Trauma is a common experience, and it’s common for many to need specialized care to help them work through the effects of trauma. Trauma-informed therapists are trained to do just that.

When it comes to trauma care, there are a lot of terms and ideas floating around. It can be hard to understand the different levels of care and what each one is used for. This resource will help you understand the effects of trauma and the different levels of trauma care.

At Inner Balance Counseling, all of our counselors offer trauma-informed care. It’s the most comprehensive level of trauma care, and allows us to help every client regardless of their background. Learn more about what it means to be trauma-informed, and how Inner Balance can help you.

What is Trauma?

Before talking about the differences between trauma-aware and trauma-informed, let’s make sure we understand what trauma is and how it affects the brain.

Trauma is any real or potential exposure to events that are dangerous, deadly, or highly stressful. Events such as the death of a loved one, car accidents, medical emergencies, sexual violation, and physical abuse are all traumatic and can cause mental distress.

Traumatic events are hard to process. It takes a lot of brain power to properly work through the realities of what happened. 

It’s common to experience heightened levels of anxiety, mood swings, nightmares, and flashbacks after experiencing trauma. However, symptoms should dissipate after some time. However, when flashbacks continue for a long period of time, it’s likely that PTSD has developed.

Whether or not an event is traumatic isn’t dictated by the event itself. Trauma looks different for different people.

Related Articles: Can Emotional Trauma Cause Brain Damage?  

Complex Trauma

Complex trauma is the consistent exposure to traumatic events. This is most seen in people who experienced ongoing abuse as a child. 

People who carry complex trauma are afflicted in several ways. Relationship challenges, difficulty regulating emotions, and a warped self-perception are some of the effects complex trauma can have on a person.

Trauma Can Look Different for Everyone

Trauma can manifest in limitless ways. Everyone has different contexts and experiences, and how trauma impacts their life will be different.

What one person considers traumatic or scary, another may not. Because of that, a holistic approach should be taken when treating trauma. There is not one plan for treating trauma.

Instead, counseling should be informed by the diversity of trauma and adapted to everybody’s context.

The Levels of Trauma Care

Trauma is something that affects a person’s entire life. That means trauma care can also seep into all aspects of life. The levels of trauma care aren’t only clinical. They cover social and organizational approaches to trauma care, and how to talk to people who may have experienced trauma. They can also apply to therapy outside of trauma care

What is Trauma-Informed Therapy?

Trauma-informed counseling is an approach to counseling that recognizes the effects of trauma and adapts to every person’s needs. Everyone gets the personalized care and attention they need, without fear of retraumatization.

Counselors need specialized training for their services to be considered trauma-informed. At Inner Balance Counseling, all of our services are trauma-informed. Because of that, all of our counselors are trained to provide trauma-informed counseling.

This intimate knowledge requires specific training that covers the impact trauma can have and the other mental health challenges that come from it. 

What is Trauma-Aware Therapy?

Trauma awareness is a general awareness of trauma and how it affects mental health and counseling efforts. Every mental health professional should be aware that past events of trauma have a lasting impact on people. This doesn’t require specialized training, and is a fairly common approach to counseling.

While providing trauma-aware treatment, the therapist will avoid common triggers and take an empathetic approach, but they may not adjust or provide trauma trauma-specific treatment. 

What is Trauma-Sensitive Care?

Trauma sensitivity is a larger approach to trauma care. It isn’t just the doctors and mental health professionals who are responsible for being aware of and adapting to trauma. Organizations and communities can help people by adopting a trauma-sensitive approach.

Organizations can play a big role in the persistence or healing of trauma effects. Workplaces with a particularly stressful environment can help their employees by being sensitive and proactive to the trauma employees experience during and outside of the workplace.

The trauma-sensitive approach includes:

• Education about trauma
• Promotion of mental and physical safety
• Reduction of triggers
• Make clinical service accessible to those who need it
• Encouraging teamwork, empathy, and community

Trauma-sensitive approaches are mainly being adopted in schools, but many workplaces are also taking this approach.

What is Trauma-Responsive Therapy?

Trauma responsive is an actionable approach to trauma care and can be applied to diverse types of care including:

• Childcare
• Healthcare
• Correctional facilities

This level of trauma care bridges the gap between mental health care and physical care. actionable steps are at the core of this kind of trauma care, such as:

• Compassionate communication
• Promotion and creation of safety
• Earning and building trust
• Respecting and embracing diversity
• Patient-centered care

Trauma-responsive care is primarily used in healthcare and correctional settings.

What is Trauma-Focused Care?

Within the realm of trauma care, there is a category of specific treatment that is designed to help people process trauma.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) uses bilateral stimulation to soothe people while they process their trauma. It’s the golden standard of PTSD treatment and has been proven to be helpful.

Read about the trauma-specific therapies available at Inner Balance Counseling. Though we’re specialists in EMDR, we offer a range of therapy modalities to resolve and heal trauma.

The Difference Between Trauma-Aware and Trauma-Informed

When starting counseling, a trauma-informed counselor may ask you about your trauma history before providing treatment options. If you’re not comfortable with sharing, let your counselor know and they’ll be able to readjust based on your needs.

A trauma-aware counselor may not ask about your trauma history. Your history with trauma may come up naturally, but it may not be a central topic the counselor brings up.

Many counselors are trauma-aware, but only some provide trauma-informed care. Informed care requires an intimate knowledge of the causes, impacts, and treatment of trauma. 

Who is Trauma-Informed Counseling for?

The name might suggest that trauma-informed counseling is for people searching for help with trauma, but that’s not the case.

Trauma-informed care therapy is for anyone. Everyone can benefit from this kind of therapy, even if they aren’t dealing with the distressing symptoms of trauma. That’s because this kind of therapy doesn’t have to be adapted for trauma treatment.

Counselors who take a trauma-informed approach can adapt their sessions to tackle traumatic experiences or provide counseling for other mental health issues.

Trauma-Informed Therapies

Any therapy can have a trauma-informed approach including:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
• ‍Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)
• ‍Narrative therapy
• Cognitive processing therapy (CPT)
• Couples therapy
• Trauma-informed psychotherapy

Counselors who are trauma-informed can provide a safe space for people to process their trauma. That includes most modalities of counseling whether it be for a single person or a couple.

Training Required to Be Considered Trauma-Informed

Therapists who have undergone training can call their practice trauma-informed. Inner Balance Counseling provides all counselors to attend more training than what is considered required to practice. 

All of the counselors at Inner Balance Counseling take 62 hours of EMDR training and 12 hours of dissociation training—trauma therapists are only required to undergo 50 hours of trauma training.

Receive Trauma-Informed Care at Inner Balance Counseling

We view our patients as unique people who deserve the best care possible. All of our counselors are able to deliver trauma-informed care and are eager to help you feel better.

Our process is simple: reach out, show up, and feel better. Request a consultation to start your healing journey.