Ella McCrystal to discuss trauma and healing at Gibraltar Literary Festival

Ella McCrystal will be speaking at this year’s Gibraltar Literary Festival, taking place from November 9 to 15, 2026. She will discuss her book Wounded Warrior Wisdom: From Child Abuse to Self-Love and Healing with Manar Ben Tahayekt.

Q. What inspired you to write Wounded Warrior Wisdom: From Child Abuse to Self-Love and Healing?

A. I wanted to create something for the person who has nowhere safe to take their pain. When I disclosed the sexual abuse I’d experienced at the hands of my father at eleven, I didn’t have the resources, access to therapy or safe support I needed to understand what had happened to me.

That absence stayed with me. Years later, as a psychotherapist, I understood how much difference it can make when someone helps you recognise that your responses have a history, that your shame doesn’t belong to you and that healing is possible. 

I wrote the book to bring together my lived experience and professional understanding, offering people an accessible starting point. It’s the resource I wish had been available to my younger self.

Q. What specific themes will you be focusing on during your talk at the Gibraltar Literary Festival?

A. I’ll be exploring how childhood experiences influence our sense of worth, our relationships and the identities we carry into adulthood. I want to look at the survival patterns we can mistake for personality, such as people-pleasing, perfectionism, over-responsibility or feeling that we must cope alone.

I’ll also be talking about shame, self-compassion and what it means to move towards a life that feels safer and more authentically our own. My personal story will be part of that conversation, but I want people to find something useful for themselves within it. 

You don’t need to have experienced the same trauma as me to recognise the feeling of living by beliefs about yourself that were formed long before you could question them.

Q. How does the book explain the way childhood trauma shapes a person’s identity into adulthood?

A. As children, we’re trying to understand ourselves through the treatment we receive. When the people we depend on hurt us, neglect us or make love feel conditional, we can begin to believe that the problem lies within us.

Those early conclusions can become deeply embedded. We may believe we’re unlovable, that our needs are a burden, that we must be useful to be wanted or that we’re only safe when we’re in control. Later, these beliefs can influence who we choose, what we tolerate and how we respond to closeness, conflict or rejection. 

The book helps readers understand the relationship between what happened to them and how they learned to survive. Recognising that history can create space to question old beliefs and develop a kinder, more accurate understanding of who they are.

Q. How does it feel to share such a vulnerable and deeply personal journey in your book and with an audience in Gibraltar?

A. There’s vulnerability in sharing something that once carried so much shame and silence. Being a therapist doesn’t remove the human feelings involved in telling your own story.

However, I know how isolating it can feel to believe that nobody could understand what you’ve lived through. If my honesty helps someone feel less alone, or gives them words for something they’ve never been able to explain, then sharing has meaning. 

Coming to Gibraltar feels particularly poignant because I’m bringing a story that began with a child who needed to be heard into a space where people are choosing to listen. I feel grateful for that opportunity and conscious of the care these conversations deserve.

Q. As this will be your first visit to Gibraltar, what are you most looking forward to experiencing?

A. I’m most looking forward to meeting people and experiencing Gibraltar for myself. There’s something special about visiting a place for the first time through a festival that brings people together around stories, ideas and conversation.

I’m excited to meet readers, listen to other speakers and discover the place beyond the festival programme. The invitation itself was a lovely surprise, so there’s also a sense of allowing myself to enjoy an opportunity I might once have struggled to imagine.

Q. As a practising psychotherapist and trauma coach, how did your professional background help you write about your personal experience?

A. My professional background gave me a language for experiences I’d once understood mainly through pain, confusion and self-blame. Over more than 20 years of therapeutic work, I’ve seen how trauma can affect trust, emotional responses, relationships and identity.

That understanding helped me look at my own history with greater compassion and explain it in ways that might help others recognise their own patterns. My lived experience also reminds me that understanding something intellectually doesn’t automatically make it easier to feel or change. 

I wanted the book to hold both perspectives, the knowledge of a practitioner and the humanity of someone who knows what it’s like to struggle. It offers information and reflection while recognising that each person’s healing journey is individual.

Q. What is the main message of hope and growth you want someone to take away from reading your book and attending your talk?

A. I want people to leave with the possibility that their future can be different from their past. What happened to you may have shaped your beliefs, your relationships and the ways you protect yourself, but those patterns can change.

Healing doesn’t require you to erase your history or find something positive in the harm you experienced. It can begin with understanding yourself more compassionately, accepting support and making choices that honour your needs. 

You don’t have to become extraordinary to deserve love, safety or peace. My hope is that someone reads the book or hears me speak and begins to believe that those things are possible for them, too. 

CORRECTION: This post has been updated to correct Ella McCrystal's name.