When determining your own need for mental health care – or the needs of your family – it is vital to consider not just the illnesses, but any past trauma that may have shaped those illnesses.
One in four children in the US experience physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. One in four women has experienced domestic violence. A sobering number of both women and men have been raped in their lives, often before the age of 10. Bearing all this in mind, mental health practitioners are becoming far more likely to shift the question from, “How are you feeling?”, to, “What has happened to cause you feel this way?” This is called trauma-informed care.
Trauma-informed care starts with a comprehensive understanding of any factors in your life that may have caused unresolved trauma. This means asking potentially uncomfortable questions, but the honest answers to those questions shape both the nature and the efficacy of the treatment experience.
[To read the rest of this article, click here.]
[Photo: Priscilla Du Preez/Unsplash]
Comments (0)