Crises and accidents are a part of life. Life brings losses, accidents, and wars. Racism, inequality, and physical or sexual assaults can cause trauma. Likewise, the loss of a loved one or home, bankruptcies, and betrayal can be traumatic. How each person reacts to these events, however, is highly individual.
At worst, after trauma, a person can end up in a negative spiral where helplessness and paralysis form a vicious circle, trapping them in the role of victim and stuck in the past. The future disappears from their mind.
The other possibility is that a person enters a spiral in which they rise again. They can tap into their internal, hidden resources. Through this, they can shift their focus to transformed priorities, concentrating on family, friends, and spiritual values.
How does a person choose between the victim role and survival? Some take an active role by working through the trauma, focusing on self-care, or helping others. Others deliberately choose the path of compassion and forgiveness instead of anger and bitterness. Usually, this does not happen on its own but requires active effort.
Working through trauma
There are various therapeutic methods through which a person can learn to regulate hyperarousal, irritability, and hypersensitivity. Part of the work involves gaining an understanding of how trauma affects the mind, body, impulses, and the whole personality. It is important to recognize how someone who has experienced trauma can shift internally between two extremes—ranging from hope, optimism, energy, and altruism to frustration, exhaustion, and despair.
Another part of the work focuses on actively engaging internal resources and discovering and adopting new coping strategies.
“One challenge in working through trauma is that it can be nonverbal and bodily. In such cases, specialized methods are needed, allowing work to be done simultaneously on the nonverbal level while ensuring psychological safety.”
The challenge of working through trauma is that it can be nonverbal and physical. In such cases, special methods are needed that allow for working with nonverbal and psychologically safe techniques at the same time. Various metaphorical techniques, such as card-based exercises, are often used. Sometimes trauma work is accompanied by rituals related to letting go and leaving the past behind.
Coping strategies
Israeli mental health professionals Mooli Lahad and Ofran Ayalon, who have years of experience in trauma work, developed a working model that helps people identify and focus on different pathways to recovery. Using this model, individuals can gain guidance in exploring their own specific coping strategies for managing stress, crises, or traumatic situations. The model is called BASIC-PH. The letters correspond to the initials of coping strategies that research and clinical work have found to be essential. Each component represents a different “pathway” that a person can utilize in difficult situations. Challenges can arise if the available options are too few, stuck, or biased toward one type.
How does one recover from trauma? What are the ways to do so?
The BASIC-PH model
Carefully read through the different “pathways” and reflect on your own situation: which pathway do you currently have open or actively using? When you are in a difficult situation, which windows are completely closed or absent? Which ones, on the other hand, may be alive in you? How can you support your own spiral of growth?
- Ph: Physical, i.e. body-mind connection
Trauma is stored in the body. Trauma work aims to increase bodily and somatic awareness, thereby accessing traces of trauma stored in muscle memory. Trauma can involve both hyperarousal and hypoarousal, disrupting the natural balance between tension and relaxation. Physical activity also provides a pathway to release and distance oneself from unpleasant or harmful experiences. Trauma can affect a person’s sense of their own physical boundaries and the ability to set limits, and these trust-related issues are often addressed in therapy.
- B: Belief, i.e. faith and trust
Beliefs/faith/trust/core values. After trauma, a person may naturally seek meaning and comfort, for example, through a religious community or spirituality. Core beliefs about the goodness of the world, faith in humanity, or self-confidence may be challenged. Research has repeatedly confirmed the significance of faith, hope, and spiritual communities.
- A: Affect or emotional skills
The emotional side of our consciousness. This includes all human emotions, such as love, anger, envy, fear, courage, grief, joy, compassion, and so on. In this coping strategy, the focus is on the ability to recognize and name emotions, express them in different ways, or communicate them nonverbally (through play, dance, art, music). Sharing these emotions with others is essential.
- S: Social coping strategies
After trauma, a person’s ability to give and receive support from family members, friends, and professionals is crucial. Following traumatic experiences, there is a strong need to be heard and to share one’s story. Trauma must be acknowledged. It needs to be expressed, heard, validated, tolerated, and processed.
- I: Imagination
Imagination and metaphors are a way to express and work through things creatively when trauma is at a level that cannot be put into words.
- C: Cognitive methods
The trauma narrative is processed as our mind works through the trauma using various cognitive methods. A natural part of the recovery process involves retelling the trauma. Each retelling and recollection of the traumatic event in a safe environment helps to detach from the original difficult emotions and feelings associated with the trauma or crisis. Experiencing and connecting with these emotions is then followed by analyzing the situation. Through this process, understanding increases, and planning new strategies becomes possible.
About the author of this article
Katri Kanninen is Doctor of Psychology, experienced psychotherapist, psychotherapy trainer (CAT), and non-fiction writer.
Katri Kanninen
email:katri.kanninen@heltti.fi
Sercices
Executive Therapy, Psychotherapy, Group Supervision, Individual Supervision