Trauma Informed Care

Trauma-informed care shifts the focus from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” A trauma-informed approach to care acknowledges that health care organizations and care teams need to have a complete picture of a patient’s life situation — past and present — in order to provide effective health care services with a healing orientation. Adopting trauma-informed practices can potentially improve patient engagement, treatment adherence, and health outcomes, as well as provider and staff wellness. It can also help reduce avoidable care and excess costs for both the health care and social service sectors. Emotional dysregulation is a mental health condition that makes it difficult to control emotions and how they impact behavior. People with emotional dysregulation may have intense and prolonged emotional reactions that seem out of proportion to the situation. These reactions can include angry outbursts, anxiety, depression, and impulsive behaviors. Over time, emotional dysregulation can interfere with relationships, work, school, and daily life. Regular therapy and medication can help people manage emotional dysregulation. People can also learn to self-regulate and snap out of a triggered response. With a good therapeutic relationship established, the next task of treatment is to help clients learn the workings of their autonomic nervous systems and the importance of regulating this system (Ford & Russo, 2006). Virtually every effective treatment for posttraumatic stress, especially cognitive behavioral methods, includes some strategy for achieving and maintaining relaxation (Foa, Keane, Friedman, & Cohen, 2008; Management of Post-Traumatic Stress Working Group, 2010). Wolpe (1961, 1968) discovered that when people with anxiety disorders confronted things that made them anxious while keeping their bodies relaxed, they were able to resolve their symptoms of anxiety.