In this episode of The Healing Childhood Trauma Podcast, we explore the powerful role shame can play in shaping how we see ourselves and why it can become so deeply embedded after difficult early experiences.

In this episode we explore:

• What shame is and why all humans experience it

• The difference between healthy shame and toxic shame

• Why childhood trauma can cause shame to become part of our identity

• How the inner critic develops

• Gentle ways to begin healing shame through self-compassion

If you’ve ever felt like you’re “not good enough,” fundamentally flawed, or somehow broken, this episode may help you understand where those feelings come from - and how healing can begin.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

⁠www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk⁠

✉️ Get in touch:

⁠Contact - Alec Williams Therapy⁠

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This episode will help you understand where those narratives came from - and more importantly, how to begin changing them.

You’ll learn how to:

• Recognise the hidden story driving your thoughts and behaviours
• Separate your past experiences from your identity
• Gently question long-held beliefs that feel like facts
• Start creating new, healthier ways of seeing yourself
• Take practical steps to break free from old trauma patterns

This episode is for anyone looking to heal childhood trauma, improve self-worth, and stop being controlled by old emotional patterns.

Because the story you’re living in… isn’t the only one available to you.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

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Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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By the end of this episode you'll have a deeper understanding of why:

• You don’t need clear memories for trauma to affect you
• “Good parents” doesn’t always mean you won't be carrying wounds
• And why you might still feel stuck, even years later

If you’ve ever found yourself thinking “it wasn’t that bad”, 'I don't remember it so it can't really have impacted me' or “I should be over it by now”, this episode will help you better understand how childhood trauma shows up in adulthood, from anxiety and relationship patterns to self-worth and emotional regulation.

You’ll come away with a clearer understanding of trauma - and a simple, practical step you can begin using to support your own healing journey.

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

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Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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If you’ve ever felt not good enough, too much, or unsure of who you really are, this episode will help you understand why.

We break down three common ways childhood trauma affects how you see yourself and you’ll learn why these patterns form in early life, how they continue to influence your thoughts, relationships, and sense of worth in adulthood - and, importantly, how to start changing them.

By the end of this episode, you’ll:

• Gain a deeper understanding of how early experiences shape self-perception
• Recognise common trauma-driven patterns affecting your confidence and self-worth
• Begin noticing the lens through which you see yourself, others, and the world
• Learn a simple, practical step to help you build a healthier, more compassionate sense of self

This episode is for anyone looking to heal childhood trauma, overcome self-doubt, and develop a stronger sense of identity and self-worth.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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Research from neuroscience and trauma psychology shows that the brain is not permanently damaged by trauma. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain can reorganize, heal, and build new pathways throughout life.

You’ll gain a deeper understanding of:

• What the nervous system actually does

• How childhood trauma can shape brain development

• Why trauma can keep the nervous system stuck in survival mode

• The role of neuroplasticity in healing trauma

• Practical ways to begin healing your brain and nervous system

If you've ever wondered why trauma affects the body so deeply - and whether healing is truly possible - this episode will help you understand both the science and the hope behind trauma recovery.

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Neurobiological Development in the Context of Childhood Trauma - PMC

“The Biological Effects of Childhood Trauma” - PMC

Worlds largest childhood trauma study uncovers brain rewiring | University of Essex

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

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Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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Discover what inner child healing truly means from trauma-informed and psychological perspectives. We discuss how childhood trauma and attachment wounds influence adult emotional patterns and behaviours, and share effective techniques for reparenting your inner child.

By the end of the episode, you'll understand signs that your inner child is triggered, learn practical strategies for inner child healing and emotional regulation, and begin fostering self-compassion and healthier relationships with yourself.

If you seek to heal childhood trauma, improve emotional well-being, or break repetitive emotional patterns, this episode offers valuable insights and actionable steps to start your healing journey today.

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

• Understand what childhood neglect and relational trauma actually are
• Recognise the difference between normal mis-attunement and developmental neglect
• Learn why unmet emotional needs leave lasting psychological and nervous system imprints
• Identify common signs of neglect wounds in adult relationships and self-perception
• Explore practical pathways toward healing attachment wounds and rebuilding relational safety

This episode is ideal for listeners interested in trauma recovery, attachment theory, emotional healing, psychotherapy, or personal development.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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By the end of this episode, you’ll:

• Understand why healing childhood trauma is rarely solved by a single therapy approach
• Learn the main ways trauma shows up in adulthood - thoughts, behaviours, nervous system, attachment, and inner parts
• Identify where trauma is showing up most strongly in your life right now
• Gain clarity on practical next steps for starting (or refining) your healing journey

If you’re ready to move beyond quick fixes and begin working with trauma in a way that meets the whole of you - this episode will give you a powerful and compassionate starting point.

_____________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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You’ll learn how early experiences influence adult self-worth, emotional reactions, and recurring life patterns - often in ways that are easy to miss.

By the end of this episode, you’ll:

• Understand how childhood trauma can show up in adult life and relationships
• Recognise 5 key signs of unresolved or unhealed childhood trauma
• Learn why focusing only on present-day symptoms doesn’t always create lasting change
• Gain a simple, practical healing reflection to start breaking old patterns

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

• Understand why going faster in trauma work can sometimes slow progress or increase symptoms
• Recognise how the nervous system responds to overwhelm and why pacing matters
• Learn what titration is and how working in small, manageable doses supports healing
• Identify signs that your current pace is helping - or quietly getting in the way
• Develop a more compassionate, realistic sense of how to find a pace that prioritises safety and regulation

Whether you’re in therapy, considering it, or doing your own inner work, this episode offers a grounded framework for understanding how fast is actually helpful in trauma healing.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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From attachment styles and nervous system responses to people-pleasing, avoidance, and fear of abandonment, we unpack how early relational wounds quietly shape the way you love, attach, and respond to others today.

By the end of this episode, you’ll:

Understand how childhood trauma shows up in adult relationships

Learn how early attachment experiences shape your attachment style today

Identify common trauma-based relationship patterns, including anxious, avoidant, and disorganised attachment

Recognise why your nervous system reacts so strongly in moments of conflict, distance, or intimacy

Begin separating past wounds from present relationships

Discover how healing childhood trauma can happen in relationship - not just alone

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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By the end of this episode you'll be able to:

• Understand what trauma cycles are and how they form in childhood
• Recognise why patterns that no longer serve you once had an important protective role
• Identify how these cycles show up in your nervous system and relationships
• Learn practical ways to pause, notice, and gently interrupt trauma-driven patterns
• Begin breaking cycles with more awareness, self-compassion, and choice

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

Mailing List - Alec Williams Therapy

By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

• Understand what core beliefs are and how they form as adaptive survival responses
• Reframe beliefs like “I don’t matter” as protective strategies rather than personal flaws
• Recognise the environments that made these beliefs necessary
• Identify clear steps to help you form new core beliefs

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

Mailing List - Alec Williams Therapy

We break down how numbness forms, why it once protected you, and the ways it can quietly shape your adult life today.

By the end of this episode, you’ll learn:

• the neuroscience and psychology behind emotional numbness
• the key signs and patterns to help you recognise it in yourself
• how childhood environments contribute to it
• why numbness interferes with needs, identity, and intimacy
• gentle, practical strategies to begin warming your emotional world back to life

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

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If you’ve ever gone blank in conflict, shut down in conversations, or felt disconnected from your own life, this episode will help you understand why.

By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

• Clearly understand what the freeze response is and why your body uses it
• Recognise how freeze shows up in your day-to-day life, from subtle shutdowns to full dissociation
• See how the freeze response can be rooted in childhood trauma and shaped by early survival patterns
• Learn practical, gentle steps to help thaw the freeze response in your own nervous system
• Begin connecting back to your body, emotions, and sense of safety.

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

• Identify which type of trauma you’ve experienced
• Understand the core wound that experience left in your sense of self
• Recognise how trauma shows up in your body, emotions, and beliefs
• Spot the protective patterns that were once survival strategies
• Notice your triggers and what they’re actually pointing you toward

If you’ve ever wondered “Why am I like this?” - this episode will help you connect the dots.

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

Mailing List - Alec Williams Therapy

By the end of this episode, you’ll be able to:

• Understand the difference between everyday anger and a trauma-based fight response
• Recognise how your body and nervous system communicate through anger
• Identify the underlying wounds or unmet needs that anger may be protecting
• Practise four simple steps to regulate and heal your relationship with anger
• Begin transforming anger from a reactive defence into an informed protector

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

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By the end of this episode you'll be able to:

• Understand the basic structure and function of the human nervous system.

• Recognise how trauma can impact nervous system responses.

• Understand your personal triggers and how these affect your nervous system.

• Use simple tools like the polyvagal ladder to track and understand their nervous system states.

• Move toward greater flexibility between nervous system states instead of being stuck in survival mode

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

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In this episode we explore how early relational trauma shapes our sense of self - and what we can reclaim as we begin to heal.

We dive into how protective adaptations like people-pleasing, perfectionism, withdrawal, or over-achieving often feel like “who we are,” and how to start reconnecting with the authentic self beneath the layers of survival.

Alec also shares practical insights from therapy, including narrative and parts-based approaches, and a simple daily practice to help create space for your authentic self to emerge.

This episode is for anyone wanting to understand their patterns, reclaim their voice, and reconnect with joy, creativity, and self-worth.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

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By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

• How relational trauma can show up as contraction in your body, emotions, and relationships - from slumped posture to emotional withdrawal.

• What contraction looks like in everyday life and why it’s often a protective response.

• How small, embodied moments of expansion signal that your nervous system is learning it’s safe to reconnect.

• Practical signs that you’re beginning to expand and healing, including noticing patterns sooner, tolerating connection, and reclaiming authenticity.

• A simple “Expansion Check-In” you can try at home to gently practice opening up in safe, manageable ways.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

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How do we form meaningful connection with others - when parts of ourselves are still protecting us from getting hurt?

You’ll walk away with:

A clearer understanding of why you relate the way you do.

Insight into your own protector parts and what they might be trying to keep you safe from.

And a practical healing step to begin building safer internal connection - so you can feel safer in your external ones

If you’ve ever felt lonely, stuck in patterns of disconnect, or unsure how to trust again - this episode is for you. 💛

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

Mailing List - Alec Williams Therapy

By the end of this episode you'll:

• Know the difference between Big T and little t trauma

• Understand how the more subtle, everyday experiences - like emotional neglect or inconsistency - can quietly shape the way we see ourselves and relate to others.

• Understand how unmet emotional needs in childhood can lead to long-term patterns of disconnection, self-doubt, and difficulty in relationships.

And finally, we’ll end with a gentle, practical healing step that you can be integrating into your own life.

If you’ve ever felt like your pain wasn’t valid because “others had it worse,” this episode is for you.

______________________________

🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

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By the end of this episode, you’ll understand:

• The difference between relational trauma, developmental trauma, and attachment trauma
• Where and how relational trauma often develops - from families to adult relationships and workplaces
• The common signs and symptoms that may actually be rooted in relational trauma (even if you didn’t recognize them as such)
• How relational trauma shapes our emotional patterns, attachment styles, and sense of safety
• Practical healing steps you can begin to integrate into your own life

Join us as we unpack this important question, and begin the healing process.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

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In this very first episode of Healing Relational Trauma, host Alec Williams, a psychotherapist and relational trauma specialist based in London, shares the inspiration behind the podcast and what you can expect from the journey ahead.

You'll get a sense of why he created this podcast - to explore what it means to heal, connect, and live more fully after relational trauma - and what listeners can look forward to in future episodes, including expert conversations, therapeutic insights, and practical tools for everyday healing.

You'll also get a sense of Alec's background working across mental health settings, his passion for trauma-informed care, and how his own experiences of growth and healing shape the way he works with others.

Whether you’re curious about relational trauma, or exploring your own healing journey, this episode sets the stage for what’s ahead.

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🌐 Visit my website to learn more about working with me one-to-one or in groups:

www.alecwilliamstherapy.co.uk

✉️ Get in touch:

Contact - Alec Williams Therapy

📰 Join the mailing list for updates, reflections, and new episodes:

Mailing List - Alec Williams Therapy