Given that an estimated 20% of women and 4% of men in England and Wales* have experienced sexual violence since the age of sixteen (and those are just the reported cases; therefore, these figures could be just the tip of the iceberg, not to mention the child sexual abuse figures; see Rape Crisis for more statistics), there is a high probability some of them will be your clients or customers or colleagues or students or apprentices or family members. There are also many people who have experienced emotional and/or physical abuse and/or neglect. You might not know this about them because they may never tell you. Since some of the people you spend time with at work and home are likely to have experienced trauma, it follows that being trauma informed in the ways you communicate with them will be helpful to both you and them.
What does it mean to be trauma informed?
If you’re in a position of authority – for example, you’re a G.P. or a nurse or a therapist, or a police person, or a housing officer, or a manager, or a parent, or a teacher – any role where you are deemed to have power over other people (if only because of your knowledge and expertise) – that is more than enough to be triggering for people who’ve experienced trauma in their close, personal relationships. For these people, who have been coerced and controlled, the power imbalance in a helping relationship means they may find it hard to trust you, and hard to express their needs in healthy and straightforward ways. This could show up as defensive and angry reactions or fawning and flattering behaviour, to name just a few. Being trauma informed and behaving in trauma sensitive ways may not necessarily encourage straightforward self expression, but it gives the opportunity for that to happen, and it is respectful, which is something traumatic relationships are not, so it will be good for all your relationships, regardless of trauma experience.
What are the elements of being trauma informed?
In no particular order, the elements of being trauma informed are:
1. Psychoeducation about how trauma affects brain and body functions
When you understand the physical and mental affects of trauma, not only does it help you to empathise with trauma survivors, but, if the opportunity arises, you can give information about it to the person, which helps to normalise their situation and take the shame out of it; many survivors feel shame that they didn’t fight off their abusers or get away from them but the natural freeze response in their brain made both those scenarios impossible. Carolyn Spring runs some brilliant courses on working with shame and her website has a wealth of information.
2. Giving clear information (no jargon), more than once, about your process
People who’ve experienced trauma often zone out and may not hear you; they may be embarrassed about this and not mention that they haven’t heard you, so if you repeat what you’ve said and give the information in different forms – if you’ve verbalised the information, you could give them a visual infograph, for example – they stand a better chance of receiving the information.
3. Invitation and choice – including the choice to do nothing
Invitation and choice are the opposite of coercion and control. You might feel like you know what’s best for your service user and, coming from that place, you might try to convince them to do what you want them to do but this is a form of coercion and control and a trigger that could kick off the fight, flight, freeze response, which may show up as acting out or shutting down. If you invite and give choice, and accept their “no”, you are giving them respect.
4. Setting clear boundaries and sticking to them
By clearly stating what you are willing to do and not do and sticking to it, you are modelling healthy boundaries. It may feel hard because you might feel compelled to stretch a time boundary, for example, but doing that is like giving ‘special’ treatment and one of the ways abusers use coercion on victims is to make them feel ‘special’, so this can be triggering. It may also induce them to try to push other boundaries and keep on pushing, which could make the relationship problematic in many ways. Being assertive and sticking to your boundaries creates a sense of safety for all concerned. Check out Karpman’s Drama Triangle if you feel compelled to break your boundaries for people.
5. Acknowledgement of the power dynamic in your relationship
If you were to say something like, “I’m aware that my position comes with a sense of power or authority and that might get in the way of how we communicate with each other. I want to do my best to help you without that getting in the way if that’s at all possible,” to them it could help them to relax a little. At the very least it shows that you’ve reflected on the imbalance of power inherent in your role (given the societal context we live in), and that you want to help.
6. A person-centred approach
Unconditional positive regard, empathy and genuineness are the key attitudes of someone who takes a person-centred approach. Carl Rogers wrote many books about this way of being with people – On Becoming A Person is one of them and a good starting point. Reflecting on and using these attitudes with people can make them feel valued, safe, and understood, and these are some of the conditions for personal change and growth.
7. Evaluating your own self-care
Self-care can have different meanings at various points in your life; what you thought of as self-care a decade ago might not be what you do for yourself now. It is important that you have good enough self-care if you are in a position where you need to give good enough care to others, even though it can be compelling sometimes to put off meeting your own needs; again, the drama triangle is a good model to reflect on if this is the case for you. A way to reflect on your own self-care needs is a ‘self-care wheel’, where you can list your needs under headings of ‘physical’, ‘psychological’, ‘emotional’, ‘spiritual’, ‘personal’, ‘professional’, or you could choose your own headings. Then you can plan how to meet your needs.
What difference might being trauma informed make to your relationships?
That question is for you to investigate and answer, if you wish. Something to bear in mind from a survivor perspective: being trauma informed as a survivor can be incredibly empowering because it can take away a lot of shame; for example, knowing that your brain made it impossible for you to ‘do something’ (get away or fight) because of its natural reaction to perceived life or death events helps you accept that you actually couldn’t ‘do something’ at the time. So, if you can give a survivor the gift of psychoeducation, at least, it can help them to normalise their reaction and lose the shame. Less shame can mean feeling more relaxed and sociable, although it’s often not that simple.
Psychoeducation combined with a person-centred approach could be a game changer for our society, if every adult decides to adopt it, and could mean less mental health problems overall. Imagine seeing and hearing respectful interactions everywhere you go… it is possible if we invest some effort.
What do you think? If you’re already trauma informed, feel free to comment – are there any elements that you would add in? If you’re not trauma informed yet, you could test out what it’s like and I’d love to know how it goes, so please feel free to comment, or contact me directly. If you’d like some help with becoming trauma informed, feel free to contact me for a chat about your needs.
*taken from The Crime Survey for England and Wales for the year to the end of March 2017.
