Category: Clinical Practice

Understanding Stabilisation Across Trauma Therapies A pattern I often notice in trauma work is that clients can leave sessions feeling calmer, more grounded, and settled, only to find that, a few days later, their nervous system feels overwhelmed again. The therapeutic work may have gone well in session. The client may understand their formulation, recognise…

With learning to drive a car, the real learning for me happened after I had passed my test. I found myself travelling longer distances, navigating unfamiliar roads alone with a road atlas (no satnavs in the early 90s). My therapy journey has felt similar. Training offered a structured, manualised way of understanding therapy, but in…

Within EMDR, the speed, rhythm, and modality of bilateral stimulation (BLS) are adjusted in response to the client’s presentation and therapeutic aims (Shapiro, 2018). In clinical practice, slower forms of bilateral stimulation may be used within preparation-phase interventions to support stabilisation, including containment, affect regulation, and the strengthening of adaptive associations (Parnell, 2013). This distinction…

This article clarifies what stabilisation means in trauma therapy and how therapists can support nervous system regulation during early-stage work. It is important to distinguish stabilisation from trauma processing. Trauma stabilisation refers to the process of helping clients develop emotional regulation, safety, coping and tolerance of their emotions before engaging in trauma processing. Trauma processing,…