Brussels has a large population of people who deal professionally with other people’s crises, and a small one of people who have anywhere to take their own.
Between the institutions, the agencies, the NGOs and the missions, a great many residents work on conflict, displacement and emergency as a matter of routine. Some have been in the places concerned. Others have spent years reading the material. Both produce a particular kind of accumulated weight, and neither is easy to raise in an environment where everybody is dealing with the same subject and appearing to cope.
The language question, which is not administrative
I am French and I practise in French and English. For trauma this matters clinically rather than practically.
Traumatic material tends to live in the language in which it happened. Working on it in a second language can produce sessions that feel calm, articulate and oddly ineffective, because the account is being translated before it is felt. Most people have a sense of which language the material actually sits in, and it is often not the one they use at work.
What EMDR does
It works directly on traumatic memory. For a discrete event, properly processed, it can be remarkably effective and sometimes quick. The memory remains available but stops intruding.
Where trauma was prolonged, or began in childhood, the work is slower and broader, because there is no single memory to target. Anybody promising a fast resolution of that is overstating what is possible. On that distinction.
Confidentiality
Brussels is a small international city where colleagues, neighbours and children’s classmates come from the same few thousand households. Working with a clinician in London means nothing is held in Belgium, there is no possibility of professional overlap, and nothing is disclosed to any employer or institution without your written consent.
Practical
Brussels is one hour ahead of London. Sessions in French or English, in person in central London when you are travelling. UKCP-registered psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, HCPC-registered art psychotherapist, twenty-five years of practice and over twenty using EMDR. Both registers are public and can be checked independently.
EMDR therapy in London and trauma therapy.
Common questions
Can we work in French?
Yes, and for trauma the choice of language matters more than people expect. The material tends to live in the language in which it happened, and working in the other one can keep it at a distance that feels comfortable and achieves little.
Do you work with staff from the institutions?
Yes. Confidentiality from any employer or institution is absolute without your written consent, and nothing is held in Belgium.
How long does EMDR take?
A single traumatic event can sometimes resolve in a small number of sessions. Prolonged trauma, or trauma beginning in childhood, is slower and broader work.