What is trauma-informed coaching?
There is no clear-cut definition for trauma-informed coaching and it's important to emphasize that this is always going to be a fuzzy space. Even the differentiation between coaching and therapy can feel murky and, fortunately, we’re seeing research and debate in this space to provide greater clarity for both practitioners and those looking for coaching.
This fuzziness around coaching, therapy and therapeutic or trauma-informed coaching needs to be seen in the context of some shifting factors:
Our conversations around mental health and wellbeing are changing. There’s a greater openness to talk about mental health and we begin to see it as something we want to care for just like we take responsibility for our physical health.
Related to this, we observe higher levels of experiences that affect our mental wellbeing, for example loneliness, burnout, chronic stress, toxic workplaces, a meaning crisis, anxiety and uncertainty in a volatile world and growing disconnection from community and nature.
Both fields, coaching and therapy are evolving as we learn more about trauma, neuroplasticity, or theories of change. Previous attempts to differentiate them along the line of emotion/ no emotion or past/ future are now clearly outdated and don’t serve us any longer.
The world of work is changing and the lines between work and personal life are blurring. Combined with our greater openness to discuss emotional wellbeing, people don’t see their work identity and who they are in their personal life as separate. Anchoring coaching purely in organisations and work-related issues also doesn’t stand the test of time and people increasingly expect to have coaching conversations which can also hold deeper emotional experiences.
Whether we look at the current state of the world as poly-crisis or poly-opportunity, I also sense that grief is showing up more and more while we have simultaneously lost our rituals to support us through grief and loss.
So many of us feel the grief and sorrow that “the dream of full-throated living, woven into our very being, has often been forgotten or neglected, replaced by a societal fiction of productivity and material gain.”
(Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow – I cannot recommend this book enough as a companion in current times!)
In the context of our changing world and evolving needs from coaching, trauma-informed or therapeutic coaching have emerged as terms to sign-post practitioners with additional qualifications and a scope of practice that can stretch into more therapeutic territory.
Experiences or indicators I see in my practice that point to a need for trauma-informed coaching
I bring trauma-informed qualities and skills to my coaching when I work with people who experience sticky patterns that seem hard to shift or change only temporarily before things fall back into the old groove. These people get on very well with everyday life, they can be exceptionally capable and successful. But they realise that it comes at a high cost: this can show up as exhaustion, chronic stress, anxiety or difficulty to rest and relax. Some people experience issues in relationships or feel that they’re never enough. They might notice an unspecific sense of dissatisfaction with work or life, or a sadness that their desires seem out of reach or that they seem unable to make the most of life or fulfil their potential.
In the coaching context, I’m specifically aware of how relational or attachment trauma can continue to show up in life, even though this isn’t always in the client’s awareness or wouldn’t be their way of describing their experience. While relational trauma is typically connected to harmful experiences early in life with caregivers or people close to us, a difficult workplace experience, like bullying, discrimination or scapegoating can also leave an imprint on relationships going forward.
So-called small-t or micro trauma also shows up frequently in the coaching space. These are experiences that leave a scar or have shaped sticky patterns but have either never been acknowledged or get easily dismissed.
In trauma-informed coaching, we aren’t actively processing past traumatic experiences, but we acknowledge that we all see the world through history-coloured glasses: our past experiences shaped our emotional, relational and behavioural patterns. And we know that we aren’t fixed or static, with the right support we can change. We bring curiosity to how you’ve been shaped and how life events hang together so that you can move forward with a deeper understanding of your inner world.
I offer sensitive, experiential and arts-based approaches to explore the reasons behind your ways of being in the world. Working in a trauma-informed way also means that we’ll frequently check-in on the pace and depth of the work to make sure we’re comfortable with how the coaching unfolds. I also value sharing some psycho/ neuro-education as it helps develop new skills and clarifies how we can support change.
Bringing in these skills isn’t done covertly, I always discuss this transparently in my Discovery Calls and throughout the coaching relationship.
Could trauma-informed coaching be the right approach for you?
You’re interested in understanding your patterns and emotional responses more deeply and you feel that being able to connect the dots is important to move forward with clarity and to achieve lasting change.
You’re experiencing stuckness, sticky patterns or cycles of experiences which you seem unable to break; this could include cyclical burnout, chronic stress, or recurring relational experiences in different settings across your personal and professional life.
You notice that your established strategies for life are no longer working without being sure what exactly has changed. Your responses to stress or challenge are either ineffective or even get in the way of showing up in the way you want to.
Trauma-informed coaching can also support you in a leadership role when you want to make sure that you know your own patterns and how relational dynamics or stress press your buttons or touch on old wounds.
Appropriate training, ongoing learning and the right support for me as coach are critical
When I bring trauma-informed qualities into my coaching I lean on my therapeutic training as well as my experience of working in clinical settings including my work in art therapy and complex trauma programs.
I continue my learning by deepening my understanding of certain therapeutic frameworks and the fast-changing fields of trauma research and neuroplasticity as a way of achieving the desired change.
I maintain my professional membership with ANZACATA, the peak professional body that represents creative arts therapists in Australia, New Zealand and the Asia/Pacific region and have ongoing clinical supervision with an art therapist. I’m also a member of the Association for Coaching (AC) and engage in regular coaching supervision.
If you have a sense that trauma-informed coaching could unlock something for you, we’ll make sure to discuss all of this in more detail in our Discovery Call. Agreeing the qualities and boundaries of our coaching is especially important when we work in this way and I encourage you to bring all your questions to this free and informal conversation so that you can make the right choice for you.