What Is the Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM)?

AN INTERVIEW WITH: NAZNEEN NIZAMI, PSYD, LMFT – ASSISTANT CLINICAL DIRECTOR

Interview

Understanding Somatic Regulation and the Mind-Body Connection

TRM is Trauma Resilience Model, and it essentially is a somatic activity of tracking, grounding, regulating and pendulating. So, getting you in tune with the body. Most of the time if we can target regulation we can have more flexible healthy thoughts because our body is calm.

How Trauma Affects the Nervous System and Survival Response

People who have trauma, people who have pain, loss suffering, the nervous system is in hyper arousal and it’s in survival, and so it’s really scary to feel. Trauma Resiliency Model offers the opportunity to feel safely, you don’t have to feel all of that all at once. So you can tap it, you can just touch the tip of the pain, touch the tip of the sadness. The most important part is we can help teach people to pendulate back into safety.

The Role of Resourcing in Trauma Recovery

The first part of my work in TRM is building resources, helping people feel neutral or pleasant. That could be through a pet, visualization of their loved doggy. Right, and the furriness and the excitement that the dog feels when they see you walk in the door and like just feeling what you notice in the body what do you sense that changes when you think about your pup? It could be a place, I have like my place which is the beach with a hammock and every time I close my eyes and I take myself there like I feel different. I notice I’m calmer, my heart isn’t beating as much I’m more relaxed my shoulders are less tense and so it’s just about a slower entry to the body that feels more safe, and when we feel that safety we’re building the resilience over time.

What Is Pendulation in Somatic Therapy?

Which means we can go touch the heat, like we can go touch the unpleasant thing and do it intentionally, and guided, and then we can bring ourselves back. And that’s that pendulation. it’s a very intentional modality that helps people get in tune with their body and rebuild the safety that they may have lost over time with whatever they went through.