Finding the right counselor can be tricky. Sometimes, the biggest hurdle is simply finding someone with an opening. Other times, the challenge lies in finding someone who has the skills to really support you in what you are working with. If you have a history of trauma, it is especially important to find a counselor who has training and expertise in trauma-informed care.
So what does trauma-informed mean, exactly? A big piece of trauma-informed care is knowing the signs of trauma and helping people identify why they respond to certain experiences the way they do. It also means acknowledging the many different ways that those experiences have shaped how you show up and relate to yourself and others now.
Trauma is a subjective experience – each person’s individual experience is just that, unique to them. Just because I may know the details of what happened to you, doesn’t mean I know how you were impacted. Your strengths, your resiliency, and your challenges are all unique to you. Helping you find your voice in those experiences and come back into right relationship with yourself and your body is a big part of trauma-informed counseling.
Another aspect of trauma-informed counseling is exploring your go-to coping skills. The coping skills you used to survive are your strengths. They helped you survive! Exploring those coping skills and how/if they continue to serve you well now is critical. Some may still be strengths for you; others may now hinder more than help.
Perhaps most important of all in supporting individuals who have experienced trauma is creating a safe space. When you have experienced trauma, either once or repeatedly, it may feel like the world is not a safe space. Your counselor’s office may be the one place you feel truly safe to let yourself feel. You may share things with your counselor that you don’t talk about with anyone else. Having a safe person to talk with who you know will not judge you and who is there to unconditionally support you is incredibly healing. And that requires liking your counselor.
Counseling is a relationship. Learning to ask for what you need, to advocate for yourself, to speak and hold your boundaries, and to feel what you need to feel are all important aspects of the process. Contacting potential counselors and asking a little about how they work is a great place to start practicing those skills.