What is Trauma-Informed Therapy? Understanding a Compassionate Approach to Healing

If you’re struggling with the effects of trauma, you may have heard the term “trauma-informed care” or wondered whether you have PTSD. As a licensed clinical social worker with over 20 years of experience, including five years working with veterans at the VA, I want to help you understand what trauma-informed therapy really means and how it can support your healing journey.

Understanding Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma-informed therapy is a compassionate approach that recognizes the profound impact trauma has on your life. Unlike traditional therapy approaches, trauma-informed care understands that trauma therapy can be triggering, which makes sense, because that’s the very definition of trauma. The goal isn’t to avoid these difficult feelings entirely, but to help you stay grounded and calm during the healing process.

The First Step: Building Your Toolkit

When I work with trauma clients, the first step is always to provide tools. What do I mean by tools? I’m talking about education about trauma and its effects, mindfulness techniques, grounding exercises, connection strategies, and resources for self-care.

Why do I start here? Because trauma therapy can be triggering, and in order to do the work, you need ways to stay grounded and calm during the process. If you get flooded with emotions during our sessions, I’ll walk you through these exercises and tools. None of them are perfect, but all of them are helpful when used consistently.

Understanding How Your Brain Remembers Trauma

The next step in trauma-informed therapy is gaining a deeper understanding of the trauma and its impact on your life. I often think about trauma as shattered glass (at least that’s how our brain remembers it). Pieces that don’t seem to fit together.

Even though there’s fragmentation, our brain continues to try to make sense of it all, resulting in flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance or intrusive thoughts.

The goal of trauma-informed therapy is to put these pieces back together. We work to gain an understanding of the “stuck points”, or those persistent thoughts and feelings that keep you up at night and keep you from moving forward.

Do You Have PTSD?

Many clients come to me wondering if they have PTSD. What actually leads to PTSD is the post-trauma reactions that tend to go round and round, creating a cycle of difficult behaviors:

• Avoiding thoughts about the trauma
• Avoiding reminders of what happened 
• Suppressing emotions 
• Self-harm behaviors 
• Substance abuse as an escape 
• Binge eating 
• Dissociation 
• Isolation 
• Physical health issues

These behaviors make sense, they’re your mind’s attempt to protect you from overwhelming pain. But they also keep you stuck in the trauma cycle.

The Critical Role of Sleep in Trauma Recovery

Sleep is definitely critical to functioning in life. Without the right amount sleep, nothing seems to work, and we can spiral into depression and anxiety a lot faster. I think of sleep as a priority in this order:

1. Air
2. Sleep
3. Water
4. Food
5. Shelter

You get the idea. Without sleep, everything is harder. We all know this already, so why do I feel the need to emphasize it?

The big issue with trauma is that we struggle to sleep. Everything is quiet, and we have nothing to occupy our minds except possibly the trauma. This is why learning the tools I mentioned earlier will help you get to sleep, and that’s one of the many benefits of trauma-informed therapy.

Specialized Approaches: Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

In my work at the VA with veterans experiencing PTSD, I received specialized training in Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT). CPT is an evidence-based treatment that helps you understand how trauma has affected your beliefs about yourself and the world. Through CPT and other trauma counseling approaches, we work together to identify stuck points that keep you trapped in the trauma, challenge unhelpful beliefs that developed after the trauma, process traumatic memories in a safe, structured way, and develop healthier ways of thinking about what happened.

Why Trauma-Informed Care Matters

The great part of trauma-informed therapy is that it meets you where you are. Whether you’re dealing with PTSD from military service, childhood trauma, a recent traumatic event, or any other experience that’s left you feeling stuck, this approach provides safety and stability before diving into difficult memories, tools to manage symptoms as they arise, understanding and validation of your experience, and a pathway toward genuine healing.

At Peterson Family Therapy in Salt Lake City, I bring over 20 years of mental health experience and specialized training in trauma therapy to help individuals navigate their healing journey. My approach combines evidence-based modalities like CPT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) with the compassionate, trauma-informed care that helps you feel safe enough to do the difficult work of healing.

Taking the First Step

If you’re struggling with trauma symptoms, diagnosed PTSD or have lingering effects of difficult experiences, you don’t have to face it alone. Trauma-informed therapy can provide the support, tools, and understanding you need to move from surviving to truly living.

Contact Peterson Family Therapy today to learn how trauma-informed care can support your healing journey.