3 Stages of Trauma Recovery
There is so much information on this topic, so I’m going to split it into two separate blog posts where I’ll dissect the 3 stages of trauma recovery, what trauma recovery may look like, and specific theories around these stages. Ultimately, when talking about recovery stages or theories, we have this idea of moving from one stage to another consecutively. These 3 stages of trauma recovery don’t operate entirely linearly.
3 Stages of Trauma Recovery
You’ve likely heard of the “6 Stages of Grief” (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) at some point by now, but did you know that trauma victims go through a similar multi-step process after a traumatic experience?
There is so much juicy information on this topic, so I’m going to split it into two separate blog posts where I’ll dissect the 3 stages of trauma recovery, what trauma recovery may look like, and specific theories around these stages.
One thing I do want to acknowledge before we dive in is that these “stages” don’t operate entirely linearly. Ultimately, when talking about recovery stages or theories, we have this idea of moving from one stage to another consecutively.
Our recovery is not a video game where once you achieve the goals of one level, you move on to the next. We can’t just hit save on our progress and never return to that level again.
While that may seem logical, emotions are complex, and it simply isn’t how recovery works.
If at any point you feel like you are recovering “wrong” or are not making any progress, please remember that there is no correct or incorrect way to deal with a traumatic experience. Your brain is doing what it needs to survive, and that looks different for each person.
The whole of our experience has all of the stages of recovery in it, but there is no proper way of moving through them. We can revisit stages whenever we want/need, we can feel like we are in two at once, or we might even be in all of them all at once.
All stages are held, shaped, and reflective of the other. The main goal is that we heal in a way that is functional for us, personally.
That said, this post is primarily dedicated to what emotional affective tone looks like throughout trauma recovery and the different stages one goes through.
Let's dig in!
Empowering Survivors
In American psychologist Judith Hermon’s book: Trauma and Recovery (I highly recommend!), she discusses the importance of empowering survivors. She believes empowerment is/should be the basis for trauma recovery because it means restoring a sense of power back to someone who had it robbed of them.
While I agree with many of her points, my problem with the word empower is its indication that we are giving power to someone. It frequently ends up minimizing or dismissing the idea that they already have power that may be different from us. We don’t need to give the victim power; we are simply reconnecting them to the power they already possess.
Through trauma recovery, we are helping restore that connection that the person has to their power, their sense of identity, and their sense of ownership over themselves.
Often, it isn’t necessarily about empowerment but is actually about reclamation.
When we are going through recovery, we are on a road to reclaiming ourselves and everything we’ve lost.
Reclaiming doesn’t mean demanding that recovery works for you how you want it to. But through the process of healing and moving from danger to safety to mourning and grief and then into connection and integration, you are able to feel more at one with yourself.
I am able to reconnect to who I am; my personal values, who I know myself to be, my qualities, my strengths, my weaknesses, and how I express myself through this healing.
Maybe these things weren’t lost. Perhaps we just didn’t know they existed, or we didn’t know how to incorporate more of them into our lives.
What I do know for sure is that I am so much more myself now than before I was assaulted because I was prompted to go through a recovery process that forced me to examine all these things and take ownership of them.
So for me, empowerment isn’t how I describe it, but rather reclaiming what is already mine.
What is the emotional or affective tone?
Affective tone is defined as the mood or feeling associated with a particular experience or stimulus. In the context of trauma recovery, it is the overarching emotional state we might be feeling as we move through the different stages.
We tend to have a baseline, emotional color to the day. There might be multiple emotions that happen throughout the day, but the feeling that is constant in the background is the emotional tone.
Emotions in Trauma Recovery
Survivors experience many emotions in trauma recovery. The emotions in trauma recovery can set the emotional tone during stages of trauma recovery. The main emotions in trauma recovery include:
Shock, Fear, and Dissociation
Shame, and Self Blame
Anger and Rage
Trauma Acceptance
Shock, Fear, and Dissociation:
The beginning stages of recovery frequently leave people feeling shocked, scared, or in this sustained fight or flight mode. This is extremely common after a traumatic incident occurs.
Your body is still prepared to try to keep you safe or get you away from harm, and it hasn't necessarily come down from that feeling.
When this starts to resolve, there can be some dissociation or disconnection. Sometimes it can be a whole or entire dissociation in the sense that you feel generally disconnected from all parts of who you are, or it can also be a more localized dissociation from specific body parts, emotions, memories, or noticing that you get exhausted when you have certain feelings.
As people move out of this shock and dissociation (which are both considered to be survival mechanisms), the path of recovery starts to lay before us, and the emotional tone shifts.
Shame and Self-Blame:
This is typically where a lot of shame and self-blame come into play. This can look like efforts to try and figure out where your fault was, how you could change this in the future so it doesn’t happen again, or getting fixated on what you can do to fix or change the situation as it happened.
During this stage, victims of sexual assault will frequently reconnect with the perpetrator. It is a standard part of trying to grapple with what happened along with the existing rape culture that we live in that blames the victim.
Many survivors come out of the experience feeling very confused and have difficulty putting their finger on what happened. They know it didn’t feel good, and they know they don’t feel safe, but their body is reacting, and it’s somehow tied to this person.
Victims may also try to “master” the event or threat, sometimes through building a relationship with the perpetrator to mitigate damage or reduce the danger by controlling it.
This is also where we see a lot of other shame-related issues come up: eating disorders, substance abuse, and suicidality. This all occurs during this phase oftentimes as part of a reaction to the trauma.
Anger and Rage:
As shame starts to dissolve, whether through recovery, stability starting to root in, or the individual learning more about what happened to them, what tends to happen is a significant anger/rage response. The individual may feel irritable, angry at the world, like no one understands them, and they may become forceful with boundaries.
This is the body shifting into the fight response.
If we’re not mindful of this and not seeking treatment to continue the recovery process, we might project this rage onto people we’re not actually angry at.
This anger can be where we feel more mobilized and active in our communities to make a change. Anger is effective at motivating us into action, so this is a common place where people try to pursue justice.
Trauma Acceptance:
Continuing through recovery, there’s a certain amount of trauma acceptance that occurs down the line. Until now, the shock, dissociation, shame, and anger have all been reactions to the trauma that ultimately says, “I need to protect myself. This shouldn't happen.” We see this flip happen when we start to accept that it did, in fact, happen.
Note, trauma acceptance is not saying we approve of the incident but acknowledging it instead.
From here, we see intense amounts of grief and sadness come up. This is where people begin to grieve the loss of their reality, what the world was going to be like, the things that happened to them as part of the trauma, the things that changed in their bodies and minds, and what changed in their sense of self.
As it continues to resolve over time, we start to see this building up of general acceptance and wisdom from this place.
This is a natural arch of recovery; shock, dissociation, shame, self-blame, anger, grief, and acceptance. Getting to the phase of acceptance doesn’t mean you don’t ever revisit the others.
Personally, I was feeling relatively on the other side of the grief and sadness and into acceptance and wisdom when Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to be a supreme court justice. I noticed myself going back to shock and anger.
When I witnessed what our culture and communities did in response to his nomination, defending rape, reinforcing rape, and acting as though it is just not that big of a deal or that it shouldn’t disqualify someone from being a supreme court judge, it shook me to my core.
I found myself angry with everyone. I retreated back into my shell and hid from the world because I felt like no one understood. When I mobilized my anger, practiced some of my skills around acceptance, and connected with other survivors and allies, it helped me get to where this anger was productive.
It is common to hop back and forth between phases during our lives. It is possible to realize that a particular experience didn’t get grieved later on down the road, and it is always okay to go back to that stage.
Recovery from Trauma
Recovery from trauma is very similar to recovery from a physical injury.
If you’ve ever been to physical therapy, you know it is exhausting, painful, and potentially irritating. Physical therapists often have to undo some of the ways that injuries improperly healed to reset things.
Recovery from trauma is similar and starts the moment after the trauma happens.
You don’t have to be in therapy to be on a recovery journey. Recovery is shaped by all the things we do, the things we don’t do, the people we talk to, the culture we transact and interact with, and everything in our lives.
Want to learn more about YOUR specific trauma recovery style? Take the QUIZ and get unique skills specific to you!
We will heal one way or the other because that’s what our body and brain do in order to survive. Whether that recovery is functional or in alignment with our personal values and goals, that is when we redirect it in the direction we want it to go.
Want to learn more about YOUR specific trauma recovery style? Take the QUIZ and get unique skills specific to you!
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You can listen to this episode on my Podcast “Initiated Survivor.” The episode is titled “Stages of Trauma Recovery Pt. 1” It is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
If you want to learn more about this topic, stay tuned for the next blog post! I will talk even more about how the trauma recovery process.
