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Electronic noticeboard trauma service

This is a space to find resources to help you while waiting to see us and to explore community activities taking place. It is an interactive site and you can send us content suggestions.

Group Offer in the Trauma Team

Living with trauma often is isolating, and connecting with others may seem like a challenge. A therapy group provides a consistent space where you can build trust, feel understood, and explore your experiences alongside others who have been through similar things.

We offer a range of groups at different timepoints in the therapeutic journey.

Poster of the group offer at the Tavistock Trauma Team.

The Learning About Trauma Group

The Learning About Trauma group is an educational group where no one is expected to speak about their experiences or personal history.


We will learn about the impact of trauma on the body, mind, and relationships, and how to cope with trauma symptoms. Each week there is a short PowerPoint presentation, and then room for questions. We encourage discussion but no participation is required.

The Peer Support Group

A welcoming and informal space for peer support over a cup of tea, which provides an opportunity to meet others accessing the service, talk, listen, and share experiences.

The Next Chapter Group

The Next Chapter Group is for people who have ended their individual or group therapy treatment.

This is a group to help people who have completed their therapy, to think about the process of leaving the service and begin to think with others about the support they may need once they have completed their treatment. In this group there will be psychoeducation, creative activities and discussion.

The Yoga Group

The Trauma-Informed Yoga group works alongside individual therapy.
Trauma-informed yoga involves gentle poses, breathing exercises and rest. This group focuses on choice and explores how taking control of movement can positively impact experiences in the body. Helping us to feel relaxed and more regulated.

The Art Therapy Group

Trauma often leaves us at a loss for words, sometimes an image, dream, drawing, or the use of colour or gesture can help us to find meaning.

In our Art Therapy group, art can function as an extra language towards expression and meaning. These are not art classes but pyschotherapy groups. You do not need to be good at art to join, but some interest in creativity is helpful.

The Trauma-Focused Mentalisation Based Therapy Group

The trauma-focused MBT group is a semi-structured therapy group involving psychoeducation that focuses on establishing trust and safety before people share narratives of past traumatic experiences to think about together.

The Women’s and The Men’s Group

The women’s/men’s group are two separate exploratory groups designed to help people share their childhood traumas with others
who have experienced similar situations.

The aims are to help develop trust between group members and allow participants to explore how they can connect with others to help reduce emotional isolation.

Trauma Service Panel

The panel informs, contributes and advises on work within the Trauma service and the Tavistock Trust. A group in which patients and ex-patients offer their expertise and knowledge to help the service develop in a patient centred and trauma-informed way.

Duration: Open Ended, 1 hour 15 min, once per month, mixed gender

Leaflet of the group offer in the Tavistock Trauma Team describing the different groups. The same information can be found in the text sections above

You can save the group leaflet by right clicking or ask your therapist for a paper copy of it

Peer Support

Our peer support workers are dedicated staff members who have walked a similar path. Having previously accessed treatment within our service, they now use their lived experience to support others on their healing journey.

Message from our peer support workers:

We know that facing challenges—especially those related to trauma and recovery—can feel overwhelming. That’s why we’re here. Our role is to offer emotional and social support, listen with empathy, and help you feel seen, heard, and understood.

By drawing from our own experiences, we hope to bring comfort, encouragement, and reassurance that healing is possible. We provide a welcoming, non-clinical space where you can express yourself openly, without judgment. Our goal is to ease feelings of loneliness and isolation, nurture inner strength, and remind you that you are not alone.

Having been through similar experiences, we bring a unique perspective and an extra layer of support to the trauma unit. Our goal is to give hope and encourage steps towards healing and towards planning the future, focusing on inner strength and potential. We warmly invite you to see peer support as a valuable part of your recovery. Our wish is that patients incorporate this opportunity as part of their recovery journey.

If you’d like to explore this service for yourself or someone you know, please reach out. You can speak to your psychotherapist, case manager, or contact us via admin—we’d be happy to arrange a conversation.

We also hold in-person peer support drop-in sessions at the Tavistock. Check the What’s On section below for details.

We look forward to connecting with you.

Recommended by our Peer Supporters

Nutrition

Financial Help

What’s On

Peer Support Drop In’s

Coffee, Connect & Support

1st Wednesdays of the month 1:15-2:15 pm in G21 and 3rd Mondays of the month 4-5 pm in room G21

Poster for the Peer Support Drop in entitled Coffee, Conenct and Support. The same information can be found in the text below the poster

We would like to extend a warm invitation to our ‘Drop-Ins’ hosted by the Trauma Service’s Peer Support Practitioners. Please join us in an informal space where we can talk, listen and gather over some tea, coffee and biscuits.

For further information, please speak with your therapsit of case manager, or email us at adult@tavi-port.nhs.uk

Focus group

Monthly information sessions

Monday afternoons, 90 minutes, online

Online information sessions take place once a month for members of your family, close friends or for other significant people in your lives including professionals.

Presentations by staff focus on understanding trauma, the impact trauma has on individuals and relationships, and provides strategies for managing difficulties.

How to attend

If you would like a relative, friend or professional supporting you to attend, please let us know by contacting the service on 020 8938 2400 or by email at adult@tavi-port.nhs.uk. Alternatively, please feel free to discuss this with your individual or group therapist, or your case manager. After hearing from you, we will then contact the person you would like to attend to invite them to our next session.

Learning about trauma

Podcasts and articles about trauma

Podcasts and articles about trauma

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

  • PTSD UK – information, resources, coping skills

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD)

Dissociative identity disorder

The mind-body connection

Psychotherapy

  • A helpful guide about Psychodynamic Therapy: What skills can service users expect their therapists to have Analytic/Dynamic Therapy
  • A video from the school of life about psychotherapy: Psychotherapy

Coping with trauma symptoms

Coping with trauma memories

Coping with dissociation

Managing difficult emotions

Medication

Many people who come to us have had previous contact with mental health services and are on a variety of medication, often at times of crisis. We have found that sometimes this means the medication is simply continued without a conversation ever happening with either a psychiatrist or a GP to see if this is still needed.

It is also important to note that coming off some medication (anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, benzodiazepines, many pain medications) can cause withdrawal. It is really important that a clear plan of slow reduction with support is implemented.

You are welcome to discuss this with your case manager or therapist and they may support you in having this discussion with your GP and / or psychiatrist. 

Art and activism

Sleep

A first aid sleep kit poster which introduces various practices which might help with sleep troubles

Community services that can help

Supporting Services

Reach Out Camden: a charity collective support service which helps Camden residents access help.

Reporting sexual abuse

Domestic violence

Money, finances and debt

Useful services for survivors

Cervical Screening

Community Support Networks

Survivors’ voices

Resources

Recommended by you

Book: What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing

Published last year (2021) is a collaboration between Dr Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey.

Comments: Written in an informal, conversational style, it not only advocates for asking What happened to you? over What’s wrong with you? … it also highlights the impact of What Didn’t Happen For You?

Excerpt from page 159, towards the end of the introduction to Chapter 6, From Coping to Healing:

“The lesson for me was that a key aspect of What happened to you? is What didn’t happen for you? What attention, nurturing touch, reassurance – basically, what love – didn’t you get? I realized that neglect is as toxic as trauma.” Bruce D. Perry.

For me, it was refreshing and encouraging to see this aspect of developmental trauma – neglect and the lack/absence of good experiences – to be given an airing as it can have really detrimental legacies, yet has tended to be relatively overlooked in the wider conversation on developmental trauma.

It’s high time this is addressed and redressed so three cheers to Dr Perry and Oprah for this book and this particular aspect of this book

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Trauma library

Explore our Trauma Unit’s unique book selection, delving into the complexities of trauma and the path to healing. To borrow one of these insightful books, please get in touch with your therapist or contact our admin team at 020 8938 2400 or via email at adult@tavi-port.nhs.uk.

View our library catalogue