Intelligence Squared How To Overcome Trauma, With Psychotherapist Dr Gwen Adshead (Part One)
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Mar 23, 2026 Dr Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist with three decades’ clinical experience and author of The Devil You Know and Unspeakable, joins the conversation. She explores trauma as an identity change. She discusses speechlessness after trauma, the healing role of sustained therapeutic space, and powerful case stories ranging from refugees to frontline workers.
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Trauma Rewrites Personal Identity
- Trauma often changes a person's identity rather than just causing short-term distress.
- Gwen Adshead explains trauma can strip away a previous sense of self suddenly or slowly, leaving survivors to grieve the person they once were.
Trauma Often Produces Speechlessness
- Trauma can render people speechless, making it hard for them to seek help even when they know they're struggling.
- Gwen Adshead uses 'unspeakable' to describe how some traumatic experiences silence survivors and block articulation.
Provide Time And A Listening Space
- Create a space where people can think and be listened to, because therapy enables new thoughts that change appraisal of trauma.
- Gwen Adshead stresses that having time and a listening presence lets survivors form new, irreversible thoughts about their experiences.
