What is Trauma?

Stress and trauma are facts of life. The difference between the two is that trauma occurs when people perceive that their life or safety or others’ is being threatened. If an event is merely stressful, the symptoms will diminish or disappear soon after the cause of stress is reduced. If the symptoms persist long after the event is over, then it is trauma. When people are traumatized, no matter how much time has passed, they may continue to experience feelings that are often as intense as in the situation when they first happened.

In our society, trauma has generally been viewed as a 'mental health' problem. Decades of research has clearly demonstrated that acute traumatic stress symptoms when left untreated can develop into Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD can disrupt individual lives, families, communities and even nations. After years of working with PTSD, research shows that clients are only partially helped by traditional mental health therapies.

Current research shows that trauma contributes to more than mental health problems including an array of physical syndromes involving altered pain processing and increased disease in cardio vascular, nervous, and gastrointestinal systems. Recent trauma therapies include working with the nervous system, reestablishing the mind-body connection. Trauma is in the nervous system – NOT the event! The part of the brain that controls speech shuts down during highly charged situations –hence “scared speechless”. Often times language is not formed making it very difficult to talk about at all. Repeating the story over and over does not help the nervous system stabilize and may make things worse. This understanding explains why traditional therapies that rely on exclusively on talking about an incident have not solved the problem of PTSD.

What is Trauma First Aide™

TRAUMA FIRST AIDE™ (TFA) bridges psychology and physiology. Developed as a short term model for helping professionals, TFA teaches hands-on skills that can be used to help reduce the symptoms of acute traumatic stress and to stabilize the nervous system in high arousal and urgent situations. TFA skills help clinicians assist their clients to reduce and stabilize their trauma symptoms, giving them a greater sense of self control. The TFA approach provides direct access to the dysregulated nervous systems of people who have experienced traumatic situations. This approach allows for the establishment of a bridge between survival mode and a return to normal functioning. This workshop explores the nervous system’s role in trauma, differences between cognitive and somatic approaches, and the effects of trauma beyond ‘mental health’. We view typical acute traumatic stress symptoms as a dysregulated mind-body system response and work directly with the symptoms using an integrative approach. Our focus in TFA is on trauma education, early intervention and the prevention of secondary traumatization.

TRAUMA FIRST AIDE™ is also very useful to help reduce or prevent secondary traumatic stress ('compassion fatigue') in helping professionals. Those most susceptible to this reaction are providers that work with traumatized clients and in traumatic settings including hospitals, first response situations, disasters, and battle zones. The high burnout rate seen in helping professionals may be the effects of secondary traumatization. TFA self-care skills are reinforced throughout the class.

TRAUMA FIRST AIDE ™ is based upon current research regarding the impact of trauma on the brain and body. TFA is informed by new findings in somatic psychology, neurology, and endocrinology and is inspired by the burgeoning field of mind-body therapeutic interventions including: biofeedback, EMDR®, Yoga, imagery, meditation and Somatic Experiencing®. Trauma First Aide™ was developed by Dr. Geneie Everett and colleagues following working with survivors of the Asian tsunami in Thailand and Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast.

We call our approach to working with trauma 'Trauma First Aide' because whether it was yesterday or decades ago since the experience occurred, we teach skills that can be applied to trauma symptoms occurring here and now.

TRAUMA FIRST AIDE™ is taught as 2-day Basic and 1-day Advanced level classes. We provide specialized In-house Training to a wide variety of organizations. In addition to Basic and Advanced courses, we also offer two specialty modules:

‘Working With Children’ – offered to mental health, nurses, teachers and parents
‘TFA for Body-Workers’ – offered to licensed massage therapists and other somatic therapists