Trauma-Informed Care in Mental Health

This article discusses the significance of trauma-informed care in mental health, particularly for patients with bipolar disorder and depression. It highlights the importance of understanding a patient's past experiences and personal information in order to develop an effective care plan. The article emphasizes the role of nurses in building a positive relationship with patients and collaborating with other healthcare professionals. It also explores the principles of trauma-informed care and the need for transparency, support, collaboration, empowerment, and cultural sensitivity. Overall, trauma-informed care is essential for providing effective mental health care.

Running head: TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE IN MENTAL HEALTH
TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE IN MENTAL HEALTH
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Trauma-informed care is one of the useful health care procedure that help the care
personnel that is the nurse or the doctor in understanding the patient’s past history or about his or
her personal information and results in a better care planning for the patient (Machtinger et al.,
2018). This care policy would be very helpful in the mental care for the patient’s who would
have been experiencing depression or other kind of mental disorders as well. Here in case of
Mark, he can be diagnosed with the help of trauma-informed care model as he shows the
symptoms of depression, bipolar disorder and lack of discipline which resulted in his problematic
substance usage. Mark was addicted to cocaine and when he transferred to a rehab he needed to
be cared properly and that is when the care personnel would have used the trauma-informed care
model to gather knowledge about his trauma which puts him depression and made him a cocaine
addict (Rosenzweig et al., 2017). In the following section the issues of Mark would be discussed
and how the use of trauma-informed care would be useful in the care of his mental health would
also be discussed as well.
Mark was selected for under 19 team of Essendon when he was an under 15 player, it
shows that how much talented he was. However, in 1983 his pre-season was not good and he had
a bad flu and he felt really down, it was the time from when his depression and bipolar disorders
started to gain control over him. Despite of these factors 1989 was his best year in his whole
career and after two years that is in 1991 he again started to feel down and often cry in the toilets
before his warm ups. Before his match in Melbourne he cried and told her mother that he could
not play and he need to stop as he had not been able to take the pressure because of the mental
and physical traumas he was experience during that period. Back then he was 28 years old and he
got addicted to cocaine as a result of his depression and lack of discipline in life. His unusual
mood changes and intense emotional changes could be described as the bipolar disorder and

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these disorders also the affecters of his mental state that lead to his addition to drug such as
cocaine (Nimh.nih.gov, 2019). According to Mark that was the time which was not much
advanced in the health promotion processes as present days that is why they were not been fully
aware about the negative mental disorders and their effects in daily lives. He also stated that his
friends rallied in the streets to raise money for his treatment when he was admitted in a rehab that
is help from his friends which made him fight against his depression and the bipolar disorder in
the age of 43. In 2014 Christmas barbeque party of Essendon made him change his nature of
distancing himself from the family and friend as one of his old friends invited him in a coffee
shop to talk over a cup of coffee. Mark also said that mental problems are huge problems and
often people hide them but they should seek help and talk with others to get out of these ill
conditions. It clearly indicates the importance of health care personnel that could be a nurse to
follow the trauma-informed care for these patients (Naslund et al., 2015). This policy would
allow them to gather knowledge about the patient’s past experiences and thus help the nurse in
understanding the condition of the patient (Sara & Lappin, 2017). This would help the nurse in
planning a better care system for the patient however, in case of Mark proper communication and
showing kind gestures would help him to fight against his bipolar disorder and depressive
conditions. Trauma-informed care is a model that helps the nurses or the doctors to know about
the patient’s past and personal experiences in a manner where the kind gestures of the doctor or
nurse helps the patients to open up about themselves. In some cases the patient could take their
friends or family members whom they trust most to the sessions of examination or counseling. In
mental health problems such as the problems Mark faced would be difficult to assess properly as
these have no proper or traditional treatment procedures. Thus present advancement in the health
promotion programs by the organizations such as SANE and others are one of the factors that

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would help in awareness build up in patients with these problems (Sane.org, 2019). However, the
trauma-informed care and practice would be the most effective factors that would a help a person
to understand his mental problem and to be open with people and his or her doctor and nurse as
well for the betterment of the mental condition of themselves. However, the care personnel or the
nurse need to be kind enough when he or she communicate with the patient.
Mark a patient of bipolarity disorder and depression cannot be treated in a conventional
way as the bipolarity disorder almost has no proper treatment (Grande et al., 2016). In order to
treat these kinds of patients a nurse should follow the trauma-informed care and practice model
for the reason to understand the mental trauma that negatively affecting the patient’s mind (Oral
et al., 2016). However, in terms of the treatment of a patient with bipolar disorder the nurse
needs to consider the personal feelings of the patient when communicating with them
(Chatzidamianos, Lobban & Jones, 2015). The collaboration of the nurse with the patient would
help the patient would help the patient think positively about every aspect of his or her life. In
term of Mark’s statement it can be said that the patient could be feeling sudden emotional
breakdown create boundary surrounding themselves thus a distance between the patients and
their family or friends take place which makes the situation for the patient’s condition worse.
Thus the nurse should show kind gestures towards the patient in order to make him or her trust
the nurse and open up about the problems the patient facing. This factor would help the nurse to
gather knowledge about the past and personal information about the patient which affect
patient’s mental health and give a plan about the treatment of the patient properly. The bipolar
disorder and depression do not really have a proper treatment process and these disorders should
be controlled by communicating with the patient and also by treating them with affection and
kindness to develop positive impact over their mind. Extreme negative mental or physical trauma

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would affect the mental health of a person and create different mental disorders. These patients
naturally cannot open up with other people and create distance that also affects their mental
health and ultimately a discomfort in communicating with others trouble these people as well. In
order to gain trust and knowledge about the patient’s mentality the nurse needs to develop a
positive relationship with the patient by means of good communication and prioritizing the
patient’s health and confidentiality about his or her personal information (MacLean et al., 2017).
However, the information gathering about the patient’s past experiences and the personal
feelings are important factors in their treatment. Therapeutic relationship between the nurse and
the patient would be maintained if the nurse considers the spiritual aspect as well. The nurse
would also consider the clinical reasoning cycle (CRC) in order to gather information, evaluating
the situation of the patient and on the basis of the information and evaluation care planning
would be formed (Dalton, Gee & Levett-Jones, 2015)). The main reason for the information
gathering about the patient’s past experience or the traumas of the patient would help the nurse in
understanding the patient’s mental condition. All these collaboration with the patient would be
achieved by means the trust development between the nurse and the patient. Communication
skills of the nurse would play a key role in developing a professional relationship among the
patient and the nurse and this relationship would bring the opportunity to self recovery of the
patient. Personal recovery of the patient depends on the motivation and positive outlook of the
patient about his or her surroundings. In case of Mark his friends motivated him to fight against
his mental condition thus it can be said that if the care specialist would impact the mind of the
patient with a positive aspect of life then the situation of the patient gets better in short period of
time. In case of Mark after getting an invitation for talk with a cup coffee by his old friend
motivated him to open up about his problems and help him sustain against the bipolar disorder he

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had. In case of bipolar disorder and depression the unorthodox treatment policies would help the
patient gain more positivity towards life and that would needed to be triggered by the nurse or
the other health care specialist assigned to that patient. This positive impact over the minds of the
patients would cause the self recovery of the patient and also give an experience to the nurse how
to develop a professional relation with his or her patient and collaborate with that person as well
(Newman et al. 2015).
Trauma-informed care needs to be used in case of mental health care policies and to
properly use this practice the nurses should consider 6 principles of the model which are safety,
transparency, support, collaboration, empowerment voice and cultural, gender and historical
issues. A nurse should consider all these factors during the development of professional relation
with the patient and most importantly maintain the transparency and cultural, gender and
historical equality. However, communicating and developing trust would need transparency
along with supportive gestures towards the ill experiences of the patient (Heslop et al., 2016). On
the other hand the collaboration would also be needed for the relationship and trust build up. The
empowerment voice or the positive impact through the conversation would be a key factor that
inspires the patients in their self recovery (Olsø et al., 2016). Other than all these principles a
nurse required to have proper communication skills to communicate with the patient and the
family members of the patient as well. In order to treat the patient the nurse should also interact
with the psychologist responsible for the health care of the patient in a routine basis for the
advice on the treatment planning of the patient. The proper treatment of the patient would not be
possible without the collaboration between the psychologist and the nurse thus the proper
interaction between these two members of the mental health multidisciplinary team is very
important (Moxham et al., 2017). The collaboration between the nurse and the psychologist

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includes the update of the health condition of the patient, information about the traumatic
experiences of the patient; change in the mental condition of the patient and according to all
these factors the advice of the doctor for the further care planning of the patient. All these factors
required to be accompanied by the nursing standards of a professional nurse which are codes of
conduct, standards for practice, and codes of ethics created by the Nursing and Midwifery Board
of Australia (Nursingmidwiferyboard.gov.au, 2019).
Based on the above discussion it can be concluded that the trauma-informed care would
be an effective care model for the mental health care. The mental health care nurses and the other
members of the mental health multidisciplinary team should consider the kind and gentle
behavior towards the patients with bipolar disorder, depression or any other mental health
patients. The nurse assigned to a patient having mental health issues should consider the
professional relationship build up for gathering information about the past experiences of the
patient to devise the proper health care planning for the patient. Mark’s case of bipolar disorder
and the depression highlighted the problems he faced and with the help of his friends he finally
had the motivation to fight against his mental disorders. This shows the importance of the
motivation that is the empowering voice principle of the trauma-informed care model and also
the importance of the support and collaboration along with the transparency principles of this
model. This model should be considered and used as the primary mental health care policy as the
principles of this model are very useful in the care of a patient with mental illness.

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