Trauma-informed therapy assumes that you don’t exist in isolation of the past and your experiences. It assumes that your nervous system is not just responding to the current situation without any information, but, rather, that your nervous system is utilizing the most significant information available, stemming from your experiences, to determine how you feel and what you will do about it.

For example, let’s say you made a mistake at work. You submitted something and received feedback stating that you missed something, formatted something incorrectly, or left out an important detail. Your boss sends you an email about it and you read it.

How do you feel? What do you notice in your body as you read the prompt? What do you believe about yourself or your boss?

The biggest question trauma-informed therapy asks is:

“Why does this feel so familiar and how is that impacting how I feel now?”

If your parents criticized you for every mistake growing up, maybe this feels like you’re right back there. You feel your boss’s words deeply and see them as a judgement on your value as a person. The perfection you strive for fell short, and, therefore, you’re not good enough. Maybe you feel angry, anxious, ashamed, or suddenly apathetic about your work.

What you are experiencing now is directly informed by your past. Your nervous system remembers the most emotionally salient events, or the ones that affected you the most, in order to help you survive in the future. If you have only had positive experiences in a car, you probably don’t think about the dangers that often. If you have been in a big accident, you are likely more vigilant or nervous when on the road. Your nervous system remembers that this situation can be dangerous and keeps you prepared.

When therapy is not trauma-informed, we learn that there is some objective reality that we don’t have access to and put the blame on ourselves when we feel negatively about a situation because we’re overreacting to a reality that doesn’t exist.

When therapy is not trauma-informed, the self-compassion that can allow you to appreciate what your nervous system got you through so that you can utilize those tools and learn how to teach your nervous system how to feel safe does not come easily. Your emotions are important because your experiences are important. When we appreciate that, we can slow things down and adapt to the future because we acknowledged the existence of the past.

Contact us and let’s talk about how trauma-informed therapy can play a role in your life.