Building Resilience to Trauma: The Trauma and Community Resiliency Models

by Elaine Miller-Karas

After a traumatic experience, survivors often experience a cascade of physical, emotional, cognitive, behavioral and spiritual responses that leave them feeling unbalanced and threatened. Building Resilience to Trauma explains these common responses from a biological perspective, reframing the human experience from one of shame and pathology to one of hope and biology. It also offers an alternative approach, the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM), which offers concrete and practical skills that resonate with what we know about the biology of trauma.

In programs co-sponsored by the World Health Organization, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and the Department of Behavioral Health of San Bernadino County, the TRM has been used to reduce and in some cases eliminate the symptoms of trauma by helping survivors regain a sense of balance. Clinicians will find that they can use the model with anyone who has experienced or witnessed any event that was perceived as life threatening or posed a serious injury to themselves or to others. The model can also be used to treat symptoms of vicarious traumatization and compassion fatigue.

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