So, What Is Coaching?
A Certified Trauma Recovery Coach is a Mental Health Practitioner who is trained in working with clients that have experienced traumatic events in their life. This could be anything from combat and war to natural disasters, sudden loss or grief to betrayal by someone you trusted, physical and emotional abuse to physical or emotional neglect, miscarriage to divorce, parenting to work-related events, and so many more things not listed here. It's important to understand that two people can experience the exact same event and yet they respond and are affected in completely different ways. It doesn't mean that what one person experienced was irrelevant or that the event didn't cause a serious impact on them that's been stored in their mind and body, which is currently causing stress, symptoms, or issues in their life.
The difference between coaching and therapy is Trauma Recovery Coaches acknowledge the past traumas and then work in the present with each client. Coaches acknowledge the traumas a client has experienced, validates the feelings they've experienced, and then focuses on where they are in the present as a result. We work to ensure our clients experience a safe environment where they can explore with gentle curiosity how they're feeling while holding space for our clients to be seen, heard, and know that they matter. Coaches can help our clients identify any coping mechanisms or behaviors they may have that are the result of broken core beliefs about themselves that their trauma or abuse has taught them. We normalize where the client is at, explain how healing happens, and what growth can look like for our clients.
Coaches educate our clients about the aftereffects of trauma and how it can affect their lives developmentally, psychologically, emotionally, and relationally. We can provide education on the neuroscience of trauma, psychoeducation, and somatic work, and also offer resources if our clients ask for alternative modalities that may be helpful to them. Trauma Recovery Coaches believe that the client knows themselves best and that they have the knowledge within themselves to heal. As coaches we are just here to help them explore and ask curious questions to help discover those answers.
Trauma Recovery Coaches assist our clients in setting their own sustainable recovery goals that are individualized to fit their own needs at the time. We then help clients evaluate their progress and adjust as needed in order to achieve what they are working towards. We work within their own stated recovery goals and help them outline action steps they'd like to take, identify obstacles as they arise, and always maintain a safe space for the client to discuss and process where they are at and where they want to be. Coaching this way empowers our clients to problem solve and gives them tools to navigate situations in their life as they arise. Our aim is to empower our clients to understand what is happening physically, emotionally, mentally, and relationally so that they can then identify when they repeat behaviors they may not want, identify where they originated from, assess how they may want to change that, and then plan how to move forward in a new and different way.
Trauma Recovery Coaches are specifically trauma trained. They have completed a robust and intensive program that involved attending coaching observations, participating in practice groups and coaching triads, attending required supervisions, passing a proctored exam, and submitting a case study and portfolio. The methods, resources, and techniques we are trained in as coaches are then tailored to each individual client to help them decide how they want to recover from the aftereffects of trauma so that they can move forward into the happy fulfilling lives they seek.