Trauma therapy
From burden to strength
What is trauma?
When people think of trauma, they often imagine extreme events such as assault, war, or violence. Yet trauma can also take root in less visible but equally painful experiences: being bullied, not being heard, not being seen. The weight of trauma does not lie only in what happened, but in what followed. Were you acknowledged and supported? Was your pain being met? Or were you dismissed as oversensitive, minimized, or even denied?
Sometimes, all it takes is a single event. For instance, a child who is harshly punished once, without understanding why and without the chance to process it, can carry the scars of that moment for a lifetime.
When you are not seen
Trauma often arises when boundaries are ignored. The person is no longer seen as an individual, but treated as an object, an extension of someone else, or as a screen for unprocessed emotions. A war victim is stripped of humanity and reduced to something to be destroyed.
Children of narcissistic parents, for example, are not regarded as individuals in their own right but as extensions of their parent. They may be controlled, diminished, and used as a source of validation. These children are denied the freedom to grow into themselves. Such an environment is deeply wounding and leaves lasting trauma.
Projection is another common dynamic. Many people, unconsciously, project unresolved emotions—such as anger toward a parent—onto others. If you become the screen for that projection, you may be treated in ways that are unjust and have nothing to do with who you are. Over time, if your true self is not seen or acknowledged, this can create trauma. The cruel twist is that you may even begin to carry these emotions, such as anger, that never belonged to you.
Of course, more widely recognized forms of boundary violations, such as sexual abuse, physical violence, verbal and emotional abuse, can leave deep scars. A single event may result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When the harm is repeated over a long period, we speak of complex trauma.
Birth Trauma
A lesser-known wound with lasting impact. Birth sets the tone for life. The way a person enters the world can shape how they experience it. Unexplained struggles in the present often trace back to those first moments. How long did the birth take? Was the cord wrapped around the neck? Was it a breech delivery? Was the baby ready—or even willing—to be born? These questions can hold surprising clues to patterns we carry today.
Becoming Aware of Trauma
Healing Trauma
Can trauma be healed? Absolutely. But not by engaging only the mind. The body must be ‘part of the conversation’, because true healing resides in our cells. Through finely tuned, body-centered constellation work, Petra listens to what the body reveals. Here, feelings, sensations, and lived experience are fully honored. What was once dismissed now receives attention and validation. As the body is met with what it truly needs, frozen energy begins to release—and you can feel it.
After this release comes deep calm, first noticeable in the mind. Living with trauma often means learning to disconnect from feelings for the sake of safety, retreating into the head. Each step of healing frees a part of the body so energy can flow again. The result is a quieter mind, one that no longer needs to stay on constant alert.
Healthy Self-Love
From survival to wholeness. Trauma often gives rise to patterns and survival mechanisms. When a child’s needs are not met, the child learns to cope by trying harder—believing that being “good enough” will earn love. For children who grow up with constant criticism, the same mechanism develops: striving endlessly to be accepted.
The painful truth is that in families where love is conditional or absent, the problem never lies with the child. No amount of effort can change the lack of unconditional love in the parents. At some point in adult life, you might realize: no matter what I do, it’s never enough. This means that what is internalized is not love, but rejection—turning against oneself and learning not to love oneself.
Self-love in childhood can only flourish when parents or caregivers reflect back a mirror of unconditional love. Without that mirror, survival strategies take over. Years later, often well into adulthood, these patterns may show up as physical complaints, depression, or burnout.
Healthy boundaries and healthy self-love are incompatible with depression or burnout. Teaching the body how to feel safe with boundaries and how to embrace true self-love is therefore a vital part of trauma healing.
Growing into the adult self
In trauma therapy, we distinguish three important parts of the self: the trauma part, the survival part, and the adult part.
- The trauma part is the aspect in ourselfs that directly suffered the wound.
- The survival part contains the strategies developed to cope. These once kept the person alive, but at the point someone seeks healing, these strategies no longer serve—they block true life. Living in survival mode is not truly living.
- The adult part is the state we seek to grow into: grounded, mature, whole, and free.
It is as if the body “froze” at the moment of trauma. Petra often explains that on the level of the wound, a person never grew beyond the age at which the trauma happened. Emotionally, someone may feel seven years old—because something happened at that age which stopped growth. Healing trauma allows the frozen part to grow up, step by step, into the adult self.
Through constellation work, Petra helps bring these inner parts into view. From there, she listens deeply to what is needed for healing. The process creates space for wholeness, boundaries, and the birth of genuine self-love.
Physical Reactions to Trauma
Fight
Freeze
Flight
Follow
Trauma takes many forms. It may show up as:
- Taking too much—or too little—responsibility
- Giving and performing endlessly, yet never feeling it’s enough
- Persistent guilt for simply being yourself
- Not being seen, heard, or understood
- Childhood or ongoing bullying—whether victim or perpetrator
- Suppressed anger or uncontrollable aggression
- Exclusion or chronic feelings of not belonging
- Difficulty opening your heart or maintaining connection
- Dissociation, trouble grounding, or losing touch with yourself
- Extreme sensitivity to criticism
- Sexual abuse or assault, within the family or beyond
- Verbal or psychological violence
- Birth trauma
- Lack of acceptance or unconditional love in childhood
- Deep struggles with self-love and self-acceptance
Survival Mechanisms
To avoid the pain of the original wound, we develop survival strategies: control, perfectionism, self-sacrifice, emotional immaturity, shutting down the heart, distrust, hiding behind a façade, playing roles, inflating or diminishing the ego, staying invisible, underperforming, blaming, know-it-all behavior, over-giving, feelings of inferiority or superiority, lying, denial, sugarcoating reality, restlessness, and difficulty finding your place on earth.
These patterns once protected you, but they keep you in survival mode—existing, not truly living. Petra guides and supports you in moving from merely surviving to fully living: choosing life, allowing energy to flow freely, and rediscovering joy.
The wound is the place where the light enters you.