A simple, straightforward free PDF explaining the causes, prevalence and treatment approaches for dissociative identity disorder (DID) – aimed specifically at professionals but also relevant to survivors and their supporters.

How can we talk about trauma in a way that explains it in metaphors and narrative? How can we explain the dynamics of trauma without being triggered by them, or getting stuck in the detail, of having to describe our particular circumstances? They were the questions I was trying to answer when I wrote this article. I wanted to explain the evolutionary neurobiology of trauma without being overly complex. I wanted to develop a vocabulary and language.

One of the biggest issues in working with trauma is when as survivors we become or we feel 'stuck'. Very often we blame ourselves. But stuckness and trauma are not accidental bed-fellows. Instead, they are two sides of the same coin. But we can become stuck thinking about our stuckness. This poster provides a series of questions and prompts either for individual use or within a therapeutic context for considering what that stuckness looks like and how to shift it.

‘A flashback is a sudden, involuntary re-experiencing of a past traumatic event as if it is happening in the present.’ Debilitating, overwhelming, even shameful – post-traumatic flashbacks can make our lives hell but this psychoeducational poster provides a brief explanation as well as some helpful things we can say to ourselves during a flashback to re-ground.

Being able to put our feelings into words is a key way to ‘affect regulate’ or manage our emotions. The problem for many of us as trauma survivors, though, is being able to name our feelings in the first place. We often simply don't have the language and have never had any help in developing it. This helpful poster is a good starting place and alongside the full-colour and low-ink versions, there is also a blank template for you to develop your own version.

Trauma is not just a distressing event that happens to us. Trauma is the changes that go on in our brain and body as a result of the event(s). This poster summarises 7 key areas where our brains are affected by trauma and is a key piece of psychoeducation showing us as survivors that we are neither 'mad' nor 'bad' – we are simply traumatised.