Emotional Neglect: the trauma of what didn’t happen

with Shelley Bradley-Scholey

Tuesday 14 July 2026, 7.30-9.30pm

Chandlers Ford Methodist Church (SO53 2GJ) and live-streamed on Zoom

Sign in to your HACP Membership page here: https://membermojo.co.uk/hacp/signin  to get the link for the live-stream from the ‘store’ (please email for assistance if needed)

No need to book if attending in-person. Just come to the welcome desk and sign in on arrival, sit where you like and collect your free tea and biscuits from the serving hatch.

Free to HACP members, £10 to non-members

Overview of the talk

The workshop offers a clinically grounded exploration of trauma, expanding beyond traditional “Big T” definitions to include the often-overlooked impact of emotional neglect, the trauma of absence rather than event.

We begin by revisiting how trauma is defined within diagnostic frameworks, before broadening this understanding to include subjective experience, cumulative impact, and the personal meaning individuals make of their experiences. The workshop also introduces key insights into the brain and nervous system, exploring how early relational environments shape emotional regulation, threat responses, and patterns of coping over time.

The talk explores emotional neglect and its developmental impact, and how unmet emotional needs influence attachment patterns and core beliefs about self-worth, often presenting in therapy as shame, self-criticism, relational difficulties, and emotional dysregulation, even in clients who describe their childhood as “fine.”

Integrating attachment theory, compassion-focused approaches, and nervous system regulation, this talk provides a clear and accessible framework for understanding how a lack of attunement, validation, and co-regulation can leave a lasting imprint.

Through clinical examples and practical tools, participants will learn to recognise emotional neglect, map the client’s inner world, work therapeutically with shame and unmet needs, and support the development of self-compassion and internal safety.

About Shelley

Shelley Bradley-Scholey: BA (Hons), Dip Nursing (MH), PGDip, MSc (Oxon)

Shelley is a Trauma therapist in the UK, an accredited EMDR Consultant and CBT Therapist, and a Registered Mental Health Nurse. Shelley holds an MSc in CBT Research from the University of Oxford.

As the founder of Fortitude Psychological Therapy and the Trauma Toolbox, Shelley offers therapy, supervision, courses and teaching, for those navigating trauma. She also lectures and supervises Trauma and Personality Disorder courses at Oxford University, and is a published author and public speaker. With both clinical and lived experience, her work is centred on understanding trauma from a survivor’s perspective with compassion and authenticity. Fostering hope and using a neurobiological and psychological theory to understand how healing from even the most life changing trauma is possible.

With more than 20 years in mental health, Shelley’s career spans the NHS, Private Sector and Ministry of Defence, including 13 years delivering mental healthcare to Armed Forces both in the UK and Afghanistan. Her approach combines EMDR, Idiosyncratic formulation driven CBT and Compassion Focussed Therapy.

You can find her on Socials @fortitudepsychologicaltherapy or visit her website www.fortitudepsychologicaltherapy.co.uk