Trauma counselling is not about forcing someone to repeatedly relive the worst experience of their life.

Nor do I believe a person needs to be defined forever by something that happened to them.

The event cannot be changed. But the way its effects continue to live in a person's present life can be explored.

I often think of this as working with the scar.

A scar tells us there has been a wound. We don't pretend the wound never happened, and we don't need to reopen it unnecessarily. Instead, we become curious about what remains: the beliefs, protective responses, emotions and ways of relating that may once have helped a person survive but may no longer be serving them.

There can be a profound difference between remembering what happened and continuing to live as though some part of you is still there.