Why We Believe in Trauma-Informed Care
Recently, and for good reason, terms like “trauma-informed” and “dual diagnosis” began bouncing around popular culture and appearing on the websites of counseling and treatment centers alike, but why does this matter? Why is it important? The research completed through institutions like the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the work of pioneers in the field like Bessel Van der kolk have allowed us to learn of the vast and nearly ubiquitous experience of trauma in the lives of individuals around the world. While only 6.8% of the population may experience the cluster of symptoms required for a diagnosis of PTSD, an estimated 70% of adults in the US have experienced a traumatic event at least once in their lives, the majority of whom before their 18th birthday.
The link between trauma experienced at a young age and the later development and lifetime prevalence of a substance use disorder is well documented. Further, we know that trauma experienced in childhood paired with emotional dysregulation lends way to particularly destructive patterns of coping: through avoidance and aggression or escape behaviors. This leaves the individual at an elevated risk for a variety of mental health concerns like anxious and depressive symptoms, or social, relational and environment-related distress.
It’s easy to see how these particular means of coping leave room for addictive substances to aid in achieving any one of these identified goals: whether by distracting oneself from problems by: getting high (avoidance), using substances as an excuse to push others away by force (aggression), or succumbing to an addiction in order to avoid intrusive symptoms or reality altogether (escape). Upon further inspection, the true root of these behaviors can all be understood as a traumatized individual’s attempt to avoid further pain by abiding by one rule: protect the ‘self’ at all costs.
History of Trauma Treatment
A large-scale study put on by the CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that was hosted at Kaiser Permanente called the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study truly set the stage for the shift in the way that public health policy addresses trauma. The results from that study were so compelling in the linkage of long-term effects of childhood and adolescent traumatic experiences on adult health risks, mental health, healthcare costs, and life expectancy that the demand for trauma-informed care became a national concern.
Prior to that study and the current push for widespread trauma-informed care, individuals presented with trauma were often misdiagnosed, and their symptoms were misunderstood by a system that had not been trained to look at the global context. In actuality, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was not included in the field’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until its third edition released in 1980, five years after the end of the Vietnam War. Veterans of this war were thought to experience lifetime PTSD diagnosis at rates of 30% (compared to the national average at 7%), but returned home to a system unprepared to deal with their symptoms. The professionals at this point in time did not possess adequate knowledge, and individuals ran the risk of becoming retraumatized through an agency’s lack of understanding of PTSD. Symptoms were not viewed through a trauma-informed lens, and standard policies were ultimately ineffective.
Conversely, Trauma Informed Care (TIC), as recommended by SAMHSA, provides clients more opportunities to engage in services and with service providers that espouse a more compassionate perspective of the problems that led them to seek treatment.
At Peace Club, the primary goals of TIC have been adopted as core fundamental values of our treatment approach, including the call to:
Promote trauma awareness and understanding among our staff and in the community
Reframe our client’s presenting symptomatology as their survival-focused adaptation in reaction to exposure to traumatic experiences
View trauma in the context of individuals’ environments, taking into account the contributing sociocultural factors
Incorporate recovery from trauma as a primary goal of treatment, and treating co-occurring disorders concurrently
Create a safe environment that minimizes the risk of replicating prior trauma dynamics by creating collaborative therapeutic relationships, and supporting client autonomy
Use experiential treatment strategies like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) that have proven their effectiveness in helping individuals experience relief from overwhelming emotions
We refuse to ignore the impact of trauma on the lives of our clients, and the communities to which they belong. For this reason, we make every effort to advocate on their behalf
by : creating awareness, stimulating a shift in cultural understanding, and providing our clients with the tools they need to recover.
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