What Does It Mean to Be Trauma-Informed?

Being trauma-aware means recognising that people bring different experiences, histories and responses into the spaces we create. You don’t need to be a therapist to consider how choice, communication, culture and a sense of control can influence someone’s experience of working or being with you.

You may never know what someone has experienced

Someone walks into an appointment, joins a meeting, attends a class or comes to you for a service, and you usually know very little about what has happened in their life before that moment. They may have experienced bereavement, illness, difficult relationships, discrimination, abuse, medical procedures, bullying or periods when they had very little control over what was happening to them. Equally, there may be nothing they would describe as trauma, yet particular situations can still make them uncomfortable.

This is where being trauma-aware can change the way we work. It doesn’t require us to identify who has experienced trauma or encourage people to disclose personal information. Instead, we can consider how our own language, environment and behaviour might be experienced by somebody whose history is different from our own.

This applies far beyond therapy. A nutritionist discussing weight, a personal trainer encouraging someone to push harder, a beauty practitioner touching somebody’s body, a manager giving feedback or a teacher asking a student to speak in front of a group can all create very different experiences depending on the person in front of them.

What does being trauma-informed or trauma-aware mean?

Trauma-informed practice is commonly built around principles including safety, trust, collaboration, choice and empowerment. [1] In everyday terms, much of this comes down to how we involve people in what is happening rather than assuming we know what will be comfortable for them.

Something as simple as explaining what you are going to do before you do it can make a difference. Asking before touching somebody, offering options where possible, explaining why personal information is being requested and allowing someone to say they would rather not answer can give them greater involvement in an interaction. In a workplace, this might mean considering how feedback is delivered or avoiding unnecessary pressure for somebody to disclose personal circumstances in order to justify what they need.

Disability and accessibility can also be overlooked here, particularly when we assume everyone can access, communicate or participate in the same way. Considering physical access, sensory needs, different ways of communicating and whether someone needs additional time or support can be an important part of creating genuine choice and inclusion.

Being trauma-aware doesn’t require every interaction to become a conversation about trauma. Often the person may never know that you have considered it at all. They simply experience a way of working that gives them information, respects their boundaries and allows them to have some say in what happens next.

Are we interpreting everyone through our own idea of ‘normal’?

Trauma awareness also asks us to think about the assumptions we bring into our work. Eye contact is a useful example. Looking directly at someone may be interpreted as confidence, honesty or engagement within one setting, while in some cultures it can be considered disrespectful, particularly in relation to age, gender or authority. Neurodivergence, anxiety, personal experience and many other factors can also influence how comfortable someone feels with sustained eye contact.

The same applies to emotional expression, touch, family relationships, independence, grief and ways of communicating. If our own experience becomes the standard against which everyone else is measured, we can easily misunderstand behaviour that makes complete sense within somebody else’s culture, history or circumstances.

This is also where trauma-informed practice can benefit from a broader cultural lens. Western psychological ideas have contributed enormously to our understanding of trauma, but they are not the only ways human beings have understood distress, relationships, community and recovery. Curiosity about the person in front of us can sometimes be more useful than assuming we already understand what their behaviour means.

Small changes can have a surprisingly wide reach

Becoming more trauma-aware doesn’t mean walking on eggshells or avoiding anything that might make another person uncomfortable. Difficult conversations, challenge and uncertainty are part of many professional relationships. The difference is in considering how much choice, information and involvement somebody has within the experience.

This might mean asking rather than assuming, giving someone a moment before expecting an answer, explaining what is going to happen during an appointment, considering privacy when asking sensitive questions or checking whether someone is comfortable before continuing. It also means recognising the limits of our own role. Being trauma-aware doesn’t turn a manager, coach, nutritionist, teacher or bodyworker into a trauma therapist.

"What does it feel like to be on the receiving end of the way I work?"

Perhaps one of the most useful questions we can ask ourselves is a very simple one: what does it feel like to be on the receiving end of the way I work? We may never know somebody’s full history, and we don’t need to. Becoming more aware of how our language, assumptions and actions might be experienced can make the spaces we create more thoughtful and inclusive for everyone.