomes adult assumption (about the world)

In understanding the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of feeling as you do and trying to understand and find a way out of circumstances in which you feel as though you are constantly being ambushed we emphasised the foundational importance of childhood relationships in creating these circumstances which become irresistibly and profoundly unhelpful to us in adult life.

As an adult we tend to think that we have an idea of what is meant by ‘trauma’ and that is often informed by our understanding of, and the common useage of, the term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is how trauma came to be a clinically familiar term. This term applies to, especially, military veterans and was subsequently used to describe, rightly, a personal close traumatic experience.

As an infant and child the type of experience that is traumatic to a child is different to those experienced by adults: what may be experienced as a trauma by a child may not be something that would cause a trauma response in an adult (conversely every experience that causes a trauma response in an adult will create a trauma response in a child).

Where our feelings originate

At the heart of your symptoms there may often be a terrible sense of aloneness, for example we may feel that we are worthless, or pointless, that we are anxious with others, seemingly ignored by everyone, bullied in relationships, encounter chronic depression and acute low self-esteem: in such feelings we long to feel seen and heard, valued and affirmed.

The essence of lifes’ experiences from which we form our perception of ourselves and the world comes out of our relational experiences.

These can be largely shaped in infancy but also from other repeated or individual traumatic experiences as we develop into adulthood. For example, bullying at school especially in adolescence; from the unexpected death of a parent or loved one; the loss of a job; witnessing violence; being involved with or witnessing tragedy. Equally the ability to process and survive challenge (especially trauma and complex PTSD) is also mediated by the legacy of early life experience in terms of being able to recover from loss.

So, what is the neuro-scientific process of a trauma that makes it so relevant and of such importance when understanding adult difficulties such as anxiety, panic attacks, self-worth, hopelessness, relationship difficulties, depression, and a host of other presentations that are sometimes so pervasive and sometimes ambush us when there is no apparent reason for us to feel panicked?

The answer lies in the brains ability to protect itself and us when the traumatic event happens.

The developmental needs of a child and the origins of childhood trauma: how this comes to form the basis of our relational world and relational patterns.

There is a golden principle that we adhere to at The Cheltenham Centre for Relationship and Trauma Therapy (CCRTT) which can be summarised as follows:

‘we only ever do anything to keep ourselves safe in our (psychological) worlds as perceived’.

In terms of developmental application this can be seen in terms of brain structure by the only part of the brain that is fully formed at birth and that is the Limbic System, our ‘Pre-historic brain’. This is where, for example, the fight and flight responses reside.

This makes sense when you think that we need to have this response in order to keep ourselves safe from the nearest passing dinosaur. We can also conceive therefore of the role of fear both in early life and into adulthood when our emotional and physical needs have not been fully met.

Where our external environment has not met our infant needs we are left with a deep sense of mistrust of our own worth and of the world around us which represents itself in the feelings and behaviours in infancy, childhood and into adulthood, ones that you may be experiencing now, such as a generalised anxiety, a hopelessness and depression, a questioning of yourself, feelings of rejection and abandonment in relationship; to understand more of how Psychotherapy works with these challenges see our Practice Guide 1: ‘The Practice of Psychotherapy’ here.

As a child our responses to experience are instantaneous and largely unprocessed. At this early period of life the pre-frontal cortex where reasoning and the processing of experience takes place is only partly formed.

The infant and childs processing is therefore not based on ‘reasoning’ but on an instant decision on whether there is safety and comfort or threat and fear. Infant responses are spontaneous and viscerally visible: think toddler throwing itself on the floor in rage when it does not get its own way.

Why is fear related to trauma and my feelings of worth about myself in my world?

Fear or safety are the binary governance of the early relational learning world of experience of the infant in these early but crucial stages of the developmental journey. A journey within which our worth to self and others is determined: a more, or less, successful ability to experience an adult life in joy and contentment or fear, anxiety and sadness.

The latent challenge to a successful adulthood that is created developmentally is whether the infant in a threatening disruptive state is comforted and helped back to ‘stasis’ (the balanced state) or scolded and left to feel that the self in this complicated new environment of experiencing is a ‘wrong’ self.

The inability to process means that an unrequited, uncomforted fear experience exists unresolved as a trauma, or complex trauma, in the developing mind: out of awareness both for the infant and on into adulthood. A reinforced set of neuron connections formed out of awareness and unprocessed, unable to be processed, in the infant mind.

These (complex) traumatic experiences exist nonetheless as a memory that determines our perception of the world into adulthood but, and here’s the thing, outside our conscious awareness never having been processed. This is why much of our work at CCRTT is about unravelling with you what may have been your early life determining experiences.

What is the relationship between experience, feelings and behaviour and why is early life so important to who I am?

From birth and before, in utero, the baby’s view of the world is shaped in and by relationship. The auditory sense for instance is shaped in the womb. Hormones can cross the placenta and be absorbed by the developing foetus. For example, there may be raised Cortisol levels if the mother-to-be has been consistently confronted by threat and fear.

The synaptic connections that shape our brain, mind, personality and our understanding of the world develop at their fastest rate in the first three years of life; up to 80% of the adult brain will have been developed by age three.

The neuroscience of early life – the formation of our assumptions about self in the world

Once born the most rapid development of the brain takes place over the first 3 years with 1 million neural connections being made every second. The response of the primary carers to the babies needs shapes the view that the baby and developing infant have of itself in the world. Are physical needs for warmth and food met responsively? Is the baby held and protected with right eye to right eye gaze? Is the baby held and responded to warmly, affirmingly and attentively by his/her primary carers? When those needs are met the baby comes to understand that the world is not a threatening place and that it has a worth: it feels safe.

When those needs are not met then the baby continues to feel unsafe and will invent ways of creating a safe environment as it continues into infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence and beyond. There is a further compounding affect consequent upon these experiences, reviewed below at the heading ‘Feelings and Behaviour’. This arises from the infants developing minds perception of the world as an untrustworthy unsafe place.

As such the implications to the developing brain are to base a behavioural response on an inaccurate assessment to our minds, and therefore feelings, of that moment of existence: implications which continue to regulate our responses to our external environment into adulthood.

How else can such responses be anything but confusing when they originate from unprocessed experiences in our distant past: relationship difficulties really are often expressions of unhelpful recurring relationship patterns, especially from early life.

This inaccurate behavioural response will therefore create a relational dissonance which will not be an accurate reflection of the immediate environment in that moment. Responses which may further confirm and reinforce the minds conviction that this world is unsafe. If you are reading this and suffer from persistent uncomfortable symptoms such as depression, a generalised anxiety, low self-esteem this is almost certainly in general terms your developmental legacy.

Why do I have these awful feelings all the time? part 1: we are just a bunch of chemicals

The feelings of discomfort can be thought of as the minds chemical representation and response to threat. In effect unprocessed infant trauma represents a permanent existential threat and we have been left on high alert waiting for the next thing to go wrong, relationally (why do relationships keep failing), physically, emotionally (e.g: why does everyone hate me, I am so depressed), failure and low self-worth (I will never be able to do this or that or be acceptable to anyone) and a host of other unhelpful convictions.

You are permanently in fight, flight or freeze mode and may have real difficulty in regulating those feelings: being able to realise and believe that there is no actual present threat and becoming calmer. Instead, you may exist in a position of high alert characterised in the body by an excess of Cortisol and it is this hormone that creates those awful sick shaky feelings of anxiety that seem to be permanently present[DS11.1].

Where we have been subjected in early life to regular unprocessed threats that have created frequent and consistent feelings of fear that continue through life these feelings of discomfort can become ever present. In a sense we are constantly on high alert (known as hyper-vigilant) and call on adrenaline to get us going and then Cortisol to marshal our fight or flight response.

Where we are not left hyper-vigilant we can recognise when a threat has passed, we expect and can distinguish between an ordinary safe world and one that contains a specific threat to which we respond and to which there is an end of the need for Cortisol.

This mind-body response is known as the HPA axis in the Sympathetic Nervous System. Where we have been left with a permanent conviction that the world is threatening, frequently perceive that a threat exists (to our hyper-vigilant mind) we really need a helpful response to calm us down but this does not happen just as it did not happen in childhood. We are left uncomforted and unsupported yet again and our minds experience and conviction are re-confirmed.

Why do I have these awful feelings all the time? part 2: the neuroscience

When we feel unsafe and threatened whether as an infant, child, adolescent or adult the first response is the production of the stress hormone Epinephrine (Adrenalin) preparing us to be able to deal with the threat. We are put on red alert, ready to defend the perceived threat.

If this is insufficient and the threat continues then after about 10 minutes there is a ‘back up’: the HPA axis. This is a combined response of the Hypothalamus, triggering the Pituitary gland which triggers the Adrenal gland and Cortisol is produced.

The real difficulty occurs when, instead of the system returning to ‘stasis’ (normality) the switch that enables the re-uptake of the feel good hormone Seratonin, can give up. This happens when our perception of our world, residing in and being stimulated by our unconscious infant memories, creates an overstimulated fear response. In a sense we live in a constant world of fear. In these circumstances we remain with an excess of Cortisol in response to our hyper vigilance and so the feelings we experience seldom go away. Our feelings, those jittery sick feelings that seem to be if not ever present then never far away never really go away, become soothed or calmed.

Working with this system is a key element of our therapeutic work at CCRTT. This inability of our experiential consequences to distinguish between the truth of the present, the misleading assumptions from our past and the infants traumatic experiences lies at the heart of the work of CCRTT and of the direct connection between Trauma, Relationship and Personality.

A summary of the journey from infant trauma to adult difficulty

In summary, early neural connections shape the brains perception of the world; those connections represent ‘The mind’ and shape our personality. Where we have had an early life characterised by behaviours that may have been chaotic, unreliable, threatening, abusive, neglectful the consequent personality can be defined as being disordered. These experiences at the particular stage of development when they happen are traumatising.

The developing brain is (effectively) unable to process experience. Experience is felt in a binary sense as either comforting or threatening. This inability to process experience means that we cannot make sense of circumstances that leave us fearful and such experiences reside as unprocessed threats in the memory centre of our Limbic system.

The repeated and usually varied (although similar) abusive behaviours toward the infant are not capable of being processed or reasoned and so reside unprocessed in the memory. This ongoing unresolved threat and fear in the developing life of the infant exists as Complex Trauma (CPTSD). Relationship difficulties are often expressions of recurring relationship patterns.

The fact that the experiences are unresolved and unprocessed means that the experience resides simply as a memory in our Limbic system. This memory informs, in its unprocessed state, the eventual adult with an unconscious out of awareness fear based on those terrifying experiences.

These experiences shape the adults assumptions about the world and present themselves in the form of the anxiety, fear, depression low self-esteem and other symptoms referred to earlier; experiences which you may recognise as ongoing difficulties in your own life. Relationship experiences and patterns that often become recurring relationship difficulties.

How do you help me to feel better?

Psychotherapists are specialists in understanding the implications of early life experience and the implications of early (and earlier) life to our later lives. One of the reasons that our clients turn to us is because while they have, and experience, feelings that make life very uncomfortable they simply cannot understand why.

Often they will say: ‘if I can just understand how it is that I feel like this then I can help myself to feel better’. CCRTT explore and unravel these conundrums and help the client to live their lives in greater clarity, awareness and understanding.

In this greater awareness not only can feelings and behaviour change but we know from the research into neuroplasticity that this can become a replacement pattern.

Working with unprocessed childhood trauma at CCRTT: resolving unhelpful relationship patterns

In essence when a developing life as an infant is left feeling unsafe and threatened on a regular and frequent basis the experience can be regarded as individually traumatic and the symptoms akin to CPTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).

The experience will lie in an unconscious out of awareness unprocessed state in the mind. The impact on the developing self in terms of personality and symptoms feel like a pervading sense of fear often experienced as generalised anxiety. The unconscious implication to the (developing) self is that this self cannot be of worth. In simple terms there is no ‘comfort’ response; the aloneness of existential desertion means that I am not worthy of consideration and care.

We work with our clients to understand the experience which may have created conclusions about themselves in adulthood. In understanding and awareness clients create a choice for themselves between being driven by their past or to reinterpret experience through a different lens. Through this process feelings and behaviour accurately respond to the present rather than being driven by assumptions formed in past trauma based experiences.

Thankfully, neuroscience demonstrates clearly that these convictions and deeply held and unhelpful patterns can be changed, known as: ‘Neuroplasticity’. This is how we work at CCRTT by working with you to make these unknown patterns known and understandable, thereby creating a choice to respond differently and in doing so to prune the old neuron pathways and laying down new ones.

The choice that is created is to assess and determine new more helpful responses in your life based on your processed experiencing. In neuroscientific terms you bring your pre-frontal cortex online in order to regulate a response that otherwise is rooted in the unconscious of the autonomic nervous system.

Underlying the understanding of therapeutic change is the fundamental relationship between feelings and behaviour. Behaviour will always be in response to feelings: if our feelings do not accurately reflect the actual present moment then our behaviour and relationships for ourselves with others cannot accurately reflect the present.

Ultimately, the therapeutic work with The Cheltenham for Relationship and Trauma Therapy (CCRTT) will enable feelings and behaviour to be clearly experienced in the moment in awareness, making sense of your world with you at the centre; behavioural responses that fully align with the circumstances of the present moment as you come to be your fully authentic self fully able to make the most of the rest of your life as the person you were truly born to be.

If aspects of this guide reflect your own experience, psychotherapy can help you understand how these patterns developed and, importantly, how they can begin to change.

We offer psychotherapy both in person in Cheltenham and online throughout the UK. If you would like to discuss whether this approach feels right for you, I welcome you to get in touch for an initial conversation by using the contact form or simply call 07702155267.

Related Practice Guides

To see how these principles are applied in our Practice please see the relevant guide below:

• Working with Individuals
• Working with Couples
• Working with CCRTT online
• Working with Neurodivergent clients