I am sure I am not the only one that has this question from time to time.   I sometimes wonder if what I am doing is working…is this making a true difference in my client’s life?  Am I alone in this?

I truly don’t think I am the only one that struggles with these questions.  Having a way to determine if what you are doing to help a client heal from trauma is imperative to the success of that client’s treatment and a positive experience for you and the client in treatment. 

It is easy in trauma treatment to get on, what I like to call, “fire department duty.”  Constantly putting out the client’s weekly “fires.”   It is a little harder to find the very roots of trauma and help clients heal.

My personal experience with not having a way to track results resulted in pure frustration and me being burnt out.  I left the therapy room for three years because I was working way harder than my clients and I had no way of really telling if what I was doing was effective outside of the treatment plan. 

Of course, I had my trusty treatment plan, but what was I looking at other than if 3 out of 5 times my client could do this or that…and what happens if they can’t do it 3 out of 5 times…then what?

In this week’s vlog, I go into detail and share a couple of things you should consider to assist you in identifying whether or not your trauma treatment is effective for each individual client.

1. Are there any patterns of “stuckness” in the client’s nervous system? 

2. Where are they in the protocol/flow of your treatment?

3. Clients have more capacity to settle with the thoughts and feelings from the hard experiences in life. 

These are just three things to consider, but there are other markers to identify the effectiveness of your trauma treatment.  Make sure to take time to think specifically about trauma and how it impacts our clients and have some markers you use to help you stay on track.  It is easy to get overwhelmed and or derailed in the healing process.