Working with Trauma Survivors: Therapeutic Approaches and Strategies for Promoting Posttraumatic Growth

“[W]hen someone experiences a therapist as being empathic and open and willing to lend an ear, what we sometimes see is that people will just try to purge themselves of their traumatic past. . . [T]his can be a good thing in part because they haven't really shared many of these painful stories with anyone before, but the problem that I see with some of these folks when they do this is that. . . after the session. . . they start to feel "oh my god I've spilled the beans." They often feel humiliated at having shared so much. And so, it's really important when you do trauma work to pace the process of opening up, to help people slow the whole thing down.”