It starts off looking like any usual counselling session – people meet, greet, and get comfortable in their seats. And then not a word is spoken – is this really counselling? I’ve had a few of the students I supervise ask this question of me on several occasions. Sometimes people loose the idea that not everybody who seeks help with personal issues are fluent in the spoken language. My primary client base are people who have different abilities, frequently very bright people who have an autism spectrum disorder. For them, using verbal communication is not always the most effective – they can often express themselves best through writing (typing) or drawing (no I am not an art therapist).

The challenge becomes discovering how people best express themselves and finding ways to adapt your approach to better fit that to facilitate communication and expression. Providing pens and paper is easy – using an iPad as a conversation tool can be a bit more challenging! And, I do have to admit it is quite humbling (and educational) when my clients can see that my typing skills are not executive-secretary quality!

What I find the most fascinating is: once I use the same communication modality or tool that my clients are proficient with, the sessions unfold with new levels of complexity and understanding… Something that seems to get lost if I only talk back to respond to their writing or drawing. (I tend to talk about what I write,  just to cover my bases…) One aspect of using these digital means of supplementing or augmenting communication with people is that there unfolds a written record of the session for both parties to reflect upon between sessions – a lovely benefit!

I wonder how many other counsellors and therapists have stretched the idea of talking in other ways… I am continually amazed at how resourceful and creative people can be!

Reflections of a Trauma Nurse/Counsellor’s Academic, Research & Clinical Experiences

The 21^st Century Wellness Paradigm

I believe my mother’s disclosure, about the details of my traumatic birth, was the second best birthday gift I ever received.  Surviving birth trauma as an arrested footling breech presentation [2], within a near-death experience (NDE) secondary to my mother’s hemorrhaging; us being packed in ice while awaiting the arrival of a physician to the scene – to simply be saved and granted the opportunity for a viable life – this is the first and greatest gift of all – the first breath. 

However, there are costs, consequences inherent in most heroic life saving measures.  My   traumatic birth imprint, the resultant NDE trauma response was my blueprint that did accumulate additional trauma response from additional traumatic events I survived across my lifespan.  Few understand I’m a sensitive – sentient with deep sentiment at my core.  I adapted and learned to live within the confines of my trauma vortex container that impacted me and altered my entire psycho-social-spiritual development within the cultural climate I was reared in.  Most important for me remains the invisible, mystical and sacred path I choose to travel that sustains me, and that is another story.

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Reflections of a Trauma Nurse/Counsellor’s Academic, Research & Clinical Experiences   Mid-Way – Traumatogenic Wounds & Beacon Messengers

In my mid-thirties in the mid-eighties, I remember sitting in a sociology class and our professor announced that every family system has skeletons in their closets somewhere down the line and across the generations.  Not only was I naïve about deception, I was also unaware of skeletons contained and held secret (closeted) by at least one living family member who contains the  transgenerational wound – traumatogenic [11]. 

My masters to doctorate process spanned 8 years of intense theoretical studies and I progressed to bifocals.  I am indebted to the vast number of academic/clinical teachers involved in my career/skill sets and development – quite amazing when I think back to the 16 year old who dropped out of school to simply be a practical nurse.  I still like those two words.  I am unable to formally acknowledge/thank all of my teachers to whom I remain grateful, however, there are some I refer to as ‘beacon messengers.’ It is their messages that stay with me and I hold onto dearly to sustain my faith, hope and fortitude to remain on track so that the bedside trauma nurse could and indeed did transition to become a trauma counsellor.

From 1989 to February 2012, I operated as a dual-role professional:  a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) and Registered Nurse (RN).  In June 2012 and after 46 years of service, I prematurely, but gracefully surrendered [4] and placed myself on the RN inactive list and this is another story.  My current plan is to maintain my status as a CCC and owner, senior consultant of Matrix of Trauma (© MOT ™) for as long as my services are required and deemed helpful by the client population I serve.  My beacon mentors originate from both fields of nursing and counselling:

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Reflections of a Trauma Nurse/Counsellor’s Academic, Research & Clinical Experiences

My Beginning:  Have Trauma Will Travel & Rude Awakenings:

In 1989, this is what I said to myself ‘have trauma will travel’ on a novel path and idea that this trauma nurse, retiring from bedside intensive care unit (ICU) nursing could transition, with transferable skill sets gained as a mid-life professional, into a private nursing practice to be a grief counsellor.  A good naïve innocent thought until I realized from my own bereavement that the phenomena of grief requires master level education/training in order for me to be helpful or acceptable in any professional association providing counselling services[21]. 

Google search Psychotraumatology and Wikipedia high-lights three professionals: Frank Ochberg, MD is named the founding father of modern Psychotraumatology; Gottfried Fisher, PhD is named the founder of Psychotraumatology in Germany, and Steve Abadie-Rosier is an expert in criminology and considered the ‘psychoanalyst of the irrecoverable or the borderline.’  Goggle search Psychotraumatology Canada and Wikipedia high-lights the Canadian Friends of Herzog Hospital.  I was pleased to see the range of services now available and of particular interest to me is The Soldiers Project.  My father was a WW2 veteran and post-war a firefighter. During his end-of-life and palliative care journeys, I suffered great sadness alongside my family as my dad, my hero – died so hard.  This is another story.

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Reflections of a Trauma Nurse/Counsellor’s Academic, Research & Clinical Experiences

Introduction to Psychotraumatology

I have decades of reflections I am ready to share concerning my academic, research and clinical experiences as the trauma nurse who became a trauma counsellor.  However, a brief introduction into the emerging field of Psychotraumatology, as experienced by myself across North America, but mostly in Canada, is a good place to start. 

I presented similar versions of the following brief, introductory material.  The first was an in-service in acute psychiatry (Thompson, 2004), and the second was as a topic of interest, Harmony Project:  Woman’s Support & Enhancement Group (Thompson, 2005), attended by survivors with diagnosed, Complex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD; Herman, 1972).

From 1985 to 1996, I completed all requirements at-a-distance and obtained a PhD in Psychology.  My dissertation was named Psychological Traumatology and a decade passed before the American Psychological Association (APA) founded Division 56 – Trauma Psychology (APA – 2006).  In Canada in 1989, when I established a private practice to provide trauma, exit and grief nursing/counselling services, I was perceived as eccentric and fringe, especially when serving client(s) engaged and in the midst of volatile and hostile agendas and the use of coercive persuasion (Lifton, 1961). 

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If you follow the digital world at all (and that’s all of you) you will have seen the recent surge of the latest data on how the Internet, cellphones, social media, clothing style shifts, music video’s and tween/teen movies have impacted the hypersexualization of our children today.

Sitting in the audience with about 200 other counsellors, psychologists, social workers and concerned adults, I recently viewed the acclaimed work of the talented Maureen Palmer of CBC, documenting the effect of this shift in culture, on youth today. Here are a few stats:

• Pre-teen clothing market is worth an estimated 150 billion dollars a year.
• 
A survey of 15 major pre-teen clothing sites found that 1/3 of apparel was considered ‘sexualized’.

• A recent survey showed that 22% of teenage girls report anal sex in the last 60 days.

• It’s estimated that 70-80% of teenage boys watch pornography.

• Another survey showed that 1/3 admit to sending a naked or near naked picture to their ‘crush’

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