Healing trauma and learning about the 12 basic needs that all people need to feel safe and happy

Tim Fletcher is an expert in complex trauma and the basic needs that humans need to feel safe, happy and connected to themselves and other people.

He defines complex trauma as the response to an ongoing environment of danger where a person never feels safe. This chronic lack of safety triggers a constant stress response—such as fight, flight, freeze or fawn.

This chronic unsafety impacts a person their state of being, how they interact with themselves and how they develop relationships later in life.

Fletcher emphasizes that complex trauma is not about a single traumatic event, but rather about living in a situation where one cannot fully relax because a part of them must always remain alert and on guard. He describes this as the “simplest definition” of complex trauma: the inability to fully relax due to persistent feelings of threat or insecurity.

“Our brains are wired for connection, but trauma rewires them for protection. That’s why healthy relationships are difficult for wounded people.”
~ Ryan North

On his website he has some methods where people can check if they might have complex trauma. Have a look here for 3 types of self evaluation.

Here he explains it well in this interesting lecture series.

A long term vision on healing complex trauma is learning about the 12 basic needs that all humans have to feel safe and happy. When we learn what these needs are and how we can provide them for ourselves and/or learn to ask others to help fulfill them for us we can outgrow the missing aspects in our youth and can create a healthier everyday live.

Tim Fletcher also made a PDF of these 12 basic needs with all their sub-needs freely available.

In addition Tim Fletcher has made a great series on the most difficult emotion related to trauma: shame. Tim Fletcher describes shame not as a simple emotion, but as a core belief about oneself—a deeply ingrained sense of being unworthy, unlovable, or fundamentally flawed.

Shame is so difficult because we really dislike feeling it because we don’t want to feel like a bad person so we create all kind of unhealthy ways to cover up shame short term but that actually keep shame intact and alive or even strengthen it long term.

This negative self-view is a direct result of complex trauma, and Fletcher asserts that 100% of people with complex trauma experience some degree of shame—the greater the trauma, the greater the shame. In his series he addresses how people can work through shame.

All in all Tim Fletcher his work is a gift to the world. He explains trauma and how to transform it so well. Many people can start understanding themselves and healing their complex trauma with this information.

And the more trauma we process the more inner peace we can find.