Healing
In general recovery or healing from trauma is the ability to live in the present without being overwhelmed by the thoughts and feelings of the past while looking forward to the future with hope.
Healing from trauma takes time and is usually progressive through three separate phases
- Phase 1 – includes ensuring your safety and making sure you have the skills to regulate your emotions and negative thought patterns.
- Phase 2 – includes integrating the trauma you have experienced into your life story.
- Phase 3 – includes consolidating your healing with self-awareness as you confidently look to the future with hope.
Trauma Focused - Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (TF-CBT)
TF-CBT is proven to be effective in healing trauma/PTSD symptoms and related emotional or behavioural difficulties. TF-CBT helps to reduce your negative emotional and behavioural responses, and to correct unhelpful beliefs and reactions related to traumatic experiences. It also provides support and skills to help parents/caregivers cope effectively with their own emotional distress so they can better respond to their children’s needs
Core components of TF-CBT are PRACTICE:
- P – Psycho-education (learning about trauma).
- R – Relaxation skills (de-stressing)
- A – Affective regulation (dealing with difficult emotions)
- C – Cognitive processing (changing how you think)
- T – Trauma narration (telling your story)
- I – In vivo mastery (overcoming trauma reminders or triggers)
- C – Conjoint sessions (sharing and reconnecting)
- E – Enhancing safety (living free, living safe & living well)
Solution-focused Brief Therapy(SFBT)
SFBT concentrates on finding solutions for today while exploring your hopes for the future. SFBT is future-focused, goal-directed, and concentrates on solutions, rather than on any problems. SFBT assumes you have some knowledge of what would make your life better and the necessary skills to start living that life today.
SFBT is directed toward developing and achieving solutions by…
- Looking for previous solutions
- Looking for exceptions to the current problems
- Being present and future-focused rather than past-oriented focused
- Validating what is already working
- Experimenting to make changes
- Using a Miracle question to imagine new possibilities
- Using Scaling questions to help map progress
- Using Coping questions to highlight resiliency and determination
Narrative Therapy(NT)
NT separates people from their problems in order to transform traumatic/problematic life stories. NT uses the power of personal stories to create opportunities for growth and development, and to find pathways forhealing and a better understanding of yourself.
NT suggests it is the meaning we give the event that makes it traumatic because…
- There is no objective reality or absolute truth.
- Our personal truth is socially constructed through the stories we tell and live.
- These stories are communicated and maintained through language.
- By changing our language, the story changes, e.g. "I am not a victim, I am a survivor."
Mindfulness
Mindfulness encourages focusing on moment-to-moment experiences rather than the hurt from past trauma or anxieties about the future. Rather than being influenced by negative past experiences or fears of the future, mindful exercises will help you ground your thinking and emotions in the present moment so you can handle life’s challenges in a clear-minded, calm and assertive way. As you develop a more conscious mind-set, you will be better equipped to set aside limiting or negative thought patterns and unhelpful behaviours.
Mindful practices include…
- Breathing - to regulate your emotions
- Observation - of the world around you
- Awareness - of the present moment
- Listening - to your body
- Appreciation - for life
