Trauma and Dissociation
Trauma is a psychological wound caused by frightening or distressing events that overwhelmed a person's ability to cope. Trauma isn't only what happened to you — it's also what your mind and body had to do to get through it. It can come from a single event, or build up over years of experiences that were frightening, unpredictable, or impossible to escape — especially early in life or within relationships you depended on. This kind of prolonged or repeated trauma is sometimes called complex trauma, and it often shapes not just specific memories, but a person's whole sense of safety, identity and relationships. What one person experiences as traumatic can look different from what another does; it's shaped both by what happened, and by whether there was support around you when it did.
Dissociation is one adaptive way we cope with trauma. It's a normal human capacity. When early experience is overwhelming and ongoing, this capacity to dissociate can protect you, and become the main way you survive — but later, the ways of coping that made sense then can interfere with your life in ways that may no longer be helpful.
Alpine Psychology works with adults experiencing:
- trauma, PTSD and complex PTSD
- dissociative amnesia, depersonalisation and derealisation
- Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD)
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
- dissociative experiences that don't fit a diagnostic category, or where the picture is still unclear.
Working with trauma &/or dissociation
Work with trauma and dissociation at Alpine Psychology follows a phase-oriented approach consistent with ISSTD treatment guidelines: establishing safety, stabilisation and everyday functioning first, and turning to traumatic memory only when that groundwork is in place and you decide you're ready. Work is paced in line with your system's needs. Sessions can slow down, pause, or return to stabilisation at any point.
Where parts of the self are involved, the aim is to help the whole system work collaboratively, with less conflict and more internal communication. There is no requirement to pursue any particular outcome — including integration. Work is paced to your system's capacity and readiness.
Approaches drawn on include EMDR (adapted for dissociation), Deep Brain Reorienting, parts-based work (ego states/IFS-informed), and somatic approaches, alongside CBT-informed therapies (inc. ACT, Family Systems) where they're useful.
What this looks like in practice
You don't need a diagnosis to make contact. Many people arrive with questions about what they're experiencing rather than answers.
All parts are welcome in the room. Contact by email is fine, and it doesn't matter who writes it. If a session needs to end early, or if longer sessions are more suitable, that's workable. If you need information in writing to take away and process later, we can help with that. In-person sessions are available in Phillip, ACT, with telehealth also available where clinically appropriate.
If you're in crisis or need support between sessions, our Crisis/Emergency information page has resources that can help.
Together, the aim is for your system to feel safer and more able to work collectively as one — at whatever pace that needs.