Welcome to Renaissance Wellbeing Services. This an online space run by Renée, a community mental health practitioner with experience in counselling, art therapy, psychology, and education. Renée is passionate about sharing information with others to help improve wellbeing and overcome life challenges.
Trauma-Informed Approaches
Renée’s speciality area is trauma-informed approaches to mental health. Trauma is not an event that happens to us, rather, it is the impact left in the body and mind following adverse experiences.
Big Trauma and Smaller Traumas = Distress
Specific events like sexual abuse, war, domestic violence, natural disasters, and so forth can leave lasting effects on the nervous system which, if left unresolved, can interfere with day to day living and finding joy.
“Smaller” traumas like harassment, covert insults, oppression, relational conflicts, and other ongoing stresses can also place undue strain on wellness. Many incidents can seem insignificant in themselves, however, collectively impact wellbeing as much (or more) as bigger traumas.
- Information about online counselling services here
- Online counselling bookings here.
- Discussions and articles can be found here.
Trauma and Neuroscience
Alongside an interest in trauma, Renée is passionate about neuroscience, Art, history, and religion. Her research has lead her to the conclusion that humans’ innate impulse to be creative is sometimes misunderstood. For the better part of last century, neuroscience focused on trying to find a specific region or hemisphere of the brain dedicated to thinking “creatively” (thinking in original or novel ways).
Creativity is Neuroplasticity at Work
Neuroplasticity refers to the brains ability to create new connections along synaptic networks, and this is pretty much what is needed to over come the impact of any trauma. Integrating the creative processes into therapy keeps to active ways of thinking and being that are otherwise shut down, therefore promotes healing on a neurological level.
Creativity has a correlation to well being by the fact that a healthy mental state is one in which the whole brain is functioning efficiently. In other words, the creative process and a healthy mental state are one and the same: a whole brain activity.
Trauma responses often result in parts of the brain going “off line”, whereas encouraging creativity can help re-build the neurological networks required to recover from stressful experiences.
For more information see:
A full listing of my blogs can be found here. Please leave a comment; I’d love to hear your feedback.
Online counselling sessions can be booked here. Or email renaissancewellbeings@gmail.com.
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thanks, great website
Thanks for putting these articles together, very interesting.