Personal Experience Trauma

When I envision myself working with individuals who have experienced trauma or experiencing trauma, the first thing that comes to mind is my own personal reaction to the client’s traumatic experience or story. I have this inner fear of being very sensitive and empathic to that person’s story that it may come across as a sign of weakness as a counselor or not. As discussed in class, each client may react differently to their counselor’s reaction and may want a certain kind of reaction from their counselor. I believe as I work more with individuals who experienced trauma, I will be able to observe my clients reaction to how I am processing their story and adjust by emotions as needed.
I became interested in the topic of trauma for several reasons, one of which is personal. I have experienced trauma myself more than once in my life and another reason is because I want to understand how each person based on their individual experiences, culture, race, and ethnicity define and deal with trauma. Even though I have experienced trauma, I tend to deal with the issues it brings up for me by …show more content…
I also learned that in order to successfully work with individuals experiencing trauma, it is important to know not only the historical context but also the cultural and religious framework of that individual. Understanding the source and triggers of how trauma manifests itself for each person is also important to the overall success of the counselor client relationship. In the beginning, I thought that by gaining specific skills and techniques for dealing with trauma clients was important, I quickly learned that even though skills and techniques are important they are not the primary tools in working with clients with traumatic