The 3 Stages of Trauma Recovery

Research has found that there are three key stages in trauma recovery:

establishing safety,
retelling the story, and
reconnecting with others.

At Regenerative Psychology we apply the trauma informed principles to help our clients move through these phases safely and get back to their lives.

Establishing safety is fundamental to trauma treatment. If you do not feel safe in therapy, more groundwork needs to be done to achieve this. We prioritise education about the therapy process, collaboration, and development of self-management skills (e.g., relaxation, grounding, distress tolerance), prior to any deep trauma work. Incidental aspects are likely to arise in this process and we encourage you to discuss any discomfort that comes with it.

Talking about the trauma is the next step – this is the part that most people are hesitant to engage in, but we know that this is fundamental to recovery. We review the trauma to help clients habituate to the feelings in their body, that is, become accustomed to them, with the knowledge that they are currently safe. Over time and repetition the emotional and physiological arousal reduces, allowing the story to be told without the elevation in response. This is similarly applied via exposure to locations, people, events (where safe) associated with the traumas to help reduce response to these (e.g. if a traumatic event occurred in a local park, you may engage in graded exposure to go back to the park).

Talking through the trauma also creates an opportunity to identify unhelpful thoughts and beliefs (e.g. that you are to blame, or should have done something differently). By identifying and challenging these thoughts, the maintaining factors around the trauma can be reduced, as well as the associated negative emotions. The goal is to process the trauma, and address and unhelpful maintaining factors (thoughts, avoidance behaviours, etc).

Finally, getting back to life via reconnection. We know many people who experience trauma withdraw or avoid to try and create safety, we also know that this is naturally uncomfortable and unwanted for them. After all, if you’re normally social and love spending time with friends, avoiding this is uncomfortable and adds an extra layer of distress.

Reconnection also expands beyond just engagement with people, reconnection applies to engaging with activities, work, and general life aspects that have been avoided either because they are related to the trauma, remind you of trauma, or because your general distress is too high to cope with these at the time.

Trauma treatment can feel overwhelming and scary when first starting out, this is normal – no one wants to talk about the scary things that have happened to them! It’s important to have a strong therapeutic relationship where collaboration, trust, safety, choice and empowerment are incorporated into the approach. We encourage you to discuss your worries with your therapist, to create a plan that you are open to (even if it will take longer!), and to address any roadblocks on the way.