Interestingly, when I started the coursework for trauma recovery coaching, I experienced how trauma coaching differs from therapy as "old stuff" started to come up again. I had learned the unique characteristics in class logically, but now I was feeling that difference, too.

While all of my therapists were competent counselors, they remained clinically detached, never sharing any of themselves with me and not offering support or communication outside of therapy sessions. This is the standard medical model of the therapist-client relationship – one where the therapist maintains a place of authority as the expert.

But a crucial element of healing trauma is the opportunity to experience a safe, healthy, and balanced relationship – for the client to have a deep and trusting relationship modeled for them, offering a space filled with tender care and empathy without a whiff of judgment. Sometimes, this is the first time a client has ever experienced such a profound connection with another person in their life.

Trauma is "The Great Disconnector." It disconnects us from ourselves, other people, and the world. Working with a certified trauma coach, the client first learns to connect with the coach and then reconnects with themselves and the world authentically. This offers a powerful and unique environment for healing the deep and multi-layered wounds of trauma.

Therapists are crucial members of a client's mental health support system. They provide services that coaches are not trained in or qualified to offer. The reverse is also true: most therapists never receive any training on trauma in their degree programs and cannot provide the trauma-specific model of healing offered by trauma coaches.

"Recovery can take place only within the context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation. In her renewed connection with other people, the survivor re-creates the psychological faculties that were damaged or deformed by the traumatic experience. These faculties include the basic operations of trust, autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, and intimacy.

Just as these capabilities are formed in relationships with other people, they must be reformed in such relationships."

― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror