The COVID-19 pandemic has seen much of the world placed on lockdown. Affecting many aspects of our lives from going to work and socialising to attending events and even being able to pop to the shop, Coronavirus has had a big impact on all of our lives. A big concern for anyone recovering from addiction [...]
As we start to understand and talk about sex addiction more, the topic is slowly becoming less taboo. This means that those who are addicted to sex are increasingly likely to confide in a doctor, counsellor, partner, friends or family. Whether you’ve been in a romantic relationship with someone for a while or it’s a [...]
When we think about trauma victims, we often envision images of wounded soldiers or veterans. But trauma is so much more, and it should never be segregated to just one or two groups of people. It happens to just about everyone in one form or another. You may have a friend or relative who struggles [...]
“…during every stage of my medical training, whether I was studying surgery, cardiology, or pediatrics, it was obvious to me that the key to healing was understanding how the human organism works.” ~ Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk began studying post-traumatic stress and trauma in the 1970s. It was an [...]
You may find it odd that it’s possible to have a relationship with yourself internally. But the reality is that we all have relationships with our thoughts or emotions. It is completely unavoidable because they’re with us all the time. Whether we like it or not, we have to relate to them in some way. [...]
So many trauma victims feel trapped because of their thoughts. They may suffer from flashbacks or get triggered when certain painful memories arise. In a way, their trauma locks them inside a mental prison that is impossible to escape. Healing from trauma is not quick, and it is a process that takes time. Even so, [...]
A common question clients and their loved ones ask is ‘what causes sex addiction?’ While there’s no one single cause for this, there are a number of contributing factors we see in almost all cases. More often than not, clients will have previously suffered from one or more of the following: Mental illness Other addictions [...]
For many victims of trauma, the experiences that traumatized them happened when they were children. The brain resorts to disassociation as a way to protect itself from getting hurt again, and it is very common for people to carry that into adulthood. While disassociation does work as a survival strategy for a period of time, [...]
Many people experience trauma when they’re children, and the effects of that trauma are often carried with them into adulthood. When children are abused or neglected by people who are supposed to love them, they have to distance themselves from it emotionally. This fragmentation is a survival mechanism. It helps them to preserve their self-esteem, [...]
No matter how we try to avoid it, we must have some type of relationship with our thoughts and emotions. They are a part of who we are, and they are always with us, day in and day out. We have no choice but to relate to them in one way or another. Sometimes that [...]