What is Trauma-Informed Care & Why Is It Important?

The traditional approach to addiction treatment focuses on a patient’s acute, immediate symptoms. However, there’s been a growing consensus that this approach is insufficient and necessitates a more comprehensive approach called “trauma-informed recovery,” or TIC. 

This model is tailored to those seeking help for addiction or mental health issues who experienced some form of trauma earlier in life. In essence, TIC allows healthcare providers to make deeper connections with their patients and avoid potential re-traumatization. It builds trust, which any effective treatment plan needs.

How is Trauma Connected to Addiction Recovery? 

Much like addiction, trauma can occur at any point in someone’s life and has long-lasting effects on the brain, especially from recurring trauma early in life. While the individual suffers, the brain is undergoing physical changes to its structures and connections. 

Children suffer most from these effects as a growing brain diverges from typical development to cope. The effects include alterations to critical thinking skills, decision-making ability, and everyday social interactions, resulting in a strong correlation between trauma and future addiction. 

The brain also loses much of its hormone-regulating capability when overexposed to stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Those affected may exhibit underreaction or overreaction to stress, affecting the brain’s reward system. 

With the brain failing to produce the dopamine needed to calm down from stress, it’s become quite common for individuals to turn to drugs, alcohol, and other high-dopamine outlets to cope.

A Vicious Cycle 

Trauma can cause substance use disorder (SUD); conversely, addiction can lead to further trauma. Strained relationships combine social trauma with a diminished support network. 

Because hunger, proximity to violence, and poverty can be extremely traumatizing for children, marginalized populations often have the highest levels of addiction from trauma. To make matters even worse, low-income individuals and those facing discrimination frequently lack the resources or support needed for recovery, assuming they don’t encounter other systemic barriers to care. 

Discouraged from getting help, many individuals who have suffered from trauma find themselves stuck in the cycle of abuse and trauma.

Why Do Addiction Care Centers Skip Trauma Treatment?

Addiction care centers often focus on crisis management, meaning strategies to handle trauma while the trauma is actively happening to you. But what about unresolved emotional baggage from unresolved trauma in the individual’s past? Those who are pigeonholed into crisis treatment may find that their psychological needs are not being met. 

Do Addiction Patients Talk About Their Trauma? 

SUD patients choose not to discuss their past trauma for a number of possible reasons, but chief among them are shame and fear of judgment. Or else they become preoccupied with solving the immediate problem(s) rather than addressing the underlying cause(s). 

Can Addiction Recovery Facilities Help Treat Trauma? 

The unfortunate reality is that while recovery facilities have the skills and equipment to handle most of the physical dangers of addiction–such as overdoses and withdrawal symptoms–a more comprehensive approach that accounts for the individual’s mental health is critical. 

This is one of the reasons why so many addiction treatment centers have shifted to a more comprehensive, trauma-forward approach to treating addiction. 

What is Trauma-Informed Care?

In trauma-informed care, the priority is to meet trauma patients’ psychological and social needs, which may or may not require delving into the actual trauma itself. 

Trauma-informed care represents a change in organizational culture. Rather than ask, “What is wrong with this person?” a practitioner asks, “What has happened to this person, and how do I help them?” 

Retraumatization Avoidance 

Trauma-informed care is constructed in such a way as to minimize the chances of retraumatization. Despite providers’ best efforts, certain aspects of drug recovery facilities–such as medical procedures, loss of control, or mistreatment from staff–can trigger additional trauma. 

The Principles of Trauma-Informed Care 

Per the principles of TIC, the goal is to establish an environment that fosters healing, understanding, and empowerment. Without getting too far into the weeds, here are some of the most important takeaways:

Physical and Emotional Safety 

TIC aims to create an environment that protects physical and emotional safety. TIC builds spaces that feel welcoming and comfortable for patients where they can be themselves without fear of judgment or harm. 

Choice and Control 

TIC also recognizes patient autonomy within their treatment. Patients should have a complete understanding of their rights, responsibilities, and protections. They also have an influence on and choice in the scope and type of therapy.

Collaboration 

In TIC, patients have a say in their care without having to figure out the entire process on their own. They cooperate and collaborate with their doctors, who operate with medical expertise but treat their patients as the experts in their own lives. 

Trustworthiness 

Transparency in operations helps patients know what comes next and trust that their caregivers have their best interests at heart. To do so, patients and providers work to establish clear, appropriate, consistent, and healthy boundaries. While crises sometimes require that these boundaries break, transparent rules on when and how they can be broken allow patients to consensually surrender control to medical professionals rather than have it taken by force. 

Empowerment 

TIC helps patients learn new skills and increase their capacity to cope. A sense of empowerment gives patients the chance to engage with and take a more active role in their recovery journey. 

These principles create a care model that can accommodate the complex needs of individuals with past trauma. Any of these principles can enhance care for patients needing further psychological assistance so they can get more out of their crisis treatments. 

SoberMind Recovery Brings Trauma-Informed Care to the Forefront 

Those who have suffered from trauma need trauma-oriented care while in inpatient rehab. LA has scores of people, with trauma and without, who actively working toward optimal wellness. 

At our LA recovery center, SoberMind brings a gentler touch to addiction recovery. For more information about trauma-informed care and to stay up-to-date with the world of recovery, be sure to subscribe to the SoberMind blog and follow us on social media.