Stopped on the Road to Recovery: Barriers Preventing Access to Specialist Trauma Therapy

Unfortunately, many people live with the distressing effects of trauma, long after the incident or incidents have ended. Whilst there are many individual factors why people may not access specialist trauma therapy, here are a few of the more frequent reasons:

• Not being aware of the link between their traumatic experiences, and their current, mental and physical health, behaviour, relationship difficulties etc.

  • It is common for people to disregard the extent to which historical events continue to influence their current life.

• Poor experiences and outcomes in therapy or counselling previously.

  • It’s important to point out that trauma therapists require specialist knowledge, skills and experience.  It is not an area that every therapist can effectively help with.

  • 2b.     The poor outcomes may have been due to the wrong therapy being used by the therapist or counsellor.   Research clearly shows that some therapies are effective for overcoming trauma, and others are either ineffective or can even cause more distress.

• Because many people aren’t aware that there are effective therapies that can help.

  • Many people feel that it is not possible to overcome the effects of past abuse, adversity or trauma.

• Fear that the person will have to tell the therapist everything that happened to them.

  • This is not true.  An experienced therapist, with the right skills will only require minimal information on what happened, the ‘News Headline’ of the incident (not the detail or content).

• Time and cost.  Commonly, people fear they will need months or years of therapy to start getting results, or that they will have to ‘practice activities’ (i.e. homework) between therapy appointments. 

  • Again, this is not true.  The right therapist can deliver effective and efficient therapy, where you can experience results within the first few appointments (for some people, it is from the 1st appointment).  Generally, most people reach their therapy goals in 6 to 12 appointments.

• Fears that the person does not want to waste the therapist’s time.  

  • Is it common for people accessing trauma therapy to worry that they don’t deserve the therapists’ time, that their issues and distress isn’t significant enough (or, as I so commonly hear “people deserve it more than me” or “other people have been through worse”).

  • Unfortunately, trauma frequently affects a person’s sense of self-worth, sense of hope and value.  Effective therapy can help overcome this.

To learn more about trauma therapy, visit our frequently asked questions page and schedule your appointment with a therapist that specialises in trauma therapy.