​​Camily Lovell is a full-time addictions counsellor at Training Point, a private consultant for Pathways Bermuda as an addictions counsellor, and owner of the wellness brand Strange Bird.

Although Ms Lovell already wears many hats, she has recently added that of student as she pursues her doctoral degree.

Ms Lovell said: “The degree is a Doctorate of Education in community care and counselling, but with a traumatology cognate, which is not just a theoretical pursuit.

“It means that the specifications of my degree specifically centre around trauma, equipping me with the skills to diagnose and assess trauma accurately, provide peer-reviewed and best practice interventions and responses to trauma, develop and initiate trauma-informed programming in different treatment services, provide trauma-informed care in the counselling setting, and teach to a degree.”

To achieve her doctorate, she will submit a dissertation. The subject of her dissertation was influenced by personal experience, observation, and curiosity about how religion and spirituality influence, inform, or impact trauma and the healing of trauma.

“One of the things that I have always been interested in is the relationship between a person’s religious and spiritual experiences and that of addiction,” Ms Lovell said.

“As an addiction counsellor, there are a lot of different methodologies, strategies, and practices that we use to help people achieve recovery, and those all essentially rely on clients developing a sense of spirituality, and for some people, that involves religion.

“I have found in my personal experience, providing addiction counselling in Bermuda, that many persons have complex relationships with religion and spirituality.

“Now, I don’t use spirituality and religion interchangeably; I do believe they have very separate definitions. However, there has been a lot of crossover in people’s lives – people would say they did not grow up religious or part of organised religion; however, their family utilised very Christian conservative values or traditions in their family that stem from Christian beliefs.

“In saying that, many people also have had trauma at the hands of these religious leaders, these religious models, or these religious organisations themselves.

“One of the things that I am interested in my thesis development is looking at the relationship between identity and character development and religious or spiritual trauma.”

Bermuda has suffered substantial trauma as a community, particularly in recent times, Ms Lovell said. Healing from trauma comes partly through connection, she added.

“That is not only a connection to healthy and safe people, but more importantly, in my belief, is a connection to a higher power.”

“One of the things I’m interested in is bringing further awareness to the actual individual and community implications of unresolved trauma across a multigenerational level.

“In doing that because Bermuda, for many people, has been Christian conservative and I find that sometimes people lean heavily into their religion in the wake of trauma.

“Sometimes people lean very far out of it, because of the hopes or expectations that their belief system should have protected them.

“I would like to bring to the community education about how trauma shows up, not just in the psyche but also in the body and the spirit.

“And how spiritual development can be directly impacted by exposure to trauma, because, specifically with addictions recovery, we encourage spiritual exploration, meaning someone’s ability to connect with themselves and then hopefully onto a higher power.

“So, if the trauma we are experiencing is keeping us disconnected from ourselves, part of the healing from the trauma process is reconnecting to self. Then hopefully, the next step is to have them explore reconnection to a higher power.”

Ms Lovell has a laundry list of things she would like to contribute to the mental health space in Bermuda at the completion of her degree.

She said: “What I am looking forward to most is the ability to bring more research, techniques, quality of service, and an expansion of services that the Bermuda community might not have previously experienced, or been aware of as options.

“Because mental health still has a certain reputation, available services don’t get much attention or exposure.

“I’d like to engage in community education a bit more; I would ideally love to see the continuation and growth of emotional intelligence and soft skills offered in education, specifically public education.

“I would also wish that if adolescents and adults are engaging in mental health or treatment services, those services are entirely trauma-informed and trauma-responsive and are empowered with best practices.

“Several interventions that many countries or jurisdictions have already identified as best practices are simply not available to the same degree on this island.

“The hope is to increase general exposure to the impacts of trauma on the community, to be able to provide relevant services, and ultimately be able to support the development of programmes, or even government policies, which have these interactions with people who have experienced trauma.

“Finally, especially during this dissertation period, my aim is to collect data about Bermuda, representing Bermudians. As someone working on a degree, the level of information is not nearly what my hopes would be, so I am excited about engaging with the Bermuda community to develop research that is orientated explicitly to our population.”

Ms Lovell would like to help cultivate a spirit of openness and curiosity in the community in relation to her research.

“When we look at the recent trauma our community has experienced, often there is a large call for direct approaches,” she said. “I love that and direct approaches have a unique benefit.

“But I also think that openness to a perspective shift, saying, ‘perhaps healing the community involves taking a slightly deeper look than just the public outrage and getting to what’s going to facilitate the healing’. I believe we as a community can do things together with the openness to trust the next person, or to heal.

“Healing requires safety; it’s a very integrated, complex challenge that we, as a community, face. We are a highly traumatised community just based on some of our cultural experiences alone; fostering that spirit of openness or curiosity is a start.

“If we are curious, we can posture ourselves to new options that maybe we typically would not. There is still a lot of stigma and scepticism around things like mental health treatment, psychological support, psychiatric support, and different types of therapies.

“So, I think if we as a culture can be curious, then maybe we can see a little more engagement from our people, and that would indeed be ideal.”

Offering words of encouragement for those who may have an interest in pursuing higher education, Ms Lovell said: “I would fully support someone looking for a mentor during their education journey.

“I am fortunate to have a sibling who has supported me and several professionals in the field who have made this journey possible.

“I also have a manager for a job who is very understanding and also looks to utilise my skills as a part of the team. Even to managers out there, when you have interest and skill in your team, I would encourage you to utilise it.”

“Most importantly, to the Bermuda community or anyone who has experienced a level of trauma, I would encourage that healing is possible; healing does require intention and effort.

“There are safe people who are interested in listening to you and walking through your journey with you. And people willing to respect your confidentiality despite concerns about privacy on the island, which is genuine.

“Finally, we are moving into a season of having a lot of young, talented, and qualified professionals in the mental health field. Supposing you are not comfortable with traditional methods, there are alternative methods, non-medication methods, naturopathic body-based methods, or if you have a religious preference, there are avenues for you to receive care from mental health professionals that may represent your interest.

“Recognising that nobody is too far gone, the only requisite is interest or desire. Anything else is doable.”