Trauma Awareness for PTs & Gym Owners: The Importance of Choice

Warning: this blog post and its sources talk about trauma, abuse, and mental health issues.??

In our last blog post, we talked about 6 principles to support you in using a trauma-informed approach with your clients. One of these is choice. Why is having a choice so important in your relationships with clients and their success in achieving their goals??

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)?

To understand this, we need to consider what happens to us in childhood. A briefing released by Ulster University in 2019 stated that 32% of people in Northern Ireland reported having Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).??

ACEs are stressful experiences occurring during childhood that directly harm a child or the environment in which they live. What happens to us as a child has a huge impact on the rest of our lives. ACEs were first identified in the USA – a study found that as the number of stressful experiences as a child increased, so did the risk of experiencing a number of health conditions when growing up.??

What kinds of experiences are adverse??

This is not an exhaustive list. Other adverse experiences include gang membership, being a victim of a crime, asylum, traumatic deaths, and more.??

No choice, no voice?

A child growing up with any of these experiences does not have a choice. People, often people who are supposed to protect them, have taken this away from them. Even with divorce, children often don’t have a choice over whether they continue to live with both parents/how often they see one of them.????

Also, if you live in fear of the consequences of your words or actions, your voice becomes diminished. If you live with a parent who is not capable of prioritizing your needs, you learn to stop expressing them.??

The impact of ACEs?

Research done in 2014 and 2016 indicated that people with high levels of ACEs were:?

• 2 x more likely to binge drink and have a poor diet?
• 3 x more likely to be a current smoker?
• 4 x more likely to have low levels of mental wellbeing and life satisfaction?

In addition, there is an increased likelihood of having heart disease or developing type 2 diabetes later in life.??

A person with ACEs who comes to you as a personal trainer, or to use your gym, is taking an important step in reclaiming choice in their life. By developing a safe and trusting relationship, you can help to make this a positive and empowering experience.??

Giving back choice?

Of course, you are unlikely to know if someone you are working with has experienced ACEs. Simply knowing about ACEs and their possible impacts can inform how you approach working with all clients. We recently met with a group of personal trainers and discussed ways that you can offer choice. Here are some of their suggestions.??

• When you first meet a client, offer a choice around goals and ask how the client would like to be supported in achieving them.??
• Offer choice in any ways you use to track progress – e.g. being weighed or measured, using food trackers, tracking rep numbers and equipment weights. What works for one person may be a barrier for another.??
• Offer clients choice on the day, time, and frequency of sessions.??
• If you feel you need to touch a client to ensure their safety, ask first. If the client consents, tell them where on the body you are going to touch them and for what purpose.?

Can you think of other ways that you might offer choices to your clients??

Developing your practice?

Recentre offers workshops to help you understand in more detail what trauma is, how to notice signs of it in your clients, and what a trauma-informed approach looks like in a training/coaching environment. It will also help you to offer empathetic responses to clients that share their experiences with you. For more information email [email protected].??

Sources:??

Policy and Practice Briefing – Childhood adversities in Northern Ireland: the impact on mental health and suicidal behavior, Dr Margaret McLafferty and Professor Siobhan O’Neill, Ulster University Research finds that childhood adversity and trauma in Northern Ireland has lasting impact on mental health - Ulster University?

Bellis MA, Hughes K, Leckenby N, Perkins C and Lowey H. (2014) ‘National household survey of adverse childhood experiences and their relationship with resilience to health-harming behaviours in England’ BMC Medicine 2:72?

Hughes, K., Lowey, H., Quigg, Z. and Bellis, M. A. (2016) ‘Relationships between adverse childhood experiences and adult mental well-being: results from an English national household survey’ BMC Public Health 16:222?

Adverse Childhood Experiences, NHS Scotland - https://youtu.be/VMpIi-4CZK0?