A Trauma Model for Therapy

Women, Abuse and Trauma Therapy: An Information Guide

On this page:

• The trauma therapy model
• What to expect from abuse-related trauma

Traditional therapy often does not:

• link trauma to childhood abuse and neglect
• consider the social conditions of women’s lives
• view the ways women cope as normal responses to abnormal events.

As a result, many women who have post-traumatic stress have not received effective help.

The trauma therapy model

People who have survived abuse are best helped by therapy that works from an understanding of how abuse and neglect, especially in childhood, affect the way people think, feel, behave and relate to others.

An effective trauma therapy model should also make links between trauma and social inequalities, such as sexism, racism and poverty in women’s lives.

Developing a relationship of collaboration

In the trauma therapy model, therapy needs to happen in a relationship of collaboration. This means that clients are not viewed as people being treated for an illness. Instead, they are viewed as partners in healing – they share responsibility with the therapist for their own care.

Understanding problems as “Responses”

A trauma therapy model considers whether individual problems are the result of abuse and neglect. It understands that:

• Women’s ways of coping are normal responses to overwhelming experiences.
• Women’s emotional problems often develop in a context of abuse and ongoing stress (rather then viewing these problems as symptoms of something that is wrong with the woman).

Recognizing social inequality

An effective trauma therapy model should also recognize that individual problems can be made worse by the social conditions of women’s lives. Some mental health providers do not fully understand the social and psychological factors that account that women’s problems may be partly caused or intensified by ongoing racism, sexism, homophobia, and conditions of poverty. These conditions are part of many women’s everyday lives, and can worsen feelings women already have of being unsafe and disempowered.

Recognizing the severity of trauma

Trauma therapists also need to recognize that:

• Suffering from abuse is severe and often lasts for years, even after the abuse has ended.
• Survivors often feel ashamed, and minimize how much they have been hurt by these harmful experiences

What to expect from abuse-related trauma

If you know what to expect from therapy, you may feel safer and more confident about your treatment. If you understand how therapy works, you will also know if you are not getting the help you need. Then you can decide if you need to change therapists.

To help you best, a therapist will need to learn a lot about your life. Your therapist will ask questions as:

• How long do you remember feeling the way you do?
• What do you do when you feel this way?
• What therapies or medications have you already tried?

Therapy will help you connect to emotions you have blocked out of your life for years. This means you will have both painful and good feelings. To heal, you may sometimes feel worse before you begin to feel better. Therapy may take many years to complete.

Women have many different responses to memories of their abuse (e.g., nightmares, sleep disturbances, dissociation, depression, humiliation, anger, self-hatred). Effective therapy aims to help you remember your experiences and face your feelings with the aid of new coping strategies and resources. Although you have to face the pain, you do it using new internal resources (e.g., safe place imagery, self soothing) and increased external resources (e.g., support from friends or family, a safe place to live).

Often, people in therapy are in a hurry to “get better.” But if you try to move too quickly in therapy, you can become overwhelmed. For example, you may start to explore your painful experiences before you are ready. Your therapist needs to teach you about the possible effects of moving too quickly. You need to work with your therapist to set a pace for therapy.

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