Hi Erica, Great question. I listened to Dr. Felitti discuss the ACE Study numerous times over 3 days. What he said is that they were required to have a telephone contact available for any of the patients they were studying to call in case they reacted negatively to the information they were receiving about ACE's during the Study. He said they never got a single call. Instead, he talked about a study they conducted for two years, with over 35,000 patients, who filled out an online ACE questionnaire. Their response, according to Dr. Felitti, was a 1/3rd reduction in doctor office visits for a period of 2 years. It does not appear that exploring ACE's or Toxic Stress is in itself traumatizing to people if done with compassion. When I had 50 Alaska Native tribal members in for a conference on ACE's, we had behavioral health counselors present in case they had problems, and they really had none, so my experience is similar to Dr. Felitti's.
Dr. Felitti is a member on this site, I believe, and would probably be more than happy to elaborate on what I write. Good luck with your work.