Make sense of how your childhood still shapes your adult life, at a pace that feels safe, with an accredited therapist by secure video.
What happened to you as a child does not always stay in childhood. It can show up years later in how you handle stress, how safe you feel with other people, how you sleep, even how your body holds tension.
Online therapy gives you a private way to work on that with a qualified trauma-informed therapist, from anywhere in Ireland. Sessions happen by secure video, so there is no waiting room and no long drive to a town with an available therapist.
Childhood trauma means experiences that overwhelmed your ability to cope at the time, when you were too young to make sense of them or get away from them. That covers a wide range:
Not every hard experience is trauma. There is a real difference between something difficult you got through with support, a single frightening event, and years of repeated harm during the time your brain and personality were still forming. That last kind is sometimes called complex or developmental trauma, and it tends to affect more of you.
| Type | What it usually looks like | Common effect in adulthood |
|---|---|---|
| Difficult experience | Hard, but you had support and could make sense of it | Often processed without lasting difficulty |
| Single-event trauma | One overwhelming event, such as an accident or assault | May bring intrusive memories, avoidance, heightened alertness |
| Repeated or complex trauma | Ongoing harm or neglect, usually within relationships you depended on | Often affects self-worth, trust, emotional regulation and closeness |
The effects can reach into your sense of who you are, how easily you settle after being upset, how close you let people get, and your physical health. Childhood trauma can be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder or complex PTSD, which the World Health Organization recognises as separate conditions. Only a suitably qualified professional can assess or diagnose either, so please read this as information, not a verdict on yourself.
There is no checklist that settles it. But some patterns come up again and again in the room:
Relationships are often where it shows most. Trust feels risky. Boundaries either disappear or go up like a wall. Conflict feels dangerous rather than survivable, and the same pattern turns up with a new person. Can online therapy help with complex PTSD, attachment difficulties and repeated relationship patterns? It can, and this is a large part of what trauma-informed work involves, though complex presentations usually need longer and slower work than a short course of sessions.
One thing worth saying plainly: freezing, shutting down, going blank, or not being able to remember chunks of your childhood are protective responses your nervous system learned. They are not failures of character or willpower.
A first session is just a conversation.
Yes, for many people. Therapy helps you understand why you react the way you do, work through experiences at a pace you can handle, build ways of steadying yourself, and slowly loosen beliefs like "it was my fault" or "I can't rely on anyone".
On whether video works as well as sitting in a room: research into video-delivered therapy has generally found outcomes broadly comparable to in-person work for common difficulties such as anxiety and depression. The research comparing formats specifically for complex childhood trauma is thinner, so it would be overstating things to promise that online is equally suitable for everyone. What matters is an honest conversation with your therapist about fit.
What online does reliably offer:
Online therapy is not the right fit when you are in immediate crisis, when there are serious safeguarding concerns, when things are severely unstable, or when you have nowhere genuinely private to sit. In those situations, contact your GP, the HSE mental health services, or emergency services on 999 or 112.
Progress usually looks ordinary rather than dramatic. Someone who spent months only able to talk about the present might begin, around session ten, to mention one memory. Then notice they slept through the night after a row with their partner. That is the shape of it.
The first session is mostly getting to know what is going on for you now: what brought you, some history, what you want to be different, what supports you have, and whether online therapy is clinically appropriate for you at this point.
After that, trauma-informed work does not dive straight into painful memories. It usually starts with building trust, finding out what helps you settle, and learning ways to bring yourself back when you get overwhelmed. Only later does it move towards naming patterns and processing experiences, and always at a pace you set. Sometimes there is something small to try between sessions; nothing intense.
Practically, you will need:
Your therapist will go through confidentiality and its limits, how your information is stored under data protection law, and consent to the online format. They will also take an emergency contact and confirm where you are at the start of each session, so help can reach you if it is ever needed.
The honest answer is that it depends on you: what you are struggling with, what happened, what you want, how ready you feel, and how the relationship with your therapist works. NICE guidance on PTSD recommends trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy and EMDR for adults with PTSD, and those two are the most studied.
| Approach | What it involves | Often considered when |
|---|---|---|
| CBT | Working with thoughts, beliefs and behaviour patterns | Anxiety, low mood and unhelpful thinking sit alongside the trauma |
| Trauma-focused CBT | CBT applied directly to the traumatic memory and its meaning | Specific memories keep intruding |
| EMDR | Structured processing of memories using guided eye movements or similar | A memory still feels vivid and present rather than past |
| Attachment-based and compassion-focused work | Early relationship patterns, shame and self-criticism | Self-worth and closeness are the main difficulty |
| Narrative, ACT, mindfulness and somatic approaches | Rewriting the story, living by your values, noticing what the body carries | Used alongside the above, depending on what fits |
With complex trauma, good practice is usually phased: safety and nervous-system regulation first, processing second, then making sense of it and moving on. EMDR in particular should only be delivered by a practitioner trained in it, who assesses your preparation, stability and any dissociation before any trauma processing starts.
Check credentials before anything else. Accreditation with the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, or registration with the Psychological Society of Ireland, along with professional indemnity insurance and specific training in childhood and complex trauma. As things stand, statutory regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists is being brought in through CORU, so professional body accreditation remains the clearest signal available to you.
Worth asking:
Beyond the credentials, notice how you feel. You should feel respected, believed, and in charge of what you share. Nobody should be pressing you to tell your story before you are ready.
Private therapy fees in Ireland vary by therapist and are set individually, so check the current fee on the booking page before you commit. Some health insurance policies refund part of the cost of counselling, so it is worth ringing your insurer. If cost is a barrier, ask your GP about the HSE's Counselling in Primary Care service, which offers short-term counselling to medical card holders.
Longer than people expect, generally. Single-event trauma may respond in a shorter piece of work, sometimes eight to twenty sessions. Complex trauma built up over years usually takes longer, often a year or more, and it tends to move in stages rather than a straight line. Your therapist should review progress with you regularly rather than leaving it open-ended.
No. You do not need a complete or tidy memory for therapy to help, and gaps are common with early trauma. You decide what you talk about and when. A lot of useful work happens around how the past affects you now, without going through every detail of what happened.
If any of this sounds like you, you can ask about a confidential first consultation, or look at available appointments with a trauma-informed therapist and book a session online in a couple of minutes. There is no GP letter needed, and evening and weekend times are available.
When you get in touch, it helps to mention:
You do not need to explain your history in an enquiry. A few lines is plenty, and the rest can wait until you are sitting with someone.
Please note that online therapy is not an emergency service. If you are in crisis or worried about your safety right now, contact your GP, go to your nearest emergency department, or call 999 or 112. You can also freephone Samaritans on 116 123, at any hour, or text HELLO to 50808.
When you're ready, we're here.
Booking takes about two minutes, and you can reschedule any time up to 24 hours before.
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