TF-CBT strategy #3: Optimally focusing the trauma narration and processing
Typical goals of the trauma narrative and cognitive processing include: (1) desensitizing youth to feared memories of past traumatic experiences and thus mastering phobic avoidance of these memories; (2) identifying and addressing maladaptive cognitions related to past traumas; (3) contextualizing past trauma into one’s entire life experiences; and (4) preparing the parent to directly support the youth related to past traumatic experiences. Ongoing traumatic experiences provide new opportunities for perpetrators or others to reinforce youth maladaptive cognitions. In our clinical work, we have found that creating narratives are particularly helpful in the following ways for youth experiencing ongoing traumas. First, hearing youths’ detailed trauma experience descriptions results in many non-offending parents more fully acknowledging these experiences, and how they are impacting youths’ behaviors and emotions. Second, describing traumatic experiences from the safety of the therapy session, even if traumatic episodes continue to recur, allows youth to engage in some perspective- taking, cognitive processing and contextualization. Finally, youth gain increased ability to distinguish between real danger and trauma reminders by including descriptions of both types of situations in their narratives. As the narratives unfold parents hear details about what youth have heard and seen, and what they continue to hear and see in the present, that may contrast starkly with their understanding (e.g., “my child has barely seen anything”; “staying together as a family is best for my children.”) Hearing their own child speak their personal account has been successful in countering parental minimization about the youth’s experiences, allowing the parent to more appropriately validate the youth’s trauma experiences. This validation is an extremely important step in empowering youth. It is also critical to improving parental protection and, ultimately, supporting parents actualize their best version of themselves as parents. For example, one domestically attacked mother responded to her son’s narrative with new insight: “It was like a light bulb went on in my head. I finally got what it was like . . . Until I saw it in his own words, I never got that all this time he’s been living through this just like me.” The following case example illustrates how the trauma narrative enhanced the parent’s support of the youth, addressed the youth’s maladaptive cognitions and helped the youth distinguish between real danger and trauma reminders and hence to implement safety strategies more effectively.
Case example: Jerrod was a 15-year old who had experienced severe community violence. His mother minimized the degree to which Jerrod’s current school truancy was connected to these traumatic experiences. She was angry that he had been suspended due to frequent truancy and leaving school in the middle of the day. The therapist had tried to develop a safety plan at the start of treatment but mother had minimized the need for this, insisting that their community only had occasional incidences of violence and Jerrod had simply been “unlucky” to witness “a little” violence. The therapist suggested several safety strategies (e.g., having a buddy to walk to school with, developing a safe route to walk to school, etc.) but mother minimized the need for these strategies and as a result Jerrod did not use them consistently. During the trauma narrative Jerrod described his worst experience in which he witnessed a young woman being raped and murdered by gang members 2 blocks from his school. This episode started with the gang members speaking in loud voices to the young woman, then escalated to them pushing her down, repeatedly raping her, then dismembering her body. During this episode Jerrod hid in a dumpster less than 10 feet away, fearing that if he was discovered he would suffer the same fate as the victim. He was afraid to move for more than an hour after the perpetrators left. As he crawled out of the dumpster he was terrified that he would be found and killed. When he got home he was punished for coming home late. Jerrod included in his narrative the statement “If only I had come home early like my parents told me to, this wouldn’t have happened.” As Jerrod provided more details in the narrative, it became clear that both school generally (because the episode occurred close to his school) and loud voices at school (because the episode started with the perpetrators using loud voices and escalated to increasing violence) served as trauma triggers for Jerrod. He often avoided going to school altogether or left school when peers or teachers spoke in loud or harsh voices. This became a focus of differentiating trauma triggers from real danger as described below.