When it comes to trauma, mental health professionals will easily admit that no single therapy or solution fits every case or person.
Each individual’s trauma has its own set of biological, physiological, neurological, and psychological demands and reactions. Similarly, a patient’s age, gender, developmental environment, medications, diversity, socioeconomic status, and other characteristics can all influence the type of trauma-focused therapy that is best suited for their trauma symptoms.
For practitioners who wish to deliver successful care, taking into account these variables can be scary. Furthermore, the trauma-informed care plan chosen will be influenced by the practitioners’ education, understanding, and experience with trauma patients.
Let’s break down the distinct sorts of trauma therapy and things to consider as a mental health clinician now that we’ve covered all of this.
What Is Trauma Therapy and How Does It Work?
Trauma therapy, also known as trauma-focused therapy, is a type of treatment based on a knowledge of how traumatic events affect a person’s mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Children, adolescents, and adults who have experienced trauma can benefit from this form of therapy.
Patients may be suffering from one of three different types of trauma:
- Acute Trauma is caused by a single traumatic event, such as a car accident, a natural disaster, or a sexual assault.
- When a person is exposed to multiple, long-term, and/or sustained traumatic episodes, Chronic trauma develops. Domestic violence, bullying, addiction, sexual abuse, and long-term disease are just a few instances.
- Multiple traumatic experiences combine to create Complex Trauma. Childhood maltreatment, domestic violence, and civil turmoil are all possible reasons.
As previously said, trauma can result from a single occurrence, a long-term situation, or a combination of both. Abuse, domestic violence, neglect, divorce, loss, disasters, and other events that inflict emotional or psychological trauma to a person fall under this category. Any of these experiences can result in developmental trauma and/or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Those who are dealing with psychological trauma may feel as if they are fighting an internal war. The neurobiological point of view reveals that the legacy of trauma reactions indicates a “effort at adaptation,” as Janina Fisher writes in her blockbuster book, Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors. What a therapist would see as resistance, stuckness, untreatable diagnoses, or character-disordered behavior is actually a reflection of how the traumatized person learned to survive in a dangerous environment.
Essentially, the individual’s body generated each “symptom” of trauma as a response to the stressful incident or situation. Understanding how and why each symptom was established to protect the individual is both beneficial to the practitioner and potentially healing for the patient, as they can finally explain and put words to what they’ve been going through.