How Can I Find a Coronado Psychiatrist Who Specializes in Trauma Treatment?

Summary: To find a Coronado psychiatrist who specializes in trauma treatment, it’s important to find a psychiatrist experienced in the core principles and guidelines established for trauma-informed care.

Key Points:

If you have a trauma-related mental health disorder, you need a psychiatrist who knows the importance of safety and trust in the therapeutic process.
A psychiatrist trained in supporting patients with trauma-related disorders will know that during treatment, it’s essential to prevent re-traumatization, i.e. triggering your traumatic memories unintentionally.
In recent years, mental health providers have developed effective methods to help people safely process past traumatic memories.

Is There a Way to Tell If a Psychiatrist Knows How to Treat Trauma?

Yes, there is.

Get online and learn everything you can about trauma-informed care. Here are three excellent resources:

Governmental:

- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) published a Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) called “Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services.”

Non-Profit Mental Health:

- The Trauma-Informed Care Implementation Resource Center hosts webpage called “What is Trauma-Informed Care?”

Academic:

- Researchers from the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts recently published an article called “Trauma-Informed Care: Recognizing and Resisting Re-Traumatization in Health Care.”

We recommend starting with the article “What is a Trauma-Informed Care?” and saving the page that lists the three guidelines and six principles of trauma-informed care.

Next, get online and search for psychiatrists or treatment centers in Coronado: make a list of any that resonate with you, prioritizing those that mention specialization in trauma-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Then, contact friends or families you know and trust and ask if they know or can recommend a psychiatrist or treatment center in the Coronado area with experience in supporting patients with a history of trauma.

Then, get on the phone – or write an email – and ask questions above trauma-informed care based on what you learned from your research.

Important questions include:

Do you specialize in trauma-informed care?

Have you received training in supporting patients with a history of trauma?

Does your clinical staff – i.e. counselors and therapists – also have experience and training in trauma-informed care?

Can you tell me what you think is most important in treating people with a history of trauma?

What is your overall treatment philosophy?

Their answers should be an indication as to whether they’re a good fit for you. If the admissions staff are unable to provide satisfactory answers, or connect you immediately to someone who can, it might be best to cross that psychiatrist or treatment center off your list and move on to the next one.

It’s completely reasonable to expect good answers – meaning they match what you learned about trauma-informed care before you called or emailed – to all of those questions.

Next, you can ask specific questions about the types of therapy they offer. Evidence shows the following modalities are effective for treating people with trauma-related disorders:

Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT)
Trauma-focused dialectical behavior therapy (TF-DBT)
Eye movement desensitization & reprocessing (EMDR)
Prolonged exposure therapy (PE)
Cognitive processing therapy (CPT)

A psychiatrist who specializes in trauma treatment should be familiar with all of those approaches to trauma support, and expertise in at least one, if not more. It may be difficult to locate someone experience in TF-CBT and EMDR, but if you can, that’s a good indication their practice is indeed trauma-focused.

However, If they’re not familiar with any of those modalities, we encourage you to continue your search until you find someone who is.

Trust Yourself: You’ll Need to Trust Them

Patients with a history of trauma report that feeling safe during the treatment experience is the most important component of the process. Next is trust: you’ll likely share deeply personal information with this person, which means you need to trust them completely. Finally, establishing a good rapport – called a positive treatment alliance – is almost as important as the treatment modalities themselves. If you can’t establish an easy and productive give-and-take with your psychiatrist or therapist, it may affect the outcome: evidence shows the relationship between patient and provider can predict treatment success, with positive relationships yielding the best results.

You can find a Coronado psychiatrist who specializes in trauma treatment and learn how to process past trauma so you can move forward and live a full and productive life. Call us today at Crownview Medical Group: we know how to help.

Angus Whyte

Angus Whyte has an extensive background in neuroscience, behavioral health, adolescent development, and mindfulness, including lab work in behavioral neurobiology and a decade of writing articles on mental health and mental health treatment. In addition, Angus brings twenty years of experience as a yoga teacher and experiential educator to his work for Crownview. He’s an expert at synthesizing complex concepts into accessible content that helps patients, providers, and families understand the nuances of mental health treatment, with the ultimate goal of improving outcomes and quality of life for all stakeholders.