what trauma informed care is -- and what it isn't.

Trauma informed care is not just "having done a training on trauma informed care" or having received training in care work.

It's all of these things below, done in a living and responsive practice in relationship with the exact person/people in front of you. It's not following a formula: it's attuning to who is in front of you and the felt consent and autonomy of their body, and providing a supportive container to let that wisdom unfold.

Just because you have a training in trauma informed care, does not mean you are actually trauma informed in practice.

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Do you center your client’s autonomy?

Do you check in on their consent?

Are you responding precisely to the person in front of you, or a list of “symptoms” you are trying to “treat” via prescribed methods? (baby, that’s medicalized care - not trauma work)

Are you moving at the pace of the body of the exact person in front of you? Are you attuning to their body and experience, or your idea of what should happen?

I'm so sick of seeing and hearing about practitioners who call themselves "trauma informed" doing real damage to people because they are not trained and practiced in actually tracking and attuning to the person in front of them in an unfolding and caring relationship. I see this as a symptom of the grad school training that licensed therapists receive of "I can treat anyone if I have an interest in it!"

That is one huge reason I’ve moved away from therapy licensure and relocated my ethics in my own body wisdom of determining my lived experience AND my learned practice and skill, and if I can ethically and wisely hold someone.

That’s not to say that someone -must- have like… thousands of dollars worth of a trauma skills training to be able to do this. (side eyeing y’all, SE and SP) Especially in queer, trans, Black, brown, indigenous communities, we don’t have access to those things always due to the ways that impacts our income.

(also - Black brown and indigenous people MAY have access to these things in different ways i.e. via lived and cultural experience)

It does mean that someone must be practicing the skills listed above on a consistent basis ongoing with their clients. You can practice these skills consistently with clients without having to pay thousands of dollars. To me, as long as you’re doing this consistently, you’re mitigating harm.

You can also always do the thing of - offer some free or low cost sessions to people with the express language of “I’m trying to practice these specific skills, would you be willing to do a session with me?” And then maybe ask a fellow practitioner friend who knows a little more than you to offer any feedback on snags you hit in those sessions (I can do this, feel free to book a peer consult). That’s a great way to be able to access embodied learning without having to pay $$$thousands you might not have.

(btw - if you’re not a practitioner and reading this, you can totally practice doing these things with friends and lovers, too! this is not gatekept knowledge lol - this is knowledge for you to have and practice with each other. Please do. also. this is a great list of what to look for in a practitioner!)

I will also add - in my lived experience, and also in my work with clients, I’ve seen that these skills are what is necessary to offer mad and disabled folks specifically deep and generative support.

so in honor of this, I wanted to share these guidelines on what I believe trauma informed care is - and what it is not - based on my training, lived experience, AND 9+ years of 1 on 1 client work.

Trauma Informed Care Is:

• choice-based
• centering autonomy
• moving at the pace of the body
• highly attuned
• relational
• opening space for someone to share their story if they want to, but not requiring it - while carefully tending to their experience so it is not re-traumatizing
• recognizes the systemic and collective impacts of trauma and oppression on individuals, and does not engage in self-blaming for those impacts
• provides ample support
• care is precisely titrated to support the exact person in front of you (titration supports body moving at their own pace + helps prevent retraumatization)
• consistent and steady
• responsive
• able to navigate power dynamics and practitioner power in the space
• has clear and consistent boundaries

Trauma Informed Care Is Not:

• knowing about trauma
• asking someone to re-tell their trauma story
• having a training in trauma informed care
• taking a trauma class in grad school
• training in grad school in care work (counseling, social work, etc) to begin with
• not a rubric or formula you can follow
• asking/suggesting someone to change their thoughts or behaviors
• making it all on the individual to change their thoughts or experience (rather than recognizing systemic and oppressive impacts)
• enforced by the practitioner's idea of where the work should go
• enforcing or not tending power dynamics in the space

With love - I want more for our people. I want our people to feel truly held by people who truly have the expertise and practice. Let's practice ways to truly show up to our people, shall we?

what are other pieces of trauma informed care that you would add? let me know in the comments below!

Gratitude to the many teachers who have influenced this learning over the years, including Jessica Patterson, Pat Ogden’s Sensorimotor Psychotherapy (which has roots in yoga and Vedic practice that must be acknowlegded, re my last post), Laia Jorba who I met via my SP training, Caffyn Jesse, Betty Martin and The Wheel of Consent, Kathy Kain and Stephen Terrell’s book Nurturing Resilience, the book Care Work as well as other Disability Justice and Healing Justice work, and my own personal practitioners Jonathan Brooks, Alpha Gunn, Vanissar Tarakali, and Karishma Kripalani who have each practiced pieces of this with me which has helped me learn how it feels in my own nervous system.

⭐ I have 2 -3 spaces open for full pay biweekly clients currently. you can book here, or for more info, check out my website.💞