A Paradigm Shift-Relationships in Trauma-Informed Mental Health Services

About the Course:

Trauma-informed approaches, and trauma informed care emerged partly in response to research demonstrating that trauma is widespread across society, that it is highly correlated with mental health and that this is a costly public health issue. The fundamental shift in providing support using a trauma-informed approach is to move from thinking ‘What is wrong with you?’ to considering ‘What happened to you?’. This article, authored by trauma survivors and service providers, describes trauma-informed approaches to mental healthcare, why they are needed and how barriers can be overcome so that they can be implemented as an organisational change process. It also describes how past trauma can be understood as the cause of mental distress for many service users, how service users can be retraumatised by ‘trauma-uninformed’ staff, suffer social trauma, psychiatric trauma, iatrogenic harm, and how staff can experience vicariously the service user’s trauma and can themselves be traumatised by practices such as restraint and seclusion. Trauma-informed mental healthcare offers opportunities to improve service users’ experiences, improve working environments for staff, increase job satisfaction and reduce stress levels by improving the relationships between staff and patients through greater understanding, respect and trust.

This course is based on the article, A Paradigm Shift-Relationships in Trauma-Informed Mental Health Services created by Angela Sweeney, et al in 2018.

Publication Date:

Course Material Authors

Course Creator

Recommended For:

Counselors, hospital administrators, marriage and family therapists, mental health administrators and social workers who work with trauma survivors. This content is at an intermediate level.

Course Objectives:

1. Recognize trauma informed care is an important paradigm for the treatment of trauma.

2. Describe how the use of physical restraint may cause more harm to the patient and increases risk of harm to both staff and patient.

3. Identify that using a trauma lens will keep the truama patient better engaged with services.