Our trauma-informed care approach is grounded in principles such as safety, trust, and collaboration, ensuring that every client is treated with compassion, dignity, and respect, and acknowledging the unique experiences that shaped their lives.
Trauma-informed care (TIC) is a treatment approach that acknowledges these impacts of trauma on one’s mental health, physical health, and addiction recovery journey. It integrates an understanding of trauma into all aspects of care, shifting the focus from “what’s wrong with you?” to “what happened to you?”.
Trauma-informed therapists understand that exposure to trauma can impact one’s neurological, biological, psychological, and social functioning. In a trauma-informed care program, staff are also trained to recognize signs and symptoms of trauma, which can often mimic symptoms of other mental health disorders or even physical health problems. TIC programs generally follow the principles of trauma-informed care.
Safety
The therapist prioritizes physical and emotional safety to create a foundation that fosters a sense of security, minimizes triggers, and encourages openness and long-term healing. The environment, policies, and interactions between the patient and therapist should ensure the patient feels protected from harm.
Trust
Clear, consistent, transparent communication is essential for a strong therapeutic alliance to be built between the patient and therapist. Organizations, programs, and providers should be transparent about their processes, the clinical decision-making process, and patient expectations. This helps build an environment that’s more reliable and trustworthy.
Empowerment
One of the goals of trauma-informed care is to restore a sense of control in victims of trauma. This may include validating their experiences or strengths, offering choices, and supporting them with decision-making to foster emotional resilience and self-efficacy. Giving patients a voice and choice in their treatment plans can be healing in itself.
Peer Support
Peer support fosters a sense of community and reduces feelings of isolation, shame, or guilt, which are all common among survivors of trauma. Peer support groups leverage shared experience to promote communal and individual healing. Patients can connect with others to build trust, offer encouragement, and learn new insights for recovery.
Collaboration
Trauma-informed care is based on the principle that healing occurs in relationships characterized by mutual respect and shared power. The therapist may be the clinical expert, but the patient is viewed as the expert about their own experiences, recognizing that everyone has a role to play in the healing process.
Cultural and Identity Sensitivity
Care is sensitive to individual or societal factors such as cultural, historical, and gender influences. Trauma-informed therapists recognize and address the impact of systemic trauma, discrimination, and historical injustices, providing services that are inclusive and culturally responsive.
Our flexible day treatment programs offer patients the option of attending either a full-day program (9:00 AM to 3:30 PM) or a half-day program (9:00 AM to 12:00 PM). In both programs, patients have access to trauma therapies such as EMDR, peer support, and holistic healing activities such as yoga.
Using guided eye movements, tapping sounds, and vibrations to induce bilateral brain stimulation, EMDR targets deep-rooted trauma memories and helps process emotional distress. It has highly successful results, with the World Health Organization (WHO) and National Center for PTSD recognizing EMDR as the first-line treatment for trauma.
DBT is particularly helpful for complex trauma and co-occurring substance abuse disorders. It integrates principles of trauma treatment with DBT skill-building. It helps patients manage distress, regulate their emotions, practice mindfulness, and increase interpersonal effectiveness, all while being sensitive to their unique experiences of trauma.
Daily group therapy sessions and opportunities for peer connection provide a space to foster connection, overcome feelings of isolation, and share new insights with others recovering from trauma. Group therapy also offers a chance for patients to practice skills such as communication, boundaries, building trust, and collaborative problem-solving.
Yoga is increasingly recognized as a valuable tool for trauma recovery. It provides benefits for healing both psychological and somatic symptoms of trauma and PTSD. Yoga can help regulate the nervous system, restore the mind-body connection, foster self-compassion, and enhance overall coping and resilience, thereby supporting long-term recovery.
I was nervous coming here, but the staff made me feel welcome right away. The groups and support really helped me see I’m not alone in this. I’m leaving with hope and a plan for my life.
Emily O’Connor, Boston, MA
This place gave me my life back. I didn’t think anything could help, but the team here really cared. They taught me how to deal with tough days and not give up.
Michael Russo, Worcester, MA
When I came in, I was lost. Now I feel stronger, and I know what steps to take. The people here treated me like a person, not just a patient.
Patrick Donnelly, Cambridge, MA
Yes. We work with most commercial insurance providers. Contact our admissions team to learn more.
Although trauma-informed care is designed for the treatment of trauma and PTSD, the principles of trauma-informed care, such as safety, collaboration, and empowerment, can help support recovery from other mental health conditions and addiction.
Many of our patients in substance abuse recovery struggle with trauma, and incorporating these principles into their recovery plans helps increase the effectiveness of standard treatment.
No, we currently only treat individuals 18 years of age and older.
Trauma therapy is currently only offered in person. This builds a better sense of trust between the therapist and client, allowing the therapist to pick up on nonverbal cues and emotional nuances. However, if you have barriers that prevent you from accessing treatment (such as a lack of transportation or schedule conflicts), we can work with you on a case-by-case basis to support your needs and ensure you receive the support you deserve.
Treatment depends entirely on the unique recovery needs of the patient, their insurance, whether they are enrolled in half-day or full-day treatment, and whether they struggle with a co-occurring substance abuse disorder. However, our patients typically attend treatment anywhere from 30 to 90 days.
