“A program, organization, or system that is trauma-informed realizes the widespread impact of trauma and understands potential paths for healing; recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma in staff, clients, and others involved with the system; and responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, practices, and settings.”
(SAMHSA, 2012, p. 4)
We need to consider not only trauma in ourselves and our peers and colleagues but also within the training groups and ultimately those who we serve, our clients.
Understanding and feeling trauma within staff training groups is vital. If we consider ‘the wounded healer.’ ‘Wounded healer’ is a term originally created by psychologist Carl Jung who stated that “..an analyst is compelled to treat patients because the analyst himself is “wounded.”
Therefore, in our work, what do we use aside from the many years of training and experience that we gain? We use our own trauma, often to guide us, to engage with empathy and compassion – often with couples who despite choosing each other and loving each other (certainly in the earlier days), now perform acts of traumatisation on each other. We often witness conflict, harshness and deception
“Trauma-informed care embraces a perspective that highlights adaptation over symptoms and resilience over pathology.”
(Elliot, Bjelajac, Fallot, Markoff, & Reed, 2005, p. 467)
As stated by Dennis Balcom in his paper in 1996 -The Interpersonal Dynamics And Treatment of Dual Trauma Couples:
“Many trauma survivor dyads pose intense challenges for couples and marital therapists. Interpersonal reactivity, transference, emotional withdrawal, and associated responses complicate these difficult yet often rewarding cases.”
How do we work with this challenge? To what degree does clinical supervision address this? Hence the ongoing recommendation that students and more senior members alike continue to work on their own trauma history so as not to leak into the client work. Trauma which is understood and worked upon can positively inform the work with clients.
How do we look at what is often called post trauma growth, both past and present in the client(s)?
This can, I suggest, only happen when the guides, teachers, tutors and mentors understand their own trauma and have achieved some peace with it. They can be openly dialogic about what trauma has ‘done’ for them, how they have embraced the challenges of a trauma background, understood it, felt it, breathed it in and out. This will be in the field of the training and the therapy provided. Trauma is not static and unmoveable; it has a life force. Working with trauma is time sensitive. As therapists we need to understand and tune into this. Frequently the work of PRT therapists is about trauma, be it on a psychical or emotional level and mostly a combination of the two.
……….service providers must develop an awareness of the importance of dual-trauma couple dynamics. They should, for example, routinely but respectfully inquire into the family of origin histories of clients whom they serve,…………
Research and Action Report . Wellesley Centres for Women 2008
With this in mind, the ongoing quest for PRT therapists is not to shy away from working with trauma but to fully embrace the potency of this in our work.
Judi Keshet-Orr
Founder and Course Director LDPRT
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