SPECIALIST THERAPY
Trauma Therapy in London & Online.
Trauma therapy with Matthew Frener (he/him), an Integrative Psychotherapist based in Fitzrovia, Central London, also available online across the UK.
Matthew is a UKCP Registered, BACP Senior Accredited and NCPS Senior Accredited Registrant, with a Master of Science degree and a Clinical Diploma in Integrative Psychotherapy, and specialist training in Somatic Trauma Therapy. He specialises in complex PTSD, developmental trauma, relational trauma, and attachment difficulties, working with adults who have experienced childhood adversity, abuse, neglect, sudden loss, or the quieter, cumulative weight of repeated difficult experiences that have shaped how they relate to themselves and others. His work is relational, trauma-informed, and identity-conscious, grounded in the belief that healing happens not just through techniques, but through the quality of the therapeutic relationship itself.
Sessions are available in person at Matthew's private practice at Audley House, Margaret Street, London W1W 8JQ, a short walk from Oxford Circus, Goodge Street, and Tottenham Court Road, and online via secure video call across the UK.
Last updated: June 2026
Am I experiencing trauma?
Perhaps something happened, or perhaps things happened, quietly and repeatedly, over a long time. You may have carried it well for years. But lately something feels as though it has shifted: certain situations or people produce reactions that feel out of proportion, or out of your control.
You may find yourself bracing against the world. Relationships that should feel safe feel threatening. You work hard to hold things together, and it costs you more than it should.
Trauma often doesn't look like what we expect it to. It doesn't always arrive with a single identifiable event or a clear diagnosis. Sometimes it lives in the body, in hypervigilance: in the way you startle, in chronic tension or disconnection. Sometimes it lives in patterns: in the relationships you choose, the ways you protect yourself, the parts of yourself that feel shut down or unreachable.
What is trauma?
Trauma is not defined by the severity of an event, or by what happened to you; it is defined by what happened inside you as a result. It is the way the nervous system, the body, and the mind adapt to experiences that felt overwhelming, inescapable, or deeply unsafe. An experience becomes traumatic when it overwhelms a person's capacity to cope: when the normal processing of memory and emotion is disrupted, and that disruption persists.
Trauma is widely understood as a normal response to abnormal or deeply distressing experiences. It can follow a single event, or it can accumulate across months and years of difficult relational experience.
There are two broad categories of trauma:
Single-incident trauma (Type I / PTSD)
Sometimes called acute trauma, it arises from a specific event: an accident, assault, sudden bereavement, or medical emergency, that was experienced as acutely threatening or overwhelming. When symptoms persist, this may meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Complex or developmental trauma (Type II / C-PTSD)
Accumulates over time: childhood neglect, emotional abuse, growing up in an unpredictable or frightening home, or any prolonged experience in which safety felt out of reach. This kind of trauma tends to show up not as a clear memory of "the event," but as a persistent sense of unsafety, difficulty trusting others, or a feeling of disconnection from yourself and the world. Complex PTSD was formally recognised as a distinct diagnosis in the ICD-11 in 2022.
Signs that trauma may be affecting you
Research suggests that around 17% of adults in England have experienced PTSD at some point in their lives (NHS England, 2024), yet many people live with trauma symptoms for years without recognising what they are.
You don't need a formal diagnosis to benefit from trauma therapy. Many people who come to therapy don't identify primarily as trauma survivors, they simply know that something isn't working, and that they've tried to manage it alone for a long time.
Some of the experiences that bring people to trauma therapy include:
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Feeling triggered by situations, people, or sensory experiences in ways that feel disproportionate or confusing
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Intrusive memories, flashbacks, or distressing dreams
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A persistent sense of danger, dread, or hypervigilance, even in objectively safe situations
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Emotional numbing, detachment, or a sense of going through the motions
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Difficulty trusting others, or in relationships that feel volatile or painful
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Deep shame, self-blame, or a pervasive sense of being fundamentally flawed
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Dissociation: feeling unreal, disconnected from your body, or losing track of time
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Difficulty regulating emotions: intense reactions that escalate quickly, or feelings that feel blocked and inaccessible
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Using substances, behaviour, or activity to manage feelings that feel otherwise unmanageable
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Physical symptoms (chronic tension, fatigue, digestive difficulty, pain) without a clear medical explanation
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A sense of being stuck: knowing intellectually that the past is behind you, but not being able to feel it
If you recognise yourself in any of this, trauma therapy may offer something that insight alone cannot: a relational space in which the nervous system can slowly learn that it is safe.
Types of trauma I work with
I work with adults experiencing a range of traumatic presentations, including:
A single event (acute trauma)
Acute trauma may involve an accident, assault, sexual violence, sudden bereavement, a medical emergency, or witnessing something deeply distressing. When symptoms persist, this may meet the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Ongoing or repeated experiences (chronic or complex trauma)
These may include childhood abuse or neglect, domestic violence, coercive control, or prolonged exposure to threat or instability. This is more closely associated with Complex PTSD (C-PTSD), and may also be described as developmental trauma (trauma that occurs during childhood and disrupts healthy emotional, neurological, and relational development), or attachment trauma, which arises specifically within caregiving relationships and shapes the capacity for trust, intimacy, and self-worth in adulthood. Some people use the term Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to describe harmful experiences in childhood that have lasting effects on mental and physical health.
Living in a traumatic atmosphere
This may include growing up in a household marked by addiction, mental illness, domestic conflict, or emotional unpredictability, even without a specific incident that could be named as "the event."
Betrayal trauma
This can include trauma caused by someone the person depends on or trusts, such as a parent, partner, or institution. Betrayal trauma can be particularly complex because acknowledging the harm may feel threatening to an essential relationship, and is often associated with dissociation and difficulties with trust.
Intergenerational and collective trauma
Trauma that is transmitted across generations through family systems, parenting, culture, and relationships. The effects of historical events, such as war, genocide, forced migration, slavery, colonisation, can shape the psychological experience of subsequent generations, even those with no direct memory of the original events. Within families, patterns of trauma, loss, and dysregulation are often passed down in ways that are felt long before they are understood.
Identity-based and community trauma
This involves trauma relating to who you are, including the cumulative impact of racism, homophobia, transphobia, or other forms of discrimination. The psychological impact of racism on the mind and body is sometimes described as racial trauma. For LGBTQ+ individuals, minority stress and internalised shame can constitute significant and chronic traumatic experience.
Secondary and vicarious trauma
This involves trauma arising from exposure to another person's trauma, common in therapists, healthcare workers, first responders, and those who care for someone who has been traumatised.
Moral injury
Psychological distress arising from acting against, or witnessing violations of, one's deeply held moral values. Often characterised by shame, guilt, loss of meaning, and a sense of spiritual crisis, it is common in healthcare, military, and emergency service contexts.
I also work with trauma as it intersects with addiction, disordered eating, medical experiences, and the workplace, areas where traumatic experience often underlies or sustains difficulty, and where a trauma-informed approach makes a meaningful difference.
If you are unsure whether what you have experienced constitutes trauma, that uncertainty is itself worth bringing to therapy. You do not need a diagnosis, or a single clear event to point to, for your experience to be affecting you.
My approach to trauma therapy
There is no single correct way to work with trauma, and the right approach depends on the person, the presentation, and the pace that feels safe. I work integratively, drawing on relational psychotherapy as a home base, informed by attachment theory, trauma neuroscience, and DBT-informed skill-building, with the therapeutic relationship itself as the primary vehicle for change.
What this means in practice:
Safety and stabilisation is paramount
Before any processing of traumatic material, I work with clients to build a stable, reliable therapeutic relationship and develop the distress tolerance and emotional regulation skills necessary to engage with difficult experience without becoming overwhelmed. This phase is not preliminary to the work but a major part of it.
The body is always part of the picture
Trauma is stored not just in memory and narrative, but in the nervous system and the body. My work is informed by an understanding of the neurobiological basis of trauma responses, including the ways in which the body can be mobilised or shut down long after a threatening situation has passed. I integrate somatic awareness into relational work, drawing on the thinking of Babette Rothschild, whose Somatic Trauma Therapy training I have completed.
Relational experience is both wound and remedy
For many people with complex or developmental trauma, the original harm was relational, it happened in relationships, and the legacy of that harm continues to shape how they relate to others, including in the therapy room. I pay close attention to the relational dynamic between us, understanding the therapeutic relationship as a living laboratory in which old patterns can be named, examined, and, over time, changed.
Attachment-based work is central
Many trauma presentations are fundamentally attachment presentations, the legacy of caregiving relationships that were frightening, inconsistent, or absent. I draw on attachment theory and contemporary relational neuroscience, including the work of Allan Schore, Daniel Siegel, and David Wallin, to understand how early relational experience shapes the nervous system, the sense of self, and the capacity for intimacy. The therapy itself becomes a place where new relational experience is possible.
Parts work and Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Trauma often produces a fragmented inner world, different parts of the self that hold different feelings, beliefs, and protective strategies, sometimes in conflict with one another. Drawing on IFS and parts-based thinking more broadly, I work with clients to develop a curious, compassionate relationship with all parts of themselves, including those that have been most defended against or disowned. This approach is particularly well-suited to complex trauma, dissociative presentations, and the inner critic dynamics that accompany shame-based experience.
DBT-informed skills support the work
Having completed a BPS-Approved DBT Full Practitioner training, I draw on Dialectical Behaviour Therapy skills, particularly distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness, to help clients build the internal resources needed to engage with trauma safely and sustainably. DBT is particularly well-suited to complex trauma presentations involving emotional intensity or self-destructive coping.
Identity and social location are held throughout
Trauma does not happen in a vacuum. The impact of marginalised identity, including GSRD (gender, sexuality, and relationship diversity) experience, racialised experience, and minority stress, can be both a source of trauma in itself and a complicating factor in healing. I work in an explicitly affirming, anti-oppressive way, and I bring a commitment to understanding how social context shapes psychological experience.
The work follows three broad stages
Most trauma-informed approaches are organised around the three-phase model developed by Judith Herman and widely adopted in contemporary trauma practice, though in practice the stages are not rigid or linear, and the work moves between them as needed.
Stage one: safety and stabilisation
Building the therapeutic relationship, developing internal resources (distress tolerance, emotional regulation, grounding), and establishing the conditions under which deeper work becomes possible.
Stage two: processing and integration
Exploring the origins of current patterns and pain, working with the different "parts" of you, making meaning of traumatic experience, and beginning to loosen its grip on present life. This phase moves at your pace and will never be rushed, often returning to stage one when needed.
Stage three: consolidation and reconnection
Building a life that feels more fully inhabited: greater capacity for presence, connection, and self-compassion, and a different relationship with the past.
To read about my background, training and general approach, visit my About page.
What to expect from trauma therapy
The first session
This is an opportunity to meet, to talk about what has brought you to therapy, and to begin to get a sense of whether working together feels right. There is no obligation to disclose everything at once, and no expectation that you will arrive with a clear account of what has happened. Many people come to a first session feeling uncertain, or unable to fully articulate what they are carrying. That is a reasonable place to begin.
Early sessions
We will focus on building familiarity and safety, understanding your history, your current experience, and what you are hoping therapy might offer. We will not move toward difficult material before the relational foundation is in place to hold it and you feel more in control of your mind and body.
Progress in trauma therapy
This rarely feels linear. There may be periods of significant shift, and periods where things feel stuck or uncomfortable. This is a normal part of the process, and something I will always be willing to talk about openly. Over time, many clients notice changes in how they respond to situations that once felt overwhelming, in their relationships, and in their relationship with themselves.
Session length, regularity and fees
Sessions are 50 minutes, once weekly, in person at Audley House, Fitzrovia, or online via secure video call. My fee is £100-£120 per session on a sliding scale, discussed at initial consultation. I also currently accept AXA, Aviva, WPA, Cigna, and Vitality insurance.
Ending
This is handled with care and with adequate notice, not abruptly, and not on a fixed schedule imposed from outside. When the time comes, we will talk about it together.
For full details on fees, payment, cancellation, location, and how to get started, visit the Practical Information page.
Getting Started
Reaching out when you are carrying something difficult is itself an act of courage. There is no requirement to have the right words, or to know exactly what you are looking for, before you contact me.
I offer an initial consultation, an opportunity to meet, to talk briefly about what has brought you to therapy, and to consider together whether working with me feels like the right fit. There is no obligation to proceed.
I aim to respond to all enquiries within two working days.
FURTHER READING
From the journal
Frequently asked questions
READY TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP?
If you are reading this page, something has already shifted. You are considering the possibility that the way things are does not have to be the way things stay.
That is not a small thing.
A free introductory call with me takes 15 to 30 minutes and carries no obligation. It is a chance to talk, ask questions, and get a sense of whether this is the right fit. Sessions are available in person in Fitzrovia, Central London, and online across the UK.