about deborah, trauma healing & your authentic self
Hi .. I’m Deborah, I’m a Registered Psychologist and Trauma Therapist.
I work with people experiencing complex, developmental and relational trauma .. when the stuff from back then impacts your life now, through nervous system dysregulation driving difficult emotions, looping life experiences, relationship drama, poor sleep, health, energy, focus, sense of self and expectations of the world.
I have a private practice on the Gold Coast in Australia, near the sunshine and ocean that I love so much. Over more than 30 years I have worked as a consultant and psychologist in corporate, university, community, health and wellbeing settings.
NEUROSCIENCE OF TRAUMA AND ATTACHMENT
For the last decade of my working life, I’ve been very focussed on understanding and supporting people to heal (become more whole) following the fragmentation of Complex PTSD.
It’s an exciting time as rapid advances in neuroscience bring more understanding about what happens in the brain, body and nervous system during developmental years, and how trauma impacts that. We are also much clearer now about which human experiences our nervous system takes in as traumatic threat and how the nervous system adaptations and psychological adaptations we make as children impact our experience of ourselves and the world all through life.
In particular, we know a lot more now about …
… the neurochemistry of attachment, and the interplay of attachment experiences with the shape our nervous system takes and the way it functions in the world.
The field is called Interpersonal Neurobiology and it can explain so very many things.
how i understand what helps complex ptsd
For most of my life, I have lived with complex trauma impacts. I didn’t always know it. That was for ‘other’ people. I was strong and intelligent and resourceful.
I was also living inside a nervous system that could become deeply chaotic and was highly sensitised to so many things, sometimes shutting the whole system down on impact. Trauma, I later discovered, passes down through generations, both through nature and anti-nurture.
I have always been curious about life, the nature of consciousness and immersed myself over several decades in meditation, integral healing approaches and energy science. The symbiotic relationship we have with our environment became very clear to me, how it shapes us and we influence it in turn, as a rhythmic dance within a unified field.
I journeyed with severe ME-CFS over this time. As my previous internal and external resources disappeared, I became super skilled at utilising any available resource, to nourish myself, stabilise and open through my breath and being, into the medicine and ecstatic state of being available through connection with the natural world.
I had a burst cerebral aneurysm at one stage and was one of the lucky 10% who survive. Difficult as this experience was, the inherent social validation provided a stark contrast to the pervasive invalidation associated with having an invisible chronic illness, like ME-CFS.
Over time, poor health meant fractured workplace participation, fractured finances, cultural, social, medical and family invalidation, social isolation, ongoing survival pressures and ultimately impacts on my psychological wellbeing. And round again. It was bizarre and alienating for me to find myself so sick I could barely move, broke, homeless, alone and terrified over a cold Sydney winter, in a city where previously I’d been such a part of it all.
I held a larger knowing, but my world got very small.
I learned about the importance of genuine attunement, validation and connection for true healing and rich living. And how hard these things can be to access, especially for someone with a traumatised nervous system.
Around 10 years ago I joined some dots between my professional explorations into Complex PTSD and my personal journey. Understanding the neuroscience of trauma and attachment was powerful and validating.
The clarity brought me forward from disillusionment and helped me utilise integrative healing approaches learned earlier, in very specific, neuroscientifically informed ways.
As things crystalised for me, I wanted to work more deeply with traumatised people to free up system resources … energy, attention, brain space, curiousity, social capacity, safety and space for love and empathy, in-the-body felt sense living … from trauma’s endless looping, so more of us can bring and experience what we’re here to.
I have been honing this in session work with clients over the last 10 years and am making these understandings, frameworks and processes available through my blog and online course-work, as well as a limited number of one-on-one sessions.
what lights me
is helping you access your true and authentic self and to connect and create in the world from there – EVEN WHEN YOU ARE TRAUMA IMPACTED. Complex PTSD symptoms and adaptations can get in the way of this big time.
Our world is changing rapidly as out-dated institutions and practices fall away and global environmental, financial and social concerns more insistently call upon and impact us all.
Collective wisdom is needed.
The world needs you and what you bring.
In your home, your workplace, your social circle, your creative projects, your online and ‘real life’ communities. Your vision, your purpose, your inspired take on things, your care and connection.
On a personal level, you have a right to a wonderful life that is an expression and reflection of your true nature. You have a right to secure and confident engagement with the world around you. To feel all the pleasure, purpose and wholeness that can come from safe and open experiencing of life, nature, people, animals, love, art, music, community and achievement through your unique strengths and talents.
I can help you.
Learn more about trauma informed therapeutic approaches here.
rewire 4 life foundations masterclass
Join the class to begin your journey of understanding and skills for healing trauma.
get your soul mission landed book chapter and meditation
See the journey your body and soul are taking together to heal trauma and free your authentic self.
book a discovery call for 'soul mission landed' coaching program
Let’s work together to find out how your authentic self, your soul self, wants expression and contribution.
therapist nurture lab & trauma healing masterclass
Are you a soul led therapist who wants to be masterful at helping your clients heal trauma and open to the flow and expression of their authentic self?
Do you need to find a new way to do this, that nurtures you as well as your clients?
Let’s find your niche, structure your offering, nurture your soul, plug in training on my DTT Dimensional Trauma Healing program and access for your clients to the Rewire 4 Life full program of videos and workbooks for trauma healing.
Book a discovery call.
