kildare offaly counselling psychotherapy

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Send WhatsApp to Antonia on: 0873977828

Welcome to my website. My name is Antonia and I have 20 years of experience working as a clinician. I offer virtual EMDR and psychotherapy services for the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex Trauma (C-PTSD), dissociation (such as de-realisation, de-personalisation, or amnesia episodes), and Dissociative Disorders, such as DID.

I am a member of the IACP, the EMDR All-Ireland Association, and the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation. I am trained up to Masters level with the University of Oxford, with a 4-year internationally-recognised advanced qualification in complex trauma and dissociation.

I offer virtual EMDR therapy, trauma-informed mindfulness/compassion-based interventions, trauma-sensitive psychodynamic psychotherapy, body-oriented (somatic) psychotherapy and clinical hypnosis (particularly useful for stabilising dissociated self-states in DID). You can attend your virtual sessions from wherever you feel comfortable, and be assured that EMDR therapy and trauma therapy are very effective when done online. Reseach conducted in 2020 showed that online EMDR therapy was even more beneficial than when done face-to-face and that attendance rates were better (study by Naomi Fisher, Iain McGowan and Justin Havens, 2020).

It can be confusing to start therapy, especially when there are so many options, and even more if you have a history of trauma. Talk therapy or counselling may not have worked for you or left you feeling like there was something wrong with you. Therefore, if you have a history of trauma, neglect or abuse in childhood, it is wise to look for support that is trauma-sensitive or trauma-informed. You can meet me for a consultation online to see if the services I offer are suitable to you. I will leave it up to you to contact me (or not) after the consultation.

What is trauma?

A traumatic experience is an overwhelming event that is experienced as a threat, either physical or psychological. It can be a single-incident, such as an assault/accident (PTSD), or chronic and repetitive (Complex PTSD). During traumatic experiences, we might involuntarily go into a sate of fight, flight, freeze or submit, and we may even have "gone somewhere else" (dissociated). We may even have no recollection of what happened, or not remember our childhoods.

Even when the trauma is over and there is present safety, we may still have frequent moments of terror (flashbacks, nightmares, panic), feel numb or not present/real (dissociation), or have intense emotions (shame or rage) that we cannot manage. If the trauma happened in very early childhood, and especially if it involved a parent or close carer who was cruel, abusive or neglectful, we may hear angry voices or terrified cries inside (such as in DID) and this can be very frightening. With Complex PTSD, relationships can be challenging and it can be hard to trust others, no matter how much we want to.

This can leave us feeling like we are broken or like there is something inherently wrong with us (even the diagnosis of PTSD implies that we have a "disorder"!). But these are all normal symptoms of traumatisation and are not your fault. You are not broken, you have been hurt, and your system did its best to survive. If you have made it this far, you are already a resilient survivor and there is hope. Recovery from trauma happens in community, so with the help of a trauma-informed therapist and a number of other supports things can get better.