Sharon Nicholson, Betrayal Trauma Therapy & Intensives UK

If this is what betrayal trauma has left you with

Something in you has gone quiet.

You are reliable, capable, successful - the one who keeps everything moving, but lately, even the smallest decisions feel heavier than they should.

Should you stay or should you go? Try again or finally let go?

You feel close to an answer, and then it slips away, and you're searching once more - for the detail you might have missed, the sign that would finally make it clear. It rarely does.

This isn't indecision in the way people usually mean that word. It's a nervous system still searching for safety, using the only tool it knows - more information.

Alongside it often sits anxiety that won't settle, and a harder question underneath - can you trust them again - or trust yourself to know?

And sometimes, beneath all of that, a quieter question - Am I not enough?

Betrayal trauma isn't limited to infidelity, and it doesn't always come from a partner.

Sometimes one discovery - one affair, one devastating truth - can change the way you see your relationship, friendship, other people and yourself.

It can follow deception, manipulation and control, narcissistic abuse, repeated lying, or a childhood where the people meant to keep you safe were the ones who broke that trust instead - often the most profound betrayal of all.

It can cost you more than you realise - The plans you keep almost making. The ability to truly rest. The confidence to trust your own judgement. Your sense of purpose and direction. Your connection to who you really are. Your capacity for joy, peace, intimacy, and vitality.

Healing isn't simply about learning to trust other people again. It is about learning to trust yourself again.

Surviving is not the same as living.

Begin with a clarity call

When it shows up in your body

You're exhausted in a way rest doesn't fully touch. On edge, even on days when nothing's obviously wrong. An all too familiar knot in your stomach, or a heaviness in your body.

There can be a real cost to living this way.

Prolonged stress can keep cortisol - your body's primary stress hormone - elevated for longer than it's designed to be, and that doesn't stay contained to how you feel. It's there in the wired feeling that won't switch off, day or night. In the sleep that never quite restores you, the concentration that slips at work, the patience that runs out faster than it used to, the closeness with people you love that feels harder to access.

You're not imagining it if you feel that you're running on less than you used to have.

You very likely are.

This is often what finally brings someone to therapy - not the original betrayal alone, but the accumulating cost of carrying it.

This is where working with the body matters.

As your nervous system begins to settle, you may find that sleep starts to settle with it. Concentration returns. So does motivation, patience, and closeness, and the sense of having something left over at the end of the day for the people and things you care about - including yourself.

Sharon Nicholson
Registered Member MBACP, Accred

Trauma Therapist · Brainspotting Practitioner

You may already understand what happened. Your body may still be living with it

Trauma is what happens inside of us when something happens to us - leaving echoes and imprints in the mind, body and nervous system long after the experience itself has ended.

You may have already tried talking therapy, and still feel stuck.

That isn't a failure of insight or effort. Healing isn't simply a matter of understanding what happened.

The nervous system can continue responding long after the mind knows that something is over, which is why insight alone doesn't always create the change we hope for.

Evolved from EMDR, Brainspotting is a gentle trauma therapy that works with the nervous system and the deeper emotional responses that can remain long after deeply impacting experiences.

It helps the brain process what talking hasn't been able to shift, so triggers feel less overwhelming, and you can reconnect with yourself more fully.

This work is not about forgetting what happened, or forcing yourself to move on. It is about releasing the echoes and imprints left by what you have lived through - helping your mind and body find more peace, so that the past no longer has the same hold on the present, and decisions become clearer to make.

You don't need to have the right words to begin. Just a willingness to show up for yourself.

🌿 "I am finally living my life in colour again after 30 years in black and white."

— Client experience

Book a free clarity call

Two ways to work with me - find your path

There is no single path - only what fits where you are right now.

Weekly or fortnightly therapy offers a steady rhythm of support, giving you space to work through things gradually, with time between sessions for life, reflection and integration.

An intensive offers something different. It creates a concentrated period of therapeutic work, without the gaps between sessions. This can be particularly valuable when you feel ready to go deeper, when something feels too complex to untangle in a standard length session, or when you simply want dedicated space to focus on one area of your life.

Rather than opening something important and then having to put it down for another week, we can stay with the work while it is active - allowing the process to unfold with greater continuity.

Neither is better. The question is simply what kind of support fits you, your nervous system, and where you are right now.

Sharon Nicholson
Registered Member MBACP, Accred

Betrayal trauma therapy

Ongoing Therapy

90-minute session - weekly or fortnightly

For the steady rhythm of ongoing support.

50-minute sessions can end just as something important is beginning to emerge. That's why I work in 90-minute sessions - enough time for your nervous system to settle, for Brainspotting, to do its work, and for integration before the session closes.

🌿 "I liked that there was no set agenda. I turned up as myself each time and we worked with whatever came up that day. Sometimes I knew what I wanted to talk about or address with Brainspotting, other times it just came up once we got started."

- Client experience

90-minute sessions

The Becoming You Intensive - Narcissistic abuse recovery and finding your way back to yourself

Something in you knows you are no longer living as fully as you were meant to.

For those recovering from narcissistic abuse, trauma bonds and the loss of self that can follow years of manipulation, control, emotional abuse or adapting to survive.

The Becoming You Intensive

You may recognise yourself in both, and that is ok, and often the case.

You don't need to know which intensive is right for you before you enquire. Each intensive is bespoke to you, your history and what you need from the work, and we will explore which is the best place to begin.

Book a free clarity call

Sharon Nicholson
Registered Member MBACP, Accred

Betrayal Trauma Therapist

Why this work is different

You may not need another therapist to help you understand what happened.

You may need someone who understands why, despite all that understanding, you still don't feel free from it.

Someone who recognises the difference between knowing you're okay and actually feeling okay.

Someone who understands that betrayal can leave you questioning not only other people, but yourself - your judgement, your instincts, your choices and your sense of who you are.

That is the gap my work is designed to bridge.

Specialising

Betrayal trauma, with broader experience in relational trauma and the profound betrayal trauma of narcissistic abuse.

Clinical experience

20+ years in practice · BACP Accredited since 2009 · 10 years as a Senior Counsellor and Clinical Supervisor in the NHS - specialising in Counselling for Depression · Women's Refuge

Relational approach

My work is relational at its core, recognising how our experiences in relationship can shape the way we see ourselves, others and the world around us.

Specialist training

Narcissistic Abuse Specialist™, Brainspotting (trained with Dr David Grand, the therapy's founder, and Dr Mark Grixti, Head of Brainspotting UK) · Complex Trauma Certification, Levels 1 & 2 (CCTP/CCTP-II), with Janina Fisher, PhD

I'm Sharon Nicholson - BACP Accredited Counsellor and Brainspotting Practitioner. I'm passionate about this work because I know what it's like to feel stuck. To feel small or not enough. For a present-day experience to awaken something much older.

To understand what happened is in the past, and yet still find your body carrying the tension and the emotional stress.

These experiences changed not only my life, but the way I practise.

Many arrive knowing exactly why they feel the way they do. They've had talking therapy, read the books, done the work - and still don't feel free.

That's the gap I care about - the space between understanding what happened and actually feeling different.

By integrating Brainspotting with parts-informed therapy, we work with the nervous system as well as the thinking mind - because lasting change doesn't always happen through insight alone.

I intentionally work with a small number of clients at any one time, so each person has the time, attention and depth this work deserves.

This isn't about helping you become someone new. It's about helping you feel safe enough to become yourself again.

🌿 "After having a number of unsuccessful attempts to find the right therapist for me... Sharon has been more than I had even allowed myself to hope for."

— Client experience

Your story

The story you carry with the most shame is often not the failure you think it is.

Sometimes it's the story of someone who adapted brilliantly to survive. A nervous system that learned to stay alert. A part of you that kept the peace, stayed small, questioned itself, or carried more than it ever should have.

When you begin to see your story through that lens, something changes.
Compassion begins to replace self-blame, and when self-blame loosens its grip, something quietly returns.

Choice.

And that is often where healing truly begins.

Frequently Asked Questions

Please contact me through the enquiry form if you cannot find an answer to your question.

Will you tell me whether to stay or go?

No. That decision belongs to you, and it would not be right for me to make it for you. My role isn't to steer you towards staying or leaving. It's to help you become more grounded, clear, and reconnected to yourself, so that whatever you decide, it comes from you.

Do I need to have experienced trauma for this to help me?

Not at all. Many who come here would never describe themselves as having experienced trauma. They simply know that something has been keeping them from living fully - and that thinking about it hasn't been enough to shift it. This work is for that, whatever its origins.

How do I know if what I experienced was relational trauma?

Relational trauma doesn't always come with a clear label. If a relationship - with a partner, a parent, or someone else close to you — left you feeling anxious, disconnected from yourself, or like a version of yourself you no longer recognise, that is enough to be here.

Do you work with Complex PTSD (CPTSD)?

Yes. Betrayal trauma, narcissistic abuse, and prolonged relational harm are often what clinically underlies Complex PTSD. My approach - working with the nervous system through Brainspotting, not just talking - is well suited to this kind of trauma specifically.

Why do I still feel attached to someone who hurt me?

Trauma bonding is a real and well-documented response to certain kinds of relational harm. The attachment you feel is not a reflection of your weakness or poor judgement - it is a nervous system response. This work helps gently untangle it.

Can therapy still help if the relationship ended years ago?

Yes. The nervous system does not work on a timeline. If something is still affecting how you feel, how you relate, or how you move through your days - it is still worth addressing, however long ago it happened.

What can I expect from a first session?

The first session is an in-depth conversation — about where you are, what you are carrying, and what kind of support feels right for you. It is a genuine piece of work in its own right. Not a formality, not a box to tick before the real work begins. By the end, you will have a clearer sense of what you need - and whether working together feels like the right fit.

What is Brainspotting?

Brainspotting is a body-based approach that works with the nervous system to process what talking alone rarely reaches. Using specific eye positions and bilateral music, it accesses what is being held beneath conscious thought - without needing to find the perfect words for it first. Developed from EMDR, it is often experienced as more intuitive and more gently powerful than people expect.

How is this different from traditional talking therapy?

Traditional talking therapy works primarily with the mind - making sense of what happened, understanding patterns, gaining insight. This work goes further. Brainspotting works directly with the body and nervous system, reaching the places that insight alone cannot.

The result is not just understanding - but genuine shift, at the level it is actually being held.

Your life deserves to include you

You don't have to wait until you're burnt out to choose yourself

You don't need to be certain.

You don't need to know whether ongoing sessions or an intensive is right for you.

If anything here has felt familiar, a clarity call is simply a space to explore where you are, ask questions, and decide whether this feels like the right next step

You can find investment information on the fees page

🌿 "Our sessions have been life transforming for me. I feel like I have fast-tracked out of many years living in a painful freeze state."

- Client experience

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Offering online trauma therapy & bespoke intensives across the UK, including Weymouth, Dorset and surrounding areas.

This practice specialises in betrayal trauma - including narcissistic abuse, childhood relational trauma, and profound loss - and the anxiety, self-doubt, and loss of self these experiences so often leave behind. I help people feel safe enough to finally live the life that has been waiting for them, through the body, not just the mind.

Brainspotting, evolved from EMDR, is my primary modality - body-based, gentle, and often reaching what talking therapy alone has not been able to shift. If you have been searching for EMDR therapy and want to understand how Brainspotting compares, a free clarity call is the right place to start.

The content on the website is for informational purposes only. It Is not intended as professional advice, treatment or diagnosis. Please seek appropriate qualified support from your healthcare provider where necessary.

Betrayal Trauma Therapy & Bespoke Intensives