Trauma Therapy Modalities

 The Polyvagal Theory highlights the central role of the autonomic nervous system—particularly the vagus nerve—in shaping health, behaviour, and emotional wellbeing. Developed by Dr Stephen Porges, the theory describes how different physiological states influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions, as well as our responses to stress and threat. 

By understanding these nervous system states, we can make sense of patterns related to mental health and overall wellness. Applied across personal life and fields such as healthcare, education, and leadership, Polyvagal Theory emphasises the importance of safety, co-regulation, and connection as essential foundations for a healthy and resilient human experience.  

IFS is a therapeutic model that views the mind as made up of different “parts,” rather than a single, unified personality. These parts are understood as natural responses that develop to help a person cope with life experiences, particularly stress or adversity. In IFS, parts are not seen as problems or pathologies, but as protective strategies that may become extreme when a system feels unsafe.

IFS describes protective parts, including managers, which try to prevent distress through control, planning, or avoidance, and firefighters, which respond when distress breaks through by acting quickly to reduce emotional pain, often through shutdown or impulsive behaviour. Beneath these are exiles, which tend to hold vulnerable emotions such as fear, shame, grief, or unmet attachment needs.

At the centre of the system is the Self, a core state characterised by calm, curiosity, compassion, and clarity. IFS therapy aims to strengthen access to Self so that parts can be understood, supported, and brought into greater balance.

 SP is a trauma-informed therapeutic approach that integrates the body and nervous system. It is a therapeutic approach designed to support individuals with trauma and attachment-related difficulties. It recognises the body as a vital source of information, using bodily awareness to guide resourcing and to safely access and process traumatic, challenging, and developmental experiences. SP takes a holistic approach, integrating somatic, emotional, and cognitive processes to support meaningful change.

Through SP, clients are supported to identify and shift habitual physical, emotional, and psychological patterns that limit well-being and day-to-day functioning. The approach is particularly effective in working with dysregulated nervous system responses and other trauma-related impacts, as well as deeply held belief systems that often develop in response to early relational experiences.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy also emphasises building on existing strengths, while offering sufficient challenge to promote growth. This balance supports sustainable change, increased resilience, and improved overall well-being.

Designed by Dr Janina Fisher, TIST is a trauma-focused therapeutic approach designed to support safety, regulation, and stability before engaging in deeper emotional or trauma processing. Taken from Janina's website: 'The Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment model is a trauma-informed parts model that integrates principles and techniques drawn from Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Internal Family Systems, clinical hypnosis, and cognitive restructuring methods. It offers a clear, practical, and neurobiologically grounded path to healing. By re-framing extreme behaviors and inner fragmentation as protective responses to trauma, it combats shame and self-loathing, and it changes the client’s relationship to the symptoms.

TIST is designed to work with clients who have experienced prolonged trauma, especially in early life. These clients often suffer from emotional flooding, shame, dissociation, and extreme inner conflict. Many are caught in cycles of suicidality, addiction, or self-harm.

TIST helps clients recognize their symptoms as adaptive responses to trauma held by fragmented parts—and teaches them to relate to those parts with compassion, rather than fear or shame'.

DBR is a trauma therapy that focuses on the earliest brain-based responses to threat, particularly those that occur before conscious thought or emotion. It works by gently tracking the body’s initial orienting responses, that arise when the brain detects danger. DBR helps clients slow down and stay with these sensations, allowing the nervous system to process unresolved shock and threat without becoming overwhelmed. By working at this deep, subcortical level, DBR supports a reduction in hyperarousal and defensive reactions, creating greater capacity for regulation, clarity, and emotional integration in the present. 

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is a body-focused, bottom-up therapeutic approach created by Dr. Peter Levine to address trauma and chronic stress through the regulation of the nervous system rather than relying primarily on cognitive insight. Instead of concentrating solely on thoughts or narrative, SE works with physiological responses, supporting the release of held survival energy within the body.

The approach helps to gently resolve incomplete “fight, flight, or freeze” patterns by guiding clients to develop awareness of internal sensations. Using principles such as titration and pendulation, traumatic material is approached gradually, preventing overwhelm while allowing the nervous system to renegotiate distressing experiences. By tracking shifts in sensation, breath, and activation, SE strengthens regulation, restores a sense of safety, and builds resilience and embodied stability.

The Comprehensive Resource Model (CRM), created by Lisa Schwarz, M.Ed., is a healing approach grounded in neuroscience and designed to address complex trauma at a foundational level. Rather than managing symptoms alone, CRM seeks to resolve deeply held traumatic imprints that interfere with a person’s capacity to live from an authentic, embodied sense of Self and to experience joy, connection, peace, and empowerment.

At the core of CRM is the understanding that lasting healing occurs when individuals are fully present and anchored in their bodies. The model utilises a structured, multi-layered system of internal resources that establish profound nervous system safety. This allows clients to access and process deeply rooted emotional wounds while remaining regulated, present, and protected from overwhelm or re-traumatisation.

CRM works with trauma across the lifespan, from pre-birth and early developmental experiences through to the present moment, and may also explore intergenerational patterns and transpersonal themes where clinically appropriate. It is applied in the treatment of PTSD, complex trauma, dissociation, anxiety, depression, chronic pain and illness, ritual abuse, and can also support performance and resilience enhancement.