Welcome to Trauma Bridging Therapy, a unique therapy blending grounding strategies, cognitive re-framing and reprocessing of targeted traumatic memories using Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) with Astrid Robinson (B. Soc. Sci. Social Work Honours).
About Trauma
Traumatic experiences can come from two main sources: We can have Physical Trauma, where we are left feeling helpless or out of control and develop a sense of being on guard and mistrust in the world and, we can have Shunning Trauma, where we are subjected to critical put downs, public ridicule, exclusion from social groups and bullying as well as Traumas of Omission where our developmental needs are not met, which can all leave us with a sense of not being good enough, not lovable or not belonging.
The human nervous system stores traumatic memories as part of learning, so as to avoid future traumatic events. The nervous system stores these traumatic events in three areas of the brain:
- The sensory cortex with detailed fragments of sight, sound, smell, taste and body location of the traumatic event are stored.
- The limbic system and amygdala, which stores our emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, disgust and sub-feelings of anxiety, frustration, depression and poor self-worth, and
- The prefrontal lobes, which store negative cognitions. Negative self-referencing beliefs such as “I’m not good enough”, “I don’t belong”, “I cannot trust anyone”, “I cannot stand up for myself”, “I’m helpless”, which become the filters through which we see ourselves and the world and which are formed sometime after the traumatic event/s.
Trauma Bridging Therapy is a brief intervention collaborative therapeutic alliance between the therapist and the client and focuses on normalising and repairing bodily symptoms, emotions and thoughts. We take a detailed history and coach grounding and self-soothing strategies and develop a therapeutic rapport and trust. We then work on self-management strategies of cognitive reframing with the aim of working towards micro changes for more values guided actions. Once assessed and screened for the clinically indicated use of EMDR we progress to the assessment phase for EMDR where we identify specific traumatic memories and associated negative self-referencing beliefs for reprocessing with rapid eye movements.
EMDR is not hypnosis and at any point you can stop the process. The eye movements replicate the rapid eye movements in REM sleep and activate a natural pruning mechanism of the brain to store the jist of events. This mechanism helps to make the traumatic memory less intense, releases body memory and decreases the intensity of emotions. Once this has occurred the brain can repair the memory with a sense of it being in the past and can re-script some of the negative self-referencing with more positive ones such as; “I am enough”, “I do belong”, “I can choose whom to trust”, “I can make my needs known”, ”I now have choices” and these positive beliefs become believable and transferable to other areas of our lives.
About Astrid
Astrid Robinson was born in Cape Town, South Africa and was exposed to a large amount of trauma in general society as well as working with victims of crime, spinal cord injury patients and with drug and alcohol clients.
In 2009 Astrid migrated to Australia and became an Australian citizen starting a private practice at McLaren Vale Family Practice, where she has been practising for the past 12 years.
In 2023 Astrid started working with veterans and their families through Open Arms and has changed her practice model to Trauma Bridging Therapy working with veterans and persons exposed to trauma.
In 2009 Astrid migrated to Australia and became an Australian citizen starting a private practice at McLaren Vale Family Practice, where she has been practising for the past 12 years.
In 2023 Astrid started working with veterans and their families through Open Arms and has changed her practice model to Trauma Bridging Therapy working with veterans and persons exposed to trauma.
Astrid's Skill Set
Accredited Mental Health Social Worker B. Soc. Sci. Social Work (Hons)
Accredited by Australian Association of Social Work (AASW) , Medicare , Open Arms
- EMDRAA (Full Member)
- EFT (Diploma)
- ACT (Trained by Dr Russ Harris)
- Interpersonal Therapy for Depression
- Drug and Alcohol use Disorders
- Mindfulness & Grounding strategies
- EMDR Group work (R-TEP & G-TEP)
- Clinical Supervisor (Rise Up Model 2021)
“Let’s co-create being released from the past, a peaceful integrated sense of self in the present, and an optimistic anticipation of the future! I look forward to being your facilitator in this process.”-Astrid
Contact Information
Physical Address:
McLaren Vale Family Practice 137 Main Road McLaren Vale, SA 5171 Postal Address: P O Box 820 McLaren Vale, SA 5171 |
MAIN: 0411 683 552
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