Sometimes, Trauma.

05/09/2025

“Secure”, “Disorganised”, “Anxious” or “Avoidant”…
…how our caregivers have held us, or abandoned us, has a deep impact on subsequent experiences of relationship. These Attachments in early childhood inform our ability to let go of unhealthy relationships or dynamics.

This is an original story/image poem about attachment and relationship from Sometimes Trauma.

In the UK, children at 8 go on a residential school trip for a working week. For many, it's the first time away from home.

Sometimes, being prepared to defend our inner child takes a "Dark Night" moment. The process of personal growth is hard for us all.

This poem was written at a time of great change in my life, as I became prepared to defend, (and change), what I was allowing myself to let in and what I knew I needed to let go of.

https://youtu.be/-sD_7iq9NPA

"Sometimes, Trauma" is an organisation specialising in working with clients and therapists within the Trauma Therapy field, providing therapy, groups, one-to-one supervision, couple/family work and psychoeducation to those that can benefit from it.

You can find more information at www.sometimestrauma.com. This organisation is run by Hannah Duncan/(HanJan) who is a therapist with over 20 years' experience of working as a therapist and facillitator.

“Secure”, “Disorganised”, “Anxious” or “Avoidant”……how our caregivers have held us, or abandoned us, has a deep impact on subsequent experiences of relations...

17/07/2025

Sad that the world lost this giant poet this week. Glad that these words and many others are echoing in the wake.

13/07/2025

https://youtu.be/-sD_7iq9NPA?si=ag0BpMPdZ1ImSBnn

Here is the latest audio poem from the Sometimes Trauma Therapy Sandwich collection. It features a very beautiful clarinet quartet arrangement which is worth listening to for itself! In this poem, we are looking at Attachment and how sometimes you have to break your own attachment pattern to protect the vulnerable child parts of yourself, as well as (in this case) the very real vulnerable child you are trying to protect from your own relational choices.

“Secure”, “Disorganised”, “Anxious” or “Avoidant”……how our caregivers have held us, or abandoned us, has a deep impact on subsequent experiences of relations...

30/06/2025

Midsummer and the evenings are just delicious. It strikes me - as I come back home from a walk by the coast path - that this garden room is a pretty peaceful and wonderful place to come for therapy.

(And my fish all let me stroke them this evening as they begged for food like little water dogs!)

28/05/2025

I am working for a part of my holiday this week, and find myself doing sessions from an old Victorian hotel in Stranraer. I usually look out over fields and trees from Devon. Today I am looking at an old ferry port and the blue, blue sea. The sparrows I hear calling are the same accompaniment to both places!

28/01/2025

This weekend Sometimes Trauma will be doing their first live training event: a retreat day in Devon with lots of somatic practice and a focus on the delivery of a toolkit for those working through trauma. It's an exciting threshold for us: combining live music with meditation and emotional regulation practice.

Dave and I have worked tirelessly on this throughout this month. Yesterday he was able to put together this regulation video to go alongside the original Memento Mori practice we will be doing. See the YouTube link below to have a listen to the music and see the outline if you are interested! I also attach copies of the Toolkit we will be sharing with the therapists who attend and which I will make available to my trauma clients.

https://youtu.be/4FtFBl5lr3Q?si=xbXoCQBDrnYNZlHX

05/01/2025

https://youtu.be/MYO_qr4Mewo?si=LdYinG8MpY6Cj3gE

Facebook memories tell me that this song was uploaded a year ago yesterday. It's an original love song to all those on a therapeutic journey trying to brave change and conquer fear.

Hopefully 2025 will see more poetry, music and regulation videos from Sometimes Trauma, all offered with the hope of spreading one key message: trauma is not a life sentence and with befriending of nervous systems, changing of meanings and great bravery, safety is possible.

1st February will also be the first in-person Retreat CPD event from us in Devon, which is simultaneously terrifying and very exciting!

This is a love song for anyone who embarks upon a therapeutic journey or a process of intense self-development. It is often a great risk or a time of uncerta...

30/10/2024

It’s been a vital part of my working life for the past decade to ensure I have regular holidays away from the pressures of working with complex trauma and managing a busy family/emotional life. The capacity to become vicariously traumatised is great in the work I do, so the priority has to be to spend as much time as I can doing the things I love. This October, it has been to travel to the Pyrenees in my camper for some hiking and cycling.

04/10/2024

This moment of slow, torturous drama on my therapy room door earlier in the week got me thinking: if you are keeping your head down only, you might miss the view. You might get frustrated because of how long the travel takes or how alien the landscape is! Progress in therapy (or outside of it…) is progress, however tough going it may seem. Making new neural pathways and slowing down our autonomic nervous system responses may take time, but it is entirely possible to make this change happen.

20/08/2024

Sometimes, trauma keeps the drama of our life frozen in time, continuing to batter us long after it has passed. Online groups for those recovering from trauma will be starting for the Autumn term on September 9th at 6.45pm. These safe, small groups are designed either as stand alone therapeutic, practical support or as a great companion to individual therapy being done elsewhere. The group is ideal for clients who will benefit from learning about nervous system regulation practices and psychoeducation as well as the support that comes from realising that a PTSD is a normal reaction to abnormal events.

Message for more information or use the website form: https://sometimestrauma.com/client-services/

17/08/2024

Life can literally knock you over sometimes and it is hard to stay “grounded” when so much is demanded of your time and attention. After a busy period March to July, it has been a wonderful feeling to have a little more space, and to “find my feet” again in the heart of the “Sometimes, Trauma…” project.

Coming back to language and our own voice articulating something of the inner world is also to find our feet. I have therefore been consciously returning to poetry and the photographs I have captured as a serenade to my own two mobilised anchor points. Taking photographs of my feet has been something I have been doing for quite a few years now as a deliberate act of meditation. These feet that keep me upright and centred in my world needed some recognition! How often do we not look down and see our feet? How often do we not notice the very ground from which our entire lives are lived? How often do we spend so much time looking forwards or into the distance ahead that we miss the little ant scurrying past, or the beautiful shell or curled leaf by our shoes? One day our feet will leave the earth. It strikes me that this “toe gazing” is a metaphor for mindfulness: look down at the ground on which you stand and don’t only focus on a horizon you haven’t yet reached. Hope for the future, create your plans with desire and passion – but also know what the next step is immediately ahead.

I hope you enjoy this music/poetry/photography video from the Sometimes, Trauma project.

://youtu.be/2e497bR46vk?si=kLMlK0h4l5Ao-iv2@

I have been taking photos of my feet in diferent landscapes for several years now, and photos of feet in general. The conscious act of grounding: stopping to...

16/08/2024

It has been an extremely strange year in many ways. Plans to create more material for this project, to do some exploring in wild places and some other adventuring needed to be put on hold by unexpected circumstance for a few months. It is strange when the drama itself is not yours, but it finds its way into the cracks of your life edges notwithstanding....

It has been an extremely strange year in many ways. Plans to create more material for this project, to do some exploring in wild places and some other adventuring needed to be put on hold by unexpe…