Trauma-informed counseling techniques for child and adolescent clients

As many individuals seek out counseling as a way to process traumatic events from their past, counselors need to recognize and address the impacts of trauma. Children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to traumatic stress, with trauma affecting brain development, behavior and learning. Fortunately, traumatic stress symptoms can often be treated through trauma-informed counseling techniques. By prioritizing trauma-informed care principles, such as safety, trust and empowerment, counselors can build rapport with clients and provide consistent, compassionate care.

This blog details the main principles of trauma-informed counseling, along with child counseling techniques and factors to take into consideration when working with young clients who have experienced trauma.

Understanding childhood and adolescent trauma

The most common sources of childhood and adolescent trauma include abuse or assault, exposure to violence, loss of a loved one, medical issues and neglect.¹ Trauma can present differently for different age groups. Preschool-aged children tend to experience nightmares, a fear of separation and frequent crying or screaming. Children in elementary school may present feelings of anxiety and shame, aggressive behaviors and difficulty concentrating or sleeping.

Adolescents are more likely to show signs of depression, tendencies toward self-harm, withdrawal and aggression.¹ Other common signs and symptoms across these age groups include dissociation, where children and adolescents mentally separate from the traumatic experience, and struggles with self-regulation, such that they may react unpredictably when triggered.²

Principles of trauma-informed counseling

Effectively engaging in trauma-informed counseling involves building trust and respect, creating a safe environment and taking into consideration clients' individual experiences and backgrounds. As identified by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, there are six guiding principles of trauma-informed care:³

1. Safety: Create a physically and emotionally welcoming environment; be sensitive to clients' potential triggers
2. Trustworthiness and transparency: Maintain professional boundaries and obtain informed consent
3. Peer support: Respect cultural identity, practices and historical trauma; have translations or interpreters available when necessary
4. Collaboration and mutuality: Provide meaningful engagement opportunities
5. Empowerment, voice and choice: Create space for clients to share their experiences; respect their agency
6. Cultural, historical and gender considerations: Recognize collaboration and the role everyone has to play in trauma-informed care 

Building a therapeutic alliance

When applying the principles of trauma-informed counseling, building a therapeutic alliance with clients is essential in making them feel safe and supported. Counselors can do this by establishing predictable routines and clear boundaries, developing a rapport and pacing the therapeutic process to avoid re-traumatization.

Specific counseling techniques and modalities

When working with younger clients, there is a wide range of therapy types that can effectively help children and adolescents process their trauma. Child counseling techniques tend to focus on engaging children's self-expression through play, art or story-based communication, whereas adolescent therapy techniques emphasize addressing behavior and symptoms of trauma.

Common approaches to therapy include the following:⁴

• Play therapy: Integrates play and games to help young children express emotions safely
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): Reframes negative thoughts and emotions to influence behavior
• Trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT): Combines principles of CBT and family therapy with an emphasis on addressing symptoms of trauma
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR): Relieves the stress associated with trauma through lateral eye movements
• Expressive arts therapy: Uses various art forms to promote healing through self-expression

Emotional regulation and coping skills training

Emotional regulation and coping skills tend to be negatively impacted when individuals have experienced trauma at a young age and are thus key components of trauma-informed counseling for children and adolescents.⁵ Counselors can work with clients to improve these skills by integrating grounding techniques and co-regulation.

While experiencing trauma compromises children's ability to emotionally regulate, trauma-informed counseling helps them develop the skills to cope with their emotions. Mindfulness practices and grounding techniques, such as deep breathing and sensory awareness, work to re-regulate a child's emotions and help with managing triggers when they're reminded of a traumatic event.⁵

Children's emotional regulation is often modeled after that of adults in their lives. While adults' inability to emotionally regulate can negatively impact children, co-regulation reverses this impact.⁵ By responding to children's emotional cues and validating their emotions while teaching them healthy ways to cope, counselors can model and reinforce self-regulation.

Cultural and developmental considerations

Recognizing cultural diversity is essential for upholding the principles of trauma-informed counseling. Clients come from a variety of different backgrounds and demographics, and the counselor's role is to adapt interventions based on age, developmental level and cultural context.

Individuals may experience cultural barriers when it comes to counseling, such as clients from non-dominant cultures being reluctant to share personal information in sessions, or clients from certain communities struggling to trust a counselor due to previous histories of persecution. It's important to avoid assumptions and take clients' life circumstances and cultural upbringing into consideration to provide the most effective help and validate their lived experiences.⁶

Enhance your trauma-informed counseling skills

Counseling children and adolescents who have experienced trauma is meaningful work that has the power to improve clients' lives for the better. Marquette University's online Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CMHC) program is shaping the next generation of clinical mental health professionals.

Through specialized training and hands-on practical experience, you'll master key counseling principles. Additionally, through our child and adolescent counseling specialization, you'll learn more about child counseling techniques, adolescent therapy and key family dynamics. Delivered in a flexible, online format, our program allows you to balance course work with your other responsibilities while receiving support from our expert faculty. By the end of the program, you will be equipped to support clients with effective mental health counseling techniques and be prepared to Be the Difference.

If you're ready to enhance your counseling skills and professional development, review our admissions process. To learn more about our program, contact us or schedule a time to talk with one of our admissions outreach advisors today.