Therapeutic Communication: The Original Trauma-Informed Care
How was therapeutic communication, once a meaningful practice, transformed into a joke?
When individuals felt uneasy utilizing therapeutic communication, they resorted to laughter as a coping mechanism. However, somewhere along the way, we began laughing at therapeutic communication itself.
Was it because it made us uncomfortable? Did it require a deeper capacity and a wider tolerance? Or was it asking too much of us? When we had nothing left to give.
Cumulative Care Taking Trauma®
Trauma becomes cumulative in the absence of support. This directly influences the ability to cope effectively and may result in leaving the profession (Sheen et al., 2022; Shorey et al., 2022). Several studies have shown that nurses and health care providers desire support after a serious event, yet organizations often offer inadequate emotional support (Burlison et al., 2017; Crawford & Williams, 2024; Shorey et al., 2022).
Debriefing in Daily Work is a set of trauma informed tools and communication strategies used in everyday interactions that help to normalize support with the intention of cultivating psychological safety and mitigating the effects of Cumulative Care Taking Trauma.
By embedding informal debriefing practices into routine conversations, teams can foster open communication and trust, making formal debriefing sessions feel more natural and accepted.Consider Debriefing in Daily Work as an integral first step and welcome journey when building a well-being program. Without this journey, implementing a well-being program will come with much resistance.
Trauma-Responsive Communication
A few examples:
Express Gratitude: Thank you for coming to me/sharing this with me and feeling as if it’s a safe space to do so.
Boost Character: This has been a challenging situation and you’ve shown ____ in how you’ve handled it. (Compassion, professionalism, bravery)
Convey Caring: I’m here to support you at this moment. What would be most helpful right now?
More communication resources can be found here in our new offering, Read for CE’s!
Reimagine Debriefing
Debriefing the Front Lines is inviting you to reimagine debriefing not as a one and done practice but a touchstone for deeper support; one that serves as a bridge between the immediate aftermath of trauma and policy change.
The existing literature tends to be grouped into either guided team discussions to support learning for future outcomes or structured clinical debriefing strategies designed to minimize the psychological consequences. Both have the potential to influence the well-being and experiences of healthcare workers (Evans et al., 2023).
It is apparent both are needed for retention, well-being and safety.
As the scope of trauma changes so must the way we approach post traumatic response recovery.
Alone is no longer enough.
From professional speaking engagements, formal facilitation and dinner conversations with leaders across the country, here's what I'm hearing -
It's less about "we can't" and more about healthcare workers needing support now.
Debriefing the Front Lines doesn't have all the answers but we are proud to be a part of the solution, supporting those demonstrating profound institutional courage.
Resources
Debriefing the Front Lines provides
Immediate implementation of our existing debriefing and peer support programs as a third party partnership
Help in shifting an existing debriefing process from having to utilizing
Curriculum support for educators, leader and board -coaches (NC-Bc) building well-being programs
Debriefing Training - from one day workshops to sustain implementation support over a year
To learn more about potential partnerships and design your Welcome Journey, let's connect here.
