A Multi-Phase Safe Trauma Treatment
A Multi-Phase Safe Trauma Treatment By: Angela Englander June 8, 2015
Phase one: Education about the therapeutic process
Discussing goals
Making a plan for treatment
The client and the therapist form a working partnership and start figuring out how to work together effectively
Phase two: Focusing on emotional competence
Emotional awareness
Learning about the importance of emotions
Learning what emotions feel like in the body
Learning what triggers emotions and how to regulate emotions
Learning your limits with emotional intensity
Developing effective emotion regulation skills
The emotional intensity rating scale
Phase three: Understanding dissociation
Managing stress effectively
Anchors, grounders, and transitional objects
Developing a feeling of safety
CBT and DBT skills building exercises are incorporated
Body awareness
Phase four: Working through the trauma at a safe pace
- It is extremely important not to jump into talking about the trauma before the right skills are in place. If emotion regulation skills, a sense of safety, patient-therapist trust, and a comfortable pace are not in place this can be very painful and destructive for the client! Rushing in to talking about a traumatic situation will cause high levels of distress and pain for a client. If the client is not able to regulate that stress, they may re-experience the trauma in their mind which is re-traumatizing.