Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, trauma expert and author of The Body Keeps the Score, has stated that one of the biggest growing challenges in the field of trauma treatment is the increasing trend of therapists to rigidly utilize one approach in their treatment with clients recovering from PTSD or developmental trauma.
Integrative trauma treatment, he argues, is about synthesizing all the field’s evolving information about neuroscience and trauma recovery to provide an approach that is multidimensional and uniquely tailored to each client that we work with.
From years of experience working with clients who’ve been through trauma, I wholeheartedly agree that a one size fits all trauma treatment approach doesn’t work, and here are some reasons why:
1) The impact of trauma on an individual is most often multidimensional, impacting the mind, body, spirit, lifestyle, and community of the person. By incorporating more than one approach, a client’s needs are more likely to be met on each of those levels.
2) Trauma can take many forms. Complex PTSD, Acute PTSD, and Developmental Trauma are each unique forms of trauma and each presents differently and requires different approaches.
3) Every person is different and will feel more comfortable working with different modalities, and that’s okay. The job of the therapist is to be attuned to the client’s unique experience and to openly collaborate with the client to design a treatment plan that they feel comfortable with that addresses the specific presenting issues that they are experiencing.
4) Like most forms of recovery, trauma recovery is not linear, and the client may have different treatment needs from session to session. A client may be in the middle of EMDR processing treatment when life throws a curve ball and they show up needing something very different than EMDR processing that day, such as solution focused strategizing, mindful-self compassion mindfulness practices to ground and balance the nervous system, or NVC communication practice to navigate a complicated situation that has arisen in their life.
5) Integrative therapy by design models a profound form of attunement to the client, which can be a level of healing on its own. For many trauma clients, especially those with developmental or childhood trauma, having somebody truly listen to them and hear and attune to their needs from session to session without having a rigid treatment agenda is a powerful and important form of healing in and of itself.
Integrative therapy is multidimensional and incorporates many different modalities and tailors them individually to a client’s unique and specific needs in real time.
It is flexible in nature and views the treatment plan as a working document that can be modified as needed as the healing process unfolds within the context of a client’s real life.
Some evidence-based approaches to therapy that have been proven to be helpful to clients in recovery from trauma include: EMDR, Neurofeedback, Internal Family Systems, and parts work, Mindfulness Practices, Somatic Mind/Body Awareness, and Trauma Sensitive Yoga.
All of these modalities are most helpful and healing within the context of a therapeutic environment and relationship that is attuned, compassionate, and genuine.
