Analysis of Trauma-Informed Therapies and PTSD Treatments

This assignment involves analyzing the concept of trauma-informed therapies and their application in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The document reviews multiple research papers and studies, highlighting the effectiveness of different therapeutic approaches such as cognitive processing therapy, prolonged exposure, and client-centered therapy. It also discusses the importance of adapting these therapies to suit individual needs, particularly for adolescents with PTSD. The analysis concludes that trauma-informed therapies can lead to significant symptom reduction in individuals with PTSD, but emphasizes the need for further research and tailored treatment approaches. The document serves as a comprehensive resource for students and professionals seeking to understand the complexities of trauma-informed therapies and their potential applications in treating PTSD.

Running head: THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 1
The therapeutic relationship and psychological trauma or PTSD:
Name:
Institution Affiliation:

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 2
Introduction
The stress which results from the stressful situations precipitates the spectrum of the psycho-
emotional as well as the physiological outcomes (Briere & Scott, 2014). The post-traumatic
stress disorder (PSTD) is the psychiatric condition which results from the experience or
witnessing of the stressful or maybe the life-threatening events. PSTD has a unique
psychobiological aspect which correlates and impair a person everyday life and could be life-
threatening situations. The PSTD has an extreme psychobiological correlates that might damage
an individual daily life threatening (Cohen, Mannarino & Deblinger, 2016). In light to the
present events, a sharp rise continues to be exhibited to the patients that have the PTSD diagnosis
which is predicted within the next decade (Briere & Scott, 2014). PTSD is a significant public
health issue which compels looking to get the novel paradigms along with the theoretical models
to be able to intensify the understanding of the condition and at the same time develops new and
improved modes when it comes to the treatment intervention.
The trauma events usually are profoundly stressful. The stress which results from the traumatic
events generally precipitates a spectrum of the psycho-emotional along with the physiological
outcomes. In its gravest form, this response has been diagnosed as the psychiatric problem that is
consequential to the experience of the traumatic events (Douglas, Woolfe, Strawbridge , Kasket
& Galbraith, 2016). The facet of the post traumatic stress disorder could result from the
experience or simply witnessing the traumatic or life threatening events such as the terrorist
attack, violence crime or abuse, combat in the army, natural disasters or maybe the violent
individual assaults. The exposure to the environmental toxins might result to the immune
systems akins to the PTSD in numerous vulnerable individuals.

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 3
The subjects who have PTSD more often could relieve the experience through nightmare as well
as the flashbacks (Cohen, Mannarino & Deblinger, 2016). They report difficulty when it comes
to sleeping. On the aspect of the behavior they usually becomes significantly detached or even
estranged and they are more frequently aggravated by the relevant disorders for instance they
might exhibit depression , abuse of substance as well as difficulties associated with the memory
and cognition (Cowie & Pecherek, 2017). This disorder could possibly lead to the impairment of
ability to function especially in the social or the family life which more regularly could lead to
the occupational uncertainty, divorces due to marital issues, discord of the family and even issues
in parenting. This condition could be very extreme and can easily lead to the impairment of a
person daily life and in some cases it could lead to the suicidal tendencies of the patient. PTSD is
generally marked by clear biological changes, additional to the psychological symptoms and it
could be complicated in various other issues both of which could be physical and the mental
health (Cowie & Pecherek, 2017). In this essay it would explore various issues such as
opportunities and the challenges in the therapeutic relationship of client with the childhood
psychological trauma when they are engaged to various aspects such as humanistic, CBT and
psychodynamic therapy.
Opportunities and challenges in the therapeutic relationship of a client with a childhood
PTSD
Humanistic Approach
The method uses a wide range of approaches with regards to conceptualization, therapeutic goals
and the intervention strategies in the aspect of PTSD. It emphasis the comprehension of human
experience and a focus to the clients as opposed to the symptoms (Craig & Sprang, 2010). This is

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 4
opportunity since the therapist become familiar with the client experiences and this is done
through interacting and getting to know them better (Briere & Scott, 2014). The psychological
issues are viewed as a result of the inhibited capability to enable the patient to make authentic,
meaningful and self-directed choice on how they live. Thus, the interventions are aimed at
increasingly the client self-awareness and the self understanding (Briere & Scott, 2014). The key
aspect with regards to the humanistic approach is on acceptance and growth. These are the major
themes of existential therapy that are; client responsibility and the freedom. When it comes to the
PTSD the humanistic approach might help the clients to free themselves from disabling
assumptions and the attitudes which enable them to live fuller lives. The therapists generally
emphasize on the growth and the self-actualization rather than curing their disorder or perhaps
alleviating it (McLean, Su, Carpenter & Foa, 2017). This perspective targets offers conscious
processes rather than the unconscious processes along with the past causes. The advantage
associated to this approach is that the therapeutic relationship serves as the vehicles or the
context wherein there is fostering of the psychological growth. The therapist tries to create a
therapeutic relationship that is warm especially to the clients with a childhood PTSD which is
warm and accepting along with trust which the client’s inner drive would be to actualize in the
healthy direction (Cowie & Pecherek , 2017 ) . This theory approach is significant to all the
stages of client recovery process, since it creates a foundation of respect to the client and the
mutual acceptance of the importance of their experiences.
Some of the key component of this approach includes the Abraham Maslow, who had
popularized on the concept of the self-actualization and Carl Rogers who had formulated the
person-centered therapy which is more focused on the wholeness of the individual experience at
any particular moment (Craig & Sprang, 2010). These components prove some useful especially

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 5
at the treatment of clients who had suffered PTSD at their childhood. The emphasizes is the
choice to seek help which is regarded as a sign of courage that could occur immediately, and
placing the responsibility and the wisdom with the client that they could follow.
Challenges of humanistic therapy approach
As much as there are opportunities associated in the therapeutic relationship of client with the
childhood psychological trauma who have engaged in the humanistic approach there are
challenges associated to it. These are as follows;
Identifying the real issues which are impacting the client: The humanistic approach to
therapeutic relationship include the concept that the decision of the therapist should be made
after consultation with the client (Cohen, Mannarino & Deblinger, 2016). The challenge may
arise in this concept. One challenge is that it may not be easy to always identify the real issues
which are affecting the client and at the same time the client could give conflicting needs and
priorities to the issues which are affecting them. Balancing on the conflicting issues of the client
could be a challenging task in the humanistic approach.
Cognitive behavioral therapy approach
CBT is therapeutic intervention which involves strategies for example the use of the discussion
or perhaps the imagery in order to revisit a traumatic event, stress management and relation
techniques, as well as rethinking counterproductive trauma-related thoughts and association
(Jarecki & Greenwald, 2016). The significance of this technique combines very effective kind of
psychotherapy which is cognitive therapy and the behavior therapy (Craig & Sprang, 2010). The
aspect of the behavior therapy is based on the learning theories, which would help the clients
especially who have had PTSD in their childhood to weaken the connections between the

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 6
troublesome thoughts and situations as well as their habitual reactions to them (Schnyder, Ehlers,
Elbert, Foa, Gersons, Resick & Cloitre, 2015). This is an opportunity on this therapy approach
since the client would be able to weaken on some of those traumatic connections they had over
the years.
Another advantage of this therapy is on the cognitive therapy part, which teaches the clients how
certain thinking patterns could be the major cause of their difficulties by providing them with the
distorted pictures and making them to feel depressed, anxious or even angry (Jarecki &
Greenwald, 2016). When these two approaches have been combined into the CBT, behavior
therapy as well as the cognitive therapy could offer powerful symptom alleviation and this could
help the clients with childhood with PSTD to resume to their normal functioning.
The cognitive method has been stumbled to be beneficial as an appropriate framework with
regards to the trauma therapy given that the traumatic encounters usually impedes on the
emotional process through contradictory with the pre-existing cognitive schemas (Gutermann,
Schreiber, Matulis, Stangier, Rosner & Steil, 2015). The cognitive dissonance that happens
whenever thoughts, memories and images of trauma could not be reconciled with the current
means structures, which may result in distress. The cognitive system is generally driven by the
completion tendency to match up the new information with the most inner models which are
based on the older information and the revision of both until they can agree (Knight, 2015). This
method is thus effective when it comes to such particular aspects to the clients who have had
experienced traumatic experiences especially in their childhood.
The clients could reappraise the events and also rehearse on their cognitive schemas they had
organized previously (Jarecki & Greenwald, 2016). The typical reactions as well as the cognitive

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 7
processes seen among the trauma survivors could be described utilizing the framework of the
cognitive theory (De Silva, 2014). This therapy entails working with the client who has
cognitions to change emotions, thoughts as well as the behaviors.
Challenges of engaging with the client using Cognitive behavioral therapy
There are some challenges in the therapeutic relationship with the client with childhood PTSD
disorder especially when utilizing the CBT approach to engage with them some of these are as
follows;
One of the challenges is that the client could have the difficulty to identify emotions and the
thoughts. This is usually a common aspect to the customers to experience emotion just before
any specific conscious recognition to their earlier thoughts (Rapcencu, Gorter, Kennis, van &
Geuze, 2017). This might be challenging for the therapists to determine the actual thoughts that
are activating the emotional reaction to the clients. To help them to identify on these thoughts,
therapists need to use specific techniques for questioning in order to be able to isolate the
thoughts (Harned, Wilks, Schmidt & Coyle, 2018). Additionally, there is need for role playing a
given situation and stopping the scenes at the crucial times when it comes to the sequence that
could help the client to recall on their thinking. Another challenge is when the clients agree with
the principles but they seem to alter on their thinking: In most of the cases the clients report that
they can comprehends the concepts of cognitive therapy at the intellectual level, however
generally they apparently apply that understanding in a manner which could promote real
changes (Briere & Scott, 2014). Reinforcing of the alterations sometimes might take some time
and even preempting problems particularly in shifting from the head level to the gut feelings.
These might be useful methods to prepare the client to stick with the techniques. It would be a

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 8
matter of the repetition and practice for the clients while they are working through the change
from the head through to the heart. An additional challenge is the fact the client bears the limited
motivation to change. For the clients who are not attending counseling on their own, it is
important for the therapist to establish motivating aspects to the clients especially those who
have PTSD in their childhood in the initial stages of the therapy (Jongh, Resick, Zoellner,
Minnen, Lee Monson & Rauch, 2016). Sometimes, the client could be attending counseling in
order to keep harmony in significant relationship or perhaps elicit help to get someone off their
back.
Psychodynamic therapy
The therapy highlights that emotional conflicts are majorly due to the traumatic situations which
are the focus to the treatment , particularly because they refers to the early experience of the
client for example the childhood ( Cook, Spinazzola, Ford, Lanktree , Blaustein , Cloitre &
Mallah , 2017). The rationale of the psychodynamic psychotherapy is the client is retelling the
traumatic event to an empathetic, calm, compassionate and even nonjudgmental therapist which
would definitely result to the greater self-esteem and effective thinking strategies and improve on
their capability to manage intense emotions a lot more successfully. These approaches provide
an opportunity to the client to tell their traumatic experience to the therapist particularly on the
traumatic experience they encountered previously in their childhood. Additionally, the approach
is advantageous since the therapist helps the client to identify on their client life situations which
could have triggered their traumatic memories as well as exacerbate the PTSD symptoms (Van,
2017). The major emphasizes is on the concept of denial, abreaction as well as catharsis.

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 9
The key theoretical aspect to this approach is that of counter-transference describes the totality of
the unconscious reactions of the therapist to client in addition to the client’s transference in the
therapy. The feeling usually shift from the client to the therapist and their powerful feeling that
could discriminate well between their feeling towards the client which are directly related to the
projection of the client. This response function in this theory in that it is the primary instrument
to analyse the conflict of the client and the therapist own conflict (Machtinger, Cuca, Khanna,
Rose & Kimberg, 2015). The responses of this concept could differ from the physiological ones
for example the heartbeat, agitation to the emotional elements for example the sadness and even
strong feelings towards the client. Nevertheless, you can find difficulties with regards to the
counter-transference difficulties that could arise in the trauma therapy. The client who shows the
PTSD reactions for instance, re-experiencing aspect of the childhood trauma as well as emotional
numbing, they have experienced the conspiracy of the silence which surround the traumatic
events. They are more silence whenever the trauma has occurred, as the environment in most of
the cases tend to deny the occurrence as well as the intensity of the event.
There are numerous counter-transference themes which could take place in the therapy of the
clients who have been traumatized. There is need for the therapist to provide means to the client
to be able to express themselves in relation to the traumatic experiences, in order to support the
positive coping strategies (Cowie & Pecherek, 2017). More often the traumatic experiences of
the client could bring horror, grief or even mourning. The therapists could feel a sense of bond to
client when they recognize a familiar aspect of the trauma story they could relate to them. Range
could be the most difficult counter -transference reaction which one could deal with, since it
could distract the therapist from the process of treatment and to hinder them rational.
Challenges

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 10
One of the challenges is that the survivors of the traumatic event could pose relational challenge
to the therapist. The clients are more often mistrustful at the same time they want a trustworthy
relationship thus there could occur a push-pull dynamic. The therapist therefore, could find
themselves fascinated by and invested to the history abuse of the client.
Conclusion
There are numerous models which are utilized in the treatment of the PTSD disorder. These
include the CBT, humanistic, and psychodynamic therapy. Thus so far, the CBT approach has
shown the most success. The other treatments have obtained widely divergent evaluations
particularly from the scientific along with the professional community. The psychodynamic
therapy may be necessary adjunctive treatment to the clients that have had intense traumatic
symptoms particularly in their childhood. In this research, it has explored various issues such as
opportunities and the challenges in the therapeutic relationship of client with the childhood
psychological trauma when they are engaged to various therapies such as humanistic, CBT and
psychodynamic therapy.

THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PTSD 11
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