Resources

Trauma disrupts lives, families and communities. Decades of research demonstrate that acute stress symptoms, left untreated, can develop into post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Despite years of scientific findings that PTSD clients are, at best, only partially helped by traditional mental-health therapies, trauma has largely been viewed as a “mental health” problem. It’s time to consider something new. It’s time to find ways to reduce and prevent long term effects costing our nation billions of dollars and immeasurable suffering.

Trauma First Aide™ or TFA is a new mind-body approach to working with acute traumatic stress. TFA’s two-pronged skill set stabilizes trauma reactions and promotes resilience for caregivers and persons affected by trauma. It is a bottom-up approach that focuses on physiological response patterns rooted in the most primitive survival mechanisms of the human brain.

A short-term stabilization intervention, TFA offers:
--A bridge between physiology and psychology.
--Right here, right now skills.
--Proactive mind-body intervention for self and others.

TFA is easy to learn and field-ready. It has been deployed successfully by first-responders, military and medical personnel and civilian volunteers in disasters, war zones and other emergency environments. In health care, TFA has become a self-care tool easing caregiver stress and preventing burnout. In hospital and clinical settings, TFA has also been documented to be a fast calming and stabilization technique for lowering patients’ physiological stress reactions, obviating the need for more invasive, expensive interventions.¹ Educators use TFA in classroom settings to calm and settle students for more effective learning. While not therapy, TFA can help stabilize therapeutic clients for more effective clinical interventions.

Click here to read entire paper

Trauma First Aide™: Treating Physiologic Symptoms Induced by Trauma

The American Journal for Nurse Practitioners, September/October 2010

Trauma has a profound impact on both body and mind. Although most trauma victims eventually achieve successful recovery, some continuet o experience distress that precludes adaptive copoing. The trauma is perpetuated by recurring, disabling interactions between physical and psychological symptoms. Skills can be learned by both nurse practitioenrs and patients to reduce symptoms of traumatic stress and stabilze the nervous system. The purpose of this article is to review how trauma affects individuals and to describe a type of short-term intervention that NPs can implement to enable trauma survivors to move toward homeostasis.

Click here to read entire article

Trauma First Aide™ Reference List

Websites, books, and articles for reference regarding treating trauma, PTSD, and related issues.