A trauma therapist works with the effects of frightening, overwhelming, or repeatedly harmful experience, whether that is a single event such as an accident or an assault, or something long-running such as childhood abuse that unfolded over years rather than in a single moment. The two kinds of trauma often need somewhat different handling, but both call for careful, deliberate pacing rather than diving straight into what happened.
Three phases of trauma work
Good trauma work is usually paced in three phases: first stabilising daily life and building ways to manage distress safely, then processing the traumatic memory itself once there is enough stability to do that safely, and finally reconnecting with ordinary life once the memory no longer dominates it. Skipping straight to processing before someone is stable enough to handle it tends to make things worse rather than better.
What is recommended, and what to check
NICE recommends trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy and EMDR as first-line treatments for PTSD, both approaches with a strong evidence base behind them. Trauma therapist is not a protected title in the UK, however, which means anyone can use it regardless of training, so it is worth checking a practitioner's underlying registration and accreditation before starting work with them.