Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy and Its Role in Healing

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Mar 8
4 min read

Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy and Trauma

Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy is an ideal approach for addressing trauma, adversity, and crises. It provides support to individuals in the aftermath of a crisis by fostering a safe and reassuring therapeutic relationship. This respectful approach helps manage intense emotions and collaboratively supports clients in developing meaningful coping strategies. It enhances competencies and guides clients in taking gradual steps for their immediate future. Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy interventions bolster an individual's resilience, reduce distress, and minimize the risk of re-traumatization.

The Core of Trauma-Informed Care

Trauma-informed care is built on values of client safety and empowerment, emphasizing strong engagement between clients and providers. It is a strengths-based framework that understands and responds to the impact of trauma, prioritizing physical, psychological, and emotional safety for both providers and survivors. This approach creates opportunities for survivors to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment, shifting the focus from "how can I fix you?" to "what do you need to support your development and recovery?"

Aligning Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy with Trauma-Informed Care

Solution-focused clinicians help clients envision what their lives would look like once their problems are resolved. If immediate resolution is not possible, clinicians assist clients in managing their crises in a bearable way. They listen for prior moments of success and amplify these moments to increase the client's sense of agency. Together, the client and clinician develop a detailed description of the client's life when the problem is managed or resolved.

Guiding conversations with questions that convey competence and choice helps clients discover how they have already coped and endured adversity. Using the client's language, remaining empathetic, focusing on positive differences, and activating the client's resources all convey a belief in the client's ability to cope. These techniques are consistent with a trauma-informed approach.

Empathy and "Amygdala Whispering"

Clients in crisis often experience significant stress, activating the brain's amygdala—the fight, flight, or protect response. Anne Lutz's concept of "Amygdala Whispering" involves calming this "emotional fever" or "trauma fever" by promoting respect and safety. When the amygdala is activated, clients struggle to use their frontal lobes, which are responsible for planning, questioning, and considering realistic options. Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy helps calm the amygdala, enabling clients to engage their frontal lobes and explore a wider range of choices and actions.

Language of Empathy

Integrating the words "for you" within statements and questions helps provide empathic responses. This linguistic tool validates and acknowledges the client's situation and feelings. For example, saying, "It must be scary for you to see your child struggling with substance use," acknowledges the client's fear and provides emotional support. Pairing "for you" statements with solution-focused questions gently encourages clients to appreciate their efforts and move towards a solution.

Promoting Vicarious Resilience Among Clinicians

Solution-focused clinicians believe in their clients' resilience, which can lead to "vicarious resilience" instead of "vicarious trauma." Vicarious trauma involves experiencing symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress due to empathic engagement with clients' trauma. In contrast, vicarious resilience involves empowerment through interaction with clients' resilience stories. This positive experience can help clinicians reappraise their challenges and find new hope and possibilities.

Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy fosters vicarious resilience by focusing on clients' strengths and growth. Integrating this approach into organizational contexts, such as culture, supervision, consultations, and meetings, can enhance vicarious resilience among clinicians.

Facilitating Post-Traumatic Growth

Most people will experience a traumatic event in their lifetime, but only a small percentage develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many respond to trauma with resilience, experiencing post-traumatic growth. This growth involves surpassing their pre-crisis state, developing new strengths, and finding deeper meaning in life.

Research shows that people who experience severe trauma often report higher levels of positive personal changes. Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy supports this growth by helping clients reframe their experiences, recognize their strengths, and build a hopeful narrative for the future.

Solution-Focused Assumptions in Crisis

Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy operates on the assumption that clients have the necessary resources to cope with and grow from adversity. This approach believes clients have:

The necessary resources to carry on
The necessary skills to cope
The ability to learn skills to mobilize their strengths
The capacity to harness their social resources
The capacity to return to function
The capacity for personal growth, including an enhanced appreciation for life
The capacity to recognize the importance of things formerly taken for granted
The capacity for more intimate and meaningful relationships
The capacity for greater empathy and compassion
The capacity for increased personal strength
The capacity for new possibilities in life
The capacity for greater spiritual and existential growth
The capacity to view aspects of the crisis as a potential gift
The capacity for enhanced mutual support and understanding
The capacity for a revised life narrative recognized as a turning point
The capacity for emotional relief and cognitive clarity

Enhancing Hope Through Solution-Focused Interventions

Hope is a crucial source of strength and resilience in the face of adversity. Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy fosters hope by helping clients set goals and develop plans. This hope is linked to self-efficacy, positive emotions, and successful goal attainment. Research suggests that hope protects against developing PTSD and promotes positive outcomes after traumatic experiences.

Solution-Focused Approach to Crisis Intervention

Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy focuses on clients' present concerns and what they have already done to cope, rather than exploring history or root causes. An ideal session leaves the client with a plan and confidence in their skills and resources to move forward.

Solution-focused interventions help clients develop goals and agency thinking. By focusing on concrete behavioural endpoints and using scaling questions, clients can see their progress and feel intrinsically motivated. This approach strengthens a positive feedback loop, reinforcing clients' efforts and achievements.

Conclusion

Solution-Focused Trauma Therapy, with its emphasis on clients' strengths and resilience, aligns perfectly with trauma-informed care. It provides a robust framework for managing crises, fostering hope, and promoting long-term recovery and post-traumatic growth.