Review of Related Literature on
so far… ☺
▪ It is the person’s personal or subjective experience of an event which overwhelms
his or her ability to cope with the experience and sense of control, connection, and
meaning
• “focuses on the client’s healing process and a holistic view of
the person”
▪ Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Human Development
▪ Environmental factors and genetic predispositions influence the person
▪ Continual reciprocal transactions within the environment determine the risk and protective
factors
▪ Biological
▪ Patients with PTSD have an unusual regulation of emotion and memory due to smaller
hippocampal and increased amygdala function, and has disturbed empathy, impulse control,
and decision-making due to decreased medial prefrontal anterior circulate
▪ Neurobiological
▪ When a developing brain has experienced repeated traumatic events, it causes a
prolonged alarm response which alters the brain
▪ Cognitive
▪ There are sets of beliefs that the individual has about themselves, others, and the world.
▪ Core beliefs about self, others, and environment are altered and disrupted by traumatic
events in an extreme way. This leads to distress.
▪ To relieve the distress, the individual will integrate the traumatic event into their belief
system through assimilation or accommodation.
▪ This results in the manifestation of PTSD or symptoms like fear, irritability, hypervigilance,
and sleeplessness
▪ If successful in resolving, distressing symptoms remit. If unsuccessful, distress increases
and the belief system of the individual remains conflicted.
1. Safety
▪ Help clients realize the areas of their life need to be stabilized
▪ To restore power and control
2. Remembrance and Mourning
▪ Survivor tells the story of the trauma completely
▪ “traumatic memory as a series of still snapshots or a silent movie; the role of therapy is to provide the music
and words”
▪ To apply empowerment so the survivor can confront the his/her traumatic past
3. Reconnection
▪ The client must now develop a new self and to create a future
▪ Through reconciling with self, the client no longer feels possessed by his/her traumatic experience and
feels calmer and able to face life with composure
▪ By this stage, they are starting to have trust in others therefore now ready to form new relationships and to
deepen existing ones
▪ Children
▪ Trauma-Informed Care
▪ Screen for traumatic exposures and symptoms; psychoeducation re: trauma exposure; addressing
resilience and protective factors in a child and their family; assesses caregiver/parental trauma and its
impact on their families
▪ Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics
▪ NMT Assessment (“Where the child has been”)
▪ Nature, severity, duration of stressors/traumatic events are determined to an appropriate amount of trauma
incurred to know how it affected the brain
▪ Functional Assessment (“Where the child is”)
▪ Assesses which brain areas are associated with the child’s strengths, attachment, resiliency, and vulnerability.
▪ Specific Recommendations (“Where the child should go”)
▪ Play Therapy
▪ The use of toys, games, art materials, and other means to communicate with the child
▪ Children with trauma are offered to symbolically play out their experience; There is a belief that this
has a direct impact to the sensory experiences stored in the brain
▪ Children
▪ Child-Parent Psychotherapy
▪ For children under the age of 6
▪ Initial sessions: focus on understanding the nature and severity of the trauma; caregiver/parent is
present
▪ Succeeding sessions: parent and child are both present; play therapy format; to create a narrative
regarding the trauma
▪ Parent-Child Interaction Therapy
▪ To improve attachment and/or the quality of parent-child relationship; to decrease child behavior
problems; to increase prosocial behaviors; to improve parenting/relational skills with praise, reflection,
imitation, description, and enthusiasm and positive discipline; to decrease parenting stress
▪ The clinician observes the parent-child interaction through a one-way mirror in the playroom and
coaches the parent, from an observation room using a wireless communication system, as they play
with their child
▪ Black, L. L., & Flynn, S. V. (2020). Crisis, trauma, and disaster: A clinician's guide. Counseling and Professional Id.
▪ Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence--from domestic abuse to political terror.
Basic Books.
▪ Klinic Community Health Centre. (2013). Trauma-informed: The trauma toolkit.
▪ Levers, L. L. (2012). Trauma counseling: Theories and interventions. Springer Publishing Company.
