The experience of trauma makes a profound mark on a person. It doesn’t matter whether the injury is grave and evident, like the bruising of a battered person, or hard to see, like the emotional neglect of someone detached and withdrawn. Whatever the cause, when a person feels threatened, helpless, and unable to escape, that person knows trauma.
The overwhelm of trauma often leaves survivors feeling out of synch with the rest of the world. Unresolved anxiety, turmoil, and emotional pain create a sense of “being different.” So, trauma survivors often turn to isolation and self-criticism in an effort to cope. The analytical brain goes into hyper drive, trying to second-guess, explain, adapt. “I must deserve this. What can I do better? How can I stop hurting? What’s wrong with me?”
And so, untreated trauma can give rise to a brutal inner critic. It may seem that trauma survivors feel safest only when operating within bounds of joyless self-judgment, and seek safety in being alone.
Healing trauma means addressing entrenched self-denying responses that turn kind gestures away. So if we would heal trauma, where do we go from here?
One of the most powerful tools to heal trauma is also one of the most overlooked. It’s the power of compassion. Being compassionate is something we are all capable of doing—whether or not we are mental health professionals. You don’t need any credentials at all to be a compassionate person!
A Trauma-Informed Approach
My approach in helping trauma survivors is to use trauma-informed care. Essentially this means raising awareness that the way you cope with trauma is something you learned for survival. You are not struggling because something is wrong with you. Your coping skills — even the most problematic ones — make sense because of what has happened to you in your life.
Compassion is inherent in the understanding that your situation makes sense given your history. Where compassion flows, true healing can begin. (To understand further about the toxic stress of trauma and why a trauma-informed approach to healing is critical, read this.)
Compassion is the heart of the approach I offer to every one of my clients,
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