Integration of Trauma Resiliency Model Skills

The Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM) is a clinical intervention based on research about the brain that reflects the knowledge that a biological response to stressful and traumatic events exists. TRM is both a model for trauma reprocessing treatment and a model promoting self-care. When I first trained in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing over 20 years ago, it was stressed to keep precisely within the EMDR protocol for maximum effect of EMDR. Concurrently, when trained in EMDR, I was also trained in a somatic-based model. As a therapist who leans into innovation, It was clear that somatic-based skills could be more deeply integrated into treatment to help heal the client's distress in both mind and body. As our work on the Trauma Resiliency Model was being developed during this time, many skills could be integrated into other models, including EMDR. This post is part two of a two-part series on integrating TRM skills.

Learning Wellness Skills for Self-Care

Symptoms are treated as common biological responses rather than pathological or mental weaknesses. The first six skills of TRM—also called the Community Resiliency Model (CRM)—can help a person learn to monitor sensations for self-care. Learning to monitor sensations is called tracking, or reading the nervous system. The TRM practitioner first helps the client learn the wellness skills for self-care to give them the confidence to bring their body and mind back into balance. Once the client knows they can regulate their nervous system during distress, the TRM practitioner can focus on helping the client reprocess traumatic experiences. Additional skills of TRM are designed to promote this trauma reprocessing. TRM integrates the three portals of human experience—sensation, cognition, and emotions—to help clients reorganize their experiences after traumatic events. Also, once the client has an embodied sense of well-being that they can access through their intentions, other modalities can be integrated to treat the client.

Integrating Embodied Resources

Providing a safety net to develop embodied resources fully is essential to providing therapy. When embarking on the trauma healing journey, identify personal resources, such as any experience that brings joy, peace, or calm. It can be a person or a pleasant memory. It is not only cognitively thinking about that experience, but also filling in the details of the resource, called resource intensification. It is as if you are filling in a blank canvas with all the multi-sensory elements of the resource. While filling in the details of the resource, bringing sensory awareness into the present moment provides embodied well-being. This safety net can be called into awareness at any time to regulate the autonomic nervous system that provides a respite during trauma reprocessing, providing an embodied awareness to which the client can shift their attention.

The skill of grounding can be beneficial if a client dissociates, which is not uncommon during trauma reprocessing. When a person dissociates, they are no longer in present moment awareness and may not be aware of their body in the here and now. Bringing attention to how the body is supported, whether sitting on a chair, lying down, or with feet making contact with the ground, can bring the person into a safer experience in the present moment. Sometimes, a weighted pillow on the lap can help a person return to the present moment. This can provide a sense of greater safety for the client.

The Basic Three of TRM/CRM

The basic three skills of tracking, grounding, and resourcing can be helpful for self-care for the client and when directed by the practitioner to use during therapy to help with nervous system regulation. Kathleen Wheeler, an EMDR therapist, says, "The free iChill app is a great resource for the client to learn the wellness skills of TRM/CRM and can be used between EMDR sessions to help regulate the client's nervous system."

When conducting EMDR therapy, many body movements can present during reprocessing. A therapist trained in somatic-based models like TRM/CRM monitors the micro-movements as well as the gross motor movements being expressed by the client. TRM reprocessing skills can then be integrated to enhance reprocessing further. Click here to learn more about TRM/CRM.