introduction

Trauma-informed practice is an emerging and evolving field. While many practitioners already work with an implicit awareness of trauma and its effects, there remains limited overt language, training, and shared understanding of what it means to work explicitly from a trauma-informed perspective.

Within the South African context in particular, trauma is an inherent part of many people’s lived experiences, shaped by personal, relational, historical, and systemic factors. It is therefore almost impossible to work meaningfully with individuals, families, or systems without encountering the imprint of trauma on a person’s sense of self, their body, and their relationships.

The intention of this platform is to make trauma-informed practice more visible, accessible, and contextually relevant within South Africa. This work extends beyond the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder to include engagement with individuals who may not consciously identify their experiences as traumatic, yet live with the embodied, relational, and psychological effects of adversity, chronic stress, or cumulative trauma.

This platform aims to support the growth of trauma-informed practice across disciplines by offering education, professional development, and relevant resources, while fostering a community of practitioners who are committed to learning from one another. At its core, the intention is to contribute to a field that approaches human experience with greater depth, humility, and care, recognising trauma awareness as an ethical and relational responsibility rather than a specialised technique.

Dr Lauren Moss is the founder of this platform and a counselling psychologist in private practice. With a professional background spanning clinical, educational, organisational, and supervisory contexts. Currently her work is primarily focused on providing psychotherapy to adults and couples in private practice, she also has experience within NGO settings, particularly in the area of sexual trauma, as well as work with students in tertiary institutions. Alongside this, she has worked with individuals and corporate teams around chronic stress and burnout, supporting the development of sustainable self-care practices and healthier organisational cultures.

Dr Moss also provides clinical supervision to other psychologists and is involved in the delivery of HPCSA-accredited continuing professional development (CPD) training. These trainings focus on trauma-informed psychotherapy, as well as understanding stress, chronic stress, and burnout through a trauma-aware lens.

Dr Lauren Moss’s approach is grounded in narrative therapy and informed by attachment theory, contemporary neuroscience, and somatic perspectives. She understands trauma as something that is not only remembered cognitively, but held relationally and within the body, often shaping how people make meaning of themselves, others, and the world. Central to her work is a non-pathologising stance that honours the adaptive strategies people develop to survive difficult experiences.

Across all aspects of her work, Dr Moss prioritises safety, collaboration, curiosity, and respect for the complexity of human experience. Trauma-informed practice, as she understands it, is not a set of techniques but a way of being with people — one that remains attentive to power, pacing, context, and the central role of relationship in healing and learning.