Utilization of Presence Awareness in Trauma Therapy

Abstract

Trauma can result in many long-term symptoms including emotional dysregulation, depression, addiction, and PTSD. When triggered by trauma, patients typically experience the world through a myopic lens. Helping clients observe and sense their trauma sequelae in the broader sensory awareness of Presence appears to help clients more easily process and resolve traumatic experience. The Presence Psychotherapy Trauma Protocol (PPTP) provides specific open-ended questions in session to help clients orient to Presence Awareness which can then be utilized to resolve trauma. Options to help clients sense their traumatic experience in the expansive awareness of Grounded Presence, Spacious Presence, Relational Presence, or Transcendent Presence create multiple regulating, processing, and attachment healing opportunities. PPTP’s concept of Reflective View is introduced which provides the clinician with prompts to help the client identify who they are as Presence Awareness early in session. This paper demonstrates, through a case example, how Presence Awareness and specifically Reflective View help clients access, tolerate, and process trauma in a broader sense of Presence Awareness.