What is self image trauma?
‘Self Image trauma’ is distress experienced by a sense of self loathing or depleted self esteem. This can be linked to distress experienced when you are not living in harmony with your body or in which you can’t stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in yourself — a flaw that appears minor or can’t be seen by others. But you may feel so embarrassed, ashamed and anxious that you may avoid many social situations. Self image trauma is about our perception of ourselves and how we think, operate and feel about ourselves.While trauma can be physical, it is often emotional and psychological.
When we experience trauma, we can become emotionally dysregulated as our anxiety and overwhelm increases. That arousal of emotions triggers our fight or flight mechanism, leading to panic/ fear driven emotions as our sympathetic nervous system becomes activated. When we become overwhelmed by this mechanism, we can often become frozen by it, dissociating, shutting down and feeling hopeless. Left unprocessed, traumas can also reshape our core self and make us unable to function. We might feel a host of emotions, some of which are explained in this diagram:
At Naked Self Image, we deliver a structured and supportive 4-month coaching program to support the healing and recovery from such a trauma by teaching self compassion techniques and dialectical behavioural techniques to self regulate, stabilize and deactivate that negative self talk mechanism. Run by Adele Theron, a highly trained Trauma coach, this coaching approach helps you to pinpoint and project manage the triggers from that traumatic time which continue to live on in your day to day life. Whereas therapy focuses on the trauma itself, coaching focuses on strategies and tools to move forward. Coaching is a forward-focused approach which builds healing strategies to deal with those triggers that come up in your day to day life, teaching you to deal with them proactively.
This coaching approach is educational and builds insight, so you can learn how to support yourself to overcome the overwhelm mechanism using a host of techniques you will learn on the program. The program is not designed for people who have acute psychiatric conditions. Those conditions are better supported with medicalised support. If you want to check if the program is a good fit for you, book a Clarity call with someone on our team to talk through if the coaching approach is a good fit for your situation.
We will start with your first session to assess and take a client and clinical history. The first module is focused on restoring balance and creating stabilization. Before we do any processing, we first need to empower you to become grounded and emotionally stable. To begin, you’ll create a strong solid foundation so you have a supportive environment to contain your transformation.
Here the true healing begins. Inside the cocoon, the caterpillar is rapidly healing and changing, preparing to burst out as a beautiful butterfly. A caterpillar CANNOT grow wings without being contained but once contained, the real work can begin… 
We continue supporting you in learning different techniques until you feel more empowered to deactivate your own trauma response, you’re now ready to work on your future, dreams and desires.