What are common active listening challenges when working with clients who have experienced trauma?

Reflecting upon my own clinical experience as a social worker and former psychotherapist, I can attest to the challenges of managing one's emotions while listening to clients woh have experienced trauma. Self-Care and Self-Awareness are important when implementing trauma informed care. Seeking clinical supervisor, professional mentorship was also another way to mitigate secondary trauma as a clinician. Prioritizing my self-care helped me immensely with the emotional toll that the work could have on my overall functioning. When I work with my supervisee's as a clinical supervisor, I often educate my students about the impact of working with trauma patients and the importance of seeking ongoing continuing education, professional support.

In the therapy room, it is important to know that your client is experiencing a lot of distress and not able to make sense of the overwhelming emotions. He/she is most likely experiencing heightened emotions and may be venting these emotions in the room. As a therapist, I have to offer peace and calm so that client knows that he/she is in a safe place. When I see anger, I know deep inside, there is a wound. Don't look at the anger. Talk in a calm manner and show curiosity and empathy. This would help to bring the client to accessing the inner pain. When that happens, we would experience de-escalation.

Managing emotions is indeed a crucial aspect of active listening, particularly for social workers who frequently encounter emotionally charged situations and trauma stories. Emotional reactions can impede your ability to listen effectively, compromise your objectivity, and even strain the client relationship. Self-awareness and self-care are key to mitigating these challenges. Being self-aware involves identifying your emotions and understanding how they might affect your listening skills. This conscious recognition can allow you to put necessary emotional boundaries in place, thus ensuring that your responses remain appropriate and professional.

One of my challenges is being able to manage my triggers while listening to my client. It can be quite tough because you are in the space between being that professional and human

Emotional Intensity: Trauma narratives can evoke powerful feelings in both the client and the listener. It is crucial to maintain composure and concentration without becoming overwhelmed. Avoidance: Trauma clients may avoid certain details or change the subject. Practitioners must discern when to redirect gently and when to provide space. Transference and Countertransference: Emotional responses may emerge based on the therapist's or listener's personal history, which may cloud judgment. Pacing: It can be difficult to find the optimal pace that allows the client to process while ensuring therapeutic progress.

As a clinical social worker and psychotherapist, I can relate to the challenge of dealing with silence in active listening. Throughout my clinical training, I was ingrained with the understanding that active listening goes beyond words, expressing empathy, giving attention to both verbal and non verbal cues is important part of building the therapeutic alliance. I have found in my work that patience is important when you encounter moments of silence. When you exhibit patience it allows the patient to reflect upon their own feelings and process. This is important aspect of the recovery process that I found to be beneficial in treatement.

Silence is often the vessel for anger. Anger tends to be fueled by personal pain. In addition, the silence, anger, and pain is juxtaposed to anxiety and depression. A life of experience with challenges involving personal trauma can lead to a lifetime of effort to cope with anxiety and depression.

Silence can be a discomfort for many social work practitioners. Work with your clinical supervisor why this is a discomfort. It is always coming from a place of helplessness as we are not able to extend solution to our client in pain. Reframe silence as a space for both of you to tune in to our inner voice - we need that space for clarity.

I agree, it is transforming to be in their space and demonstrate holding the space, it definitely helps them think through their thoughts and you can actually see the light turn on !

Be empathetic by your demonstration of listening and frequent acknowledgement of clients position. Show that you care and invest your interest in the clients position as therapeutic relationships grow with time.

In my clinical training years ago, the importance of self-disclosure was underscored with a focus on assessing its potential benefits and harm to the client. If I could not be clear about how the self-disclosure would serve the client's therapeutic journey without potential harm, it was advised to refrain from it during sessions. As the article states, handling disclosures, is indeed a challenge, while it has its benefits, we have to consider the ethical risks and potential harm that may be inflicted upon the client upon doing so. Our ultimate goal should always be to be sound in our ethical decision making and to do no harm to our clients.

Disclosure of trauma and our support and reaction towards it is so important because we have the chance to show what true care is when it comes to what they have disclosed, a chance to give them a new caring and accepting way of receiving some information that has been hugely impactful on this person's life. With that being said, this is why informed consent is important so confidentiality terms are agree and understood before someone choses to disclose. So the actions after can be anchored in the agreed care of safety.

Drawing upon my own experience of being a former psychotherapist and clinical social worker, I can affirm the importance of providing feedback in a way that strengthens the therapeutic alliance, especially ones with extensive trauma histories. As the article mentions, being attentive and responsive to your client is key in order to establish trust. Feedback should be tailored to your client's treatment process and their treatment plan, along with making sure their needs are met in the process.

Definitely is so easy to think about the millions of solutions and want to jump to one immediately sometimes. But making mental notes of those solutions as a possibility of options, options that will be added to ones they bring to the table first. After asking enough questions to understand and some times repeat back to them to make sure we are on the same page, then I think it's ok to offer feedback. Once you feel they somewhat understand that I have their best interest at heart, I can ask them first what they see would be helpful to learn or change or gain from the situation, then share what I see from my perspective to compare and see what information is useful for them to take as advice.

I have found that the therapeutic alliance, building trust and understanding was the most crucial tool in overcoming these barriers. Being proactive in anticipating and preventing potential obstacles by selecting conducive environments and clarifying the purpose and expectations of our conversations was vital. I can attest to this article that you have to be willing to be flexible in your approach when working with clients with extensive trauma histories. The foundation of trauma informed care is to provide a safe, supportive and therapeutic environment for our clients in order for our clinical interventions to be effective.

Many trauma survivors have difficulty making eye contact, especially when discussing the trauma narrative or event. This can be a barrier to engagement and connection. It is important for therapists to stay patient. Remember the power of listening and being present in the same space with the client, even when the client doesn’t appear to be connecting with visual or verbal feedback. When we remain steadfast during the process of active listening, we are able to embrace any moments that eye contact can be established in order to affirm and validate the clients’ experience. This mindful action aides in trust building and grounding for the client. Thank you for reading my comment.

When working with clients who have gone through trauma, it is important to surround yourself with a social support. Do not hesitate to seek help if need be, and always check in with your clinical supervisor so that you will not feel alone on this journey.

1. Empathy and not sympathy ?? 2. Listening rather than giving opinions 3. Suggestions instead of advice 4. Confidentiality

I recently realized that when there's one barrier, there's often more. It's important to remember when a client discloses one impact trauma has had on them, there are many more they aren't sharing.

Instead of focusing on your client's heightened emotion, I always remind myself that he/she is coming from a place of deep sadness and pain. When you are able to empathise with your client on this core emotion, we would have the clarity how we can help our client to heal.

Consider which parts of their nervous system are being activated as they recount their stories-- there are very different states and ways to respond, depending on whether they are in dorsal vagus, ventral vagus, or sympathetic nervous system activation.