Do You Actually Have a Trauma-Informed Therapist?
You’re scrolling through psychology today looking for a trauma therapist to specifically help you work through past trauma. Let’s face it, you’ve suffered long enough. Plus, you’re finally in a place where you’re wanting to heal. So, you take a deep breath and start your journey scrolling through the many therapists who say they work with trauma. And Oh BOY, there are many of them. You finally pick a therapist who you feel you might connect with and schedule your first session. Finally, you’re on the road to healing.
Fast forward and you're in your first session. You already felt nervous on your way to therapy but you’re finally here! You did it! Your “trauma-informed therapist” starts asking you about your life. For example, "what brings you to therapy, and your goals. Pretty standard. You briefly mention you have a history of physical abuse from when you were a child. Your heart starts racing, palms sweaty, and you really are hoping you won’t have to talk more about it, at least today! However, your “trauma-informed therapist” has you spend the rest of your session going into a detailed account of your abuse. You figure, hey! This is trauma therapy, it’s supposed to look like this. I’m supposed to talk about my trauma. This is how I heal. Instead, you leave your session feeling frazzled. Your nerves are on edge. You feel jumpy the rest of the week, experiencing nightmares, and maybe even snapping at your spouse for something silly. But you figure this is the process. This is how I heal.
The process of therapy continues with your “trauma-informed therapist”
You continue to show up and discuss the details of your trauma with your therapist. However, on the inside the screaming inside makes you want to run for the hills. You’re working so hard, but not finding any significant relief. Sure, you may have gotten some insights into what happened, however, your trauma symptoms aren’t getting better. In fact, they feel like they’re getting worse.
After a couple of months, you just can’t do it anymore. You decide to quit PTSD treatment and trauma therapy because it’s just not for you. You feel like you’re too messed up to get any better.
This issue is more common than you know
You don’t know how many times I’ve heard this exact narrative from clients who’ve said they’ve worked with a trauma-informed therapist. I want to share a little secret, any therapist can say they’re a trauma therapist. In fact, many do and have no experience with trauma. Pretty insane, right? It’s put on you, the potential client, to weed out which therapists are actually competent and which ones aren’t. No one tells you this is your responsibility, so you don’t realize it’s your job to advocate for yourself!
I want to spend some time talking about what red flags to look for when interviewing a trauma-informed therapist, what questions should you ask, and how to navigate and find a qualified trauma therapist.
Why doesn’t every therapist know how to treat trauma? Isn’t it pretty standard?
Most people have been through some type of trauma in their lives. Whether it’s a big traumatic event, like a car crash, or a small more nuanced trauma. Such as being the last kid picked to play dodgeball-it all just depends on how your brain processes the event. (Learn more about Trauma here). Most therapists have a master’s degree, some even have a Ph.D. A typical master's program is about 2 years long. Within those 2 years, therapists are learning how to be therapists. Which admittedly is not a simple straightforward task. Hopefully, the program covers some aspects of trauma, however, it probably is only covered in one to two classes. Trauma-informed care is discussed, but trauma-informed care is only the tip of the iceberg when working with trauma. The other time in school is spent learning different theories, different diagnoses, ethics, etc.
After graduation, it is up to the therapist to continue educating themselves. The majority of therapists have to use their own money to continue learning about trauma. Trauma-informed therapists typically aren’t just taking a 3 hours class on trauma once a year. They are investing hundreds and thousands of dollars on specific training, some lasting 3- 7 days long. On top of this, they’re also paying for supervision from a more seasoned and experienced trauma therapist.
Any therapist can say they specialize in trauma without receiving ANY specialized training.
It is in fact very much legal to say you specialize in trauma while having limited experience in treating trauma. There isn’t a licensing or governing board that monitors this. The primary thing that guides clinicians (ahem, good clinicians) to be honest about their training is our code of ethics and our own damn integrity! Unfortunately, there can be a lot of trauma-informed therapists who either believe they are more competent than they actually are. Or, unfortunately, they just don’t care whether they’re competent.
Healing trauma doesn’t have to mean what you might think
Most of the time, people think the only true way to heal from their past traumas is by talking about it. There is this belief that talking about it in as much detail as possible will facilitate healing. From my experience though, talking about the details of trauma can do more damage than good. In fact, it can be retraumatizing. When we go through something traumatic it activates a part of our brain, the amygdala, which puts us in survival mode. Any time we become triggered, our amygdala activates. This makes it feel like we’re literally reliving that traumatic event. When we talk about trauma, especially in vivid detail, it can activate the amygdala causing more emotional distress. Of course, this is a very short description of what goes on in the body in relation to the trauma. To learn more about it, check this out!
This may sound discouraging, but hear me out
So you might be sitting back and asking “well then is it impossible for me to get over my trauma?” Hell no! There is a multitude of ways to heal from the trauma that doesn’t involve talking about the details of your trauma. A few of them are through Eye Movement Reprocessing and Desensitization (EMDR), Emotional Processing Theory (EPT), and Somatic Experiencing (SE). I won’t go into details about each intervention here, but when looking for a trauma specialist, you most likely would want a therapist trained in one or more of these interventions.
When talking is appropriate
Is talking about trauma completely useless then? Not at all. Sometimes it's necessary to talk through certain aspects of trauma. This can help to better understand your trauma and how it impacts your daily life. However, you should always have the power of whether you want to talk about your trauma or not. What I mean by this is that a trauma-informed therapist should never probe for details about your trauma without you wanting to do so. When you’ve been through trauma the most important thing to happen in therapy is for you to feel a sense of control and empowerment. This does NOT happen during the first session unless you willingly provide details about your trauma. It takes time to build a sense of trust and safety. I have many clients who’ve been with me for a while and I don’t know anything about their trauma….because it’s not necessary for me to know about it in order to help them!
You can’t heal trauma without stability
I want you to take a second and visualize someone drowning in the ocean. They’re struggling to keep their head above water and are desperate to get relief. Imagine someone coming up to this person and instead of helping them and getting them to dry land, they instead attempt to teach this person how to swim. I don’t know about you, but learning how to swim is the last thing on my mind if I’m drowning. The same goes for trauma. You can’t do true healing if you are not in a stable place in life. If you don’t have a support system, are suicidal, can’t get out of bed, etc…the goal needs to be to get you to dry land. Not trying to teach you how to swim.
It’s imperative you have a trauma-informed therapist that understands the importance of stability if you have a trauma history. During your first couple of sessions, your trauma therapist should be assessing your stability and whether you are in a stable place or not. Don’t worry! If you aren’t in a fully stable place, that should be the goal of therapy…to get you to a place of stability! If you are in crisis and your therapist is trying to get you to do intense trauma work….run the other way.
You are in control.
A huge part of trauma is the overall feeling of powerlessness and helplessness. Due to this, a big portion of trauma work should be helping you gain that power back. Your trauma therapist should put an emphasis on:
You being in control of your treatment
How fast-paced things go
What you’re willing and not willing to talk about
Not only should your trauma therapist inform you that you are allowed to set boundaries within PTSD treatment and trauma therapy, but they should continually check in with you throughout your time together to make sure you’re feeling as empowered as possible.
What does trauma work actually look like?
It’s probably not what you think it is. Trauma work isn't sitting there recounting the events of what happened, and hoping it will go away. You see, trauma lives in your nervous system. In order to heal trauma, we want to focus on how we can help your nervous system regulate itself. So how is this actually done? A large part of trauma work is focusing on grounding practices and distress tolerance skills. These skills can also be worked on when you are not in a place of complete stability. These are the foundational blocks of being able to really start healing trauma.
Distress tolerance is a person's ability to regulate their emotions. Trauma lowers your overall distress tolerance- making it incredibly difficult to manage day-to-day stressors. A good trauma therapist will work with you by teaching you how to improve your distress tolerance. A fantastic trauma therapist will have you use these distress tolerance skills during the session.
Grounding is something that brings your attention to the present. When we are able to bring ourselves to the present, it helps calm our nervous system (our trauma response). There are many ways you can practice grounding. One thing I like to do is have clients hone in on an object around them and describe the object using their 5 senses.
Remember this about therapy…
Consistency. Consistency. Consistency. I know, it’s boring and mundane, but it takes time for your brain to rewire itself. Remember that phrase “neurons that fire together, wire together?” well it’s true. After we go through trauma, our brains are wired in a way to respond to that trauma. I think many of us are wanting this “Ah-Ha” moment, or a silver lining, when we go to therapy. I’m not saying those moments don’t happen, but what you do on a daily basis has more impact. Your trauma-informed therapist should be encouraging you to practice distress tolerance skills and grounding as much as is realistically possible for you.
So what does a “good” trauma therapist look like?
The topic of trauma has always intrigued me. Due to this, I spent my internships in graduate school working as a social worker at psychiatric hospitals. After graduation, I then became a social worker in the emergency department at a children's hospital for around 3.5 years. All I saw on a daily basis was trauma. I took it upon myself to expand my understanding of trauma, how it literally changes our brain and started learning about the most evidence-based practices for trauma. After I started my own practice, I sought out supervision from people who really know what they’re talking about in relation to the trauma. (Check out my supervisor, Sarah Herstich from the Reclaim Collective, she’s fantastic!) I also became a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. I have been trained in EMDR and am continuing to work towards my full EMDR certification. I receive additional supervision specifically related to EMDR.
Now, why am I telling you this, I want you to get a good picture of what you should expect for someone who says they specialize in trauma. If you speak with a therapist who said they’ve only taken a 5-hour trauma course on PESI...you should probably look elsewhere. *I also want to point out there is nothing wrong with taking a 5-hour course on PESI! We as therapists all start somewhere- a big component to this is what are they doing on a consistent basis to be competent trauma-informed therapists? You want to look for a trauma therapist who at least seeks out regular supervision.
Educate yourself.
Just because a mental health professional went to grad school, is licensed, and says they know how to treat trauma, doesn’t mean they are competent. It’s up to you to screen your therapist before working with them to make sure they can meet your needs. Here are some questions you can ask a trauma-informed therapist:
What is your approach when working with trauma?
How will you help me during the session if I become triggered?
What do you do to continue your education around trauma?
Have you helped others who have experienced a similar traumatic experience?
Do you treat other mental health disorders on top of trauma? (*Most people have other mental health diagnoses on top of trauma)
What are the focus of PTSD treatment and trauma therapy? Is it the past or present? (*A trauma therapist would want to focus on how your trauma is currently impacting you in the present)
What trauma training have you done?
What is your approach when clients dissociate during a session?
Begin PTSD Treatment and Trauma Therapy in Philadelphia, PA for Support!
Finding the right therapist who understands how to work with trauma is key to your healing. We don’t want to retraumatize you and it’s my mission as a social worker to provide ethical care. My role is to hold space for your experiences with no judgment. I don’t have to know the whole story to support you. If you need support PTSD treatment and trauma therapy with Revive Therapy in Pennsylvania, may help. Here you will with an online trauma-informed therapist. When you’re ready to get started, follow these simple steps:
Meet your trauma-informed therapist, Hannah Guy
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Other Services at Revive Therapy
Getting therapy support is perfectly OK! You deserve a space to talk through life events that may be holding you back. Whether this is your first time in therapy or you’ve been here before, I am here to help you process, work through, and move toward your goals in a healthy and sustainable way. If you’re looking for other services at Revive Therapy in Pennsylvania, I offer other services. This includes Eating disorder treatment, body image issues, binge eating, PTSD treatment and trauma therapy, and more. I offer support with EMDR therapy if you’re in need of more specialized support. Additionally, all services are offered via online therapy in Pennsylvania. When you’re ready for support. Call now!