This post discusses Principle 2: Trustworthiness & Transparency of SAMHSA's six key principles of a trauma-informed approach.
Trauma erodes trust. When helping professionals are viewed by clients with substance use disorder (SUD) and traumatic stress disorders as trustworthy and predictable, the healing of trauma is more likely to occur. Counselor qualities that increase trust include empathy, warmth, and genuineness (Small, 1990).
Going over informed consent at the start of counseling can also help build trust. Informed consent is a process in which the helping professional shares information with the client to help ensure that the client makes an informed decision about participating in the helping relationship, has a voice and choice, and knows what to expect in counseling. It sets the tone for creating a trusting and collaborative relationship and promotes ethical practice (APA, 2016).
Starting sessions on time, consistently being emotionally regulated as a helping professional, maintaining healthy boundaries, keeping your word, and good follow-through over time can produce feelings of predictability in the helping relationship.
For years, the SUD profession routinely ignored client trauma. Today, there are now integrated evidence-based approaches to addressing SUD and trauma. Clients are more likely to say ‘yes’ to these approaches if there is first trust and predictability in the helping relationship.
APA Code of Ethics. (2016). http://www.apa.org/ethics/code.
Small, J. Becoming Naturally Therapeutic. (1990). Bantam Books. New York, NY.
Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC, is an international speaker in behavioral health whose presentations have reached thousands throughout the United States, England, Canada, Spain, Lithuania, West Indies, and Guam. He is the recipient of five behavioral health lifetime achievement awards, including the prestigious NAADAC Enlightenment Award. He is the founder of The Museum of African American Addictions, Treatment and Recovery, which was honored as the 2023 winner of the Faces and Voices of Recovery Innovations In Recovery Award. He is the author of 5 books on recovery and has enjoyed a 30-year career as a university educator.
Isa Vélez Echevarria, PsyD, is a Puerto Rican clinical psychologist. She is the Ohio State Project Manager for the Great Lakes Addiction, Mental Health, and Prevention Technology Transfer Centers managed by the Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During her pre-doctoral internship at Children’s Institute in Los Angeles, CA, she was certified as an Interpersonal Psychotherapy Clinician. She was trained in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Family Therapy. In addition, she provides telehealth services to communities of color in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico. Her clinical work has focused on culturally tailored and trauma-informed services for Latinx communities.
