Medical Trauma – Clinical Tools for Treating PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression Following a Health Crisis
A health crisis can affect far more than the body. Medical emergencies, traumatic injuries, prolonged treatment, chronic illness, and difficult healthcare experiences can leave clients struggling with PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief, pain, disrupted sleep, and a changed sense of safety or identity.
Medical Trauma: Clinical Tools for Treating PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression Following a Health Crisis brings together medical trauma experts Sacha McBain, PhD and Michelle Flaum, EdD, LPCC-S, DCMHS for a free virtual training focused on recognizing, assessing, and treating medical traumatic stress.
You’ll explore an integrative, evidence-based approach that considers the layered experience of illness or injury, treatment, recovery, relationships, social responses, and the beliefs that can develop around control, ability, and worth.
The training also examines practical clinical strategies for chronic pain, insomnia, somatic trauma cues, adjustment to illness or injury, medical self-advocacy, and reducing the risk of retraumatization.
Why Attend “Medical Trauma: Clinical Tools for Treating PTSD, Anxiety, and Depression Following a Health Crisis”
Medical trauma can be difficult to recognize because the source of distress is often intertwined with necessary healthcare, physical symptoms, uncertainty, changes in ability, and the experience of navigating medical systems. The resulting psychological effects may not fit neatly into the way other traumatic experiences are usually discussed.
This training helps clinicians examine the fuller story. You’ll learn ways to gather a comprehensive health history, assess medical traumatic stress, recognize biopsychospiritual crises, and consider what happened during the initial illness or injury as well as throughout treatment and recovery.
The clinical focus extends beyond symptom recognition. Dr. McBain and Dr. Flaum address beliefs and cognitions, behavioral strategies, social constraints, systemic invalidation, stigma, ableism, toxic positivity, pain, insomnia, adjustment, rehabilitation, and medical advocacy as interconnected parts of medical trauma-informed care.
Who Should Attend
This training is designed for clinicians who work with people affected by medical emergencies, traumatic injury, hospitalization, chronic illness, difficult treatment experiences, or ongoing health-related distress.
It is especially relevant when familiar trauma interventions need to be expanded to account for the continuing presence of physical symptoms, healthcare encounters, rehabilitation needs, social responses, and changes in a client’s relationship with their body, abilities, or sense of control.
- Mental health clinicians supporting clients after medical emergencies or traumatic injury
- Therapists working with chronic illness, hospitalization, or ongoing health-related stress
- Clinicians addressing PTSD, anxiety, depression, or grief connected with a health crisis
- Providers seeking more comprehensive medical trauma assessment strategies
- Practitioners helping clients cope with chronic pain, insomnia, or somatic trauma cues
- Clinicians addressing stigma, ableism, toxic positivity, or systemic invalidation
- Professionals supporting effective medical self-advocacy and efforts to avoid retraumatization
- Clinicians who want case conceptualization to include biopsychospiritual factors
What You’ll Learn
You’ll begin by examining what distinguishes medical trauma from other forms of trauma and how to gather a fuller clinical picture through trauma interviewing, health-related anxiety assessment, a distress thermometer, and comprehensive health history.
From there, the training develops a layered approach to case conceptualization. This includes the initial illness or injury, treatment experiences, short- and long-term recovery, the mind-body connection, relationships, social responses, and the broader ecological context surrounding medical trauma.
You’ll then explore treatment strategies that integrate cognitive, behavioral, health psychology, rehabilitation psychology, psychoeducational, and advocacy-oriented approaches while also considering the limitations of existing research and potential clinical risks.
- How medical trauma differs from other types of trauma
- Ways to use a trauma interview, health-related anxiety assessment, distress thermometer, and comprehensive health history
- How to recognize clinical disorders alongside biopsychospiritual crises
- How the layered narrative of illness, injury, treatment, and recovery can inform case conceptualization
- Ways to identify medical trauma-related core beliefs and cognitions involving control, ability, and worth
- How behavioral strategies can be combined with attention to social constraints and systemic invalidation
- How health and rehabilitation psychology principles, psychoeducation, and meaning making can support treatment planning
- Strategies for working with somatic trauma cues, chronic pain, and insomnia
- Approaches to adjustment, expectation management, and cognitive rehabilitation following illness or injury
- Ways to support medical advocacy while considering retraumatization, research limitations, and potential risks
Event Schedule
The training follows a clinical progression from assessment and case conceptualization into integrative treatment strategies and case applications. The curriculum brings together psychological, physical, relational, and systemic dimensions of medical traumatic stress.
Assess Medical Traumatic Stress & the Layered Narrative
- Assess Medical Traumatic StressDifferentiate medical trauma from other forms of trauma and explore trauma interviewing, health-related anxiety, a distress thermometer, and comprehensive health history.
- Recognize Biopsychospiritual CrisesConsider clinical disorders alongside the physical, psychological, social, and meaning-related dimensions of a health crisis.
- Build the Layered NarrativeExamine the initial illness or injury, treatment experiences, recovery, the mind-body connection, stigma, ableism, toxic positivity, and the ecological context of medical trauma.
Treatment of Medical Trauma & Case Studies
- Integrative TreatmentAddress core beliefs and cognitions, behavioral strategies, social constraints, systemic invalidation, psychoeducation, meaning making, and health and rehabilitation psychology principles.
- Symptoms, Adjustment & AdvocacyExplore somatic trauma cues, insomnia, chronic pain, adjustment to illness or injury, expectation management, cognitive rehabilitation, medical advocacy, and avoiding retraumatization.
- Clinical Case ApplicationsConsider cases involving PTSD and COVID-19, social anxiety and irritable bowel disease, and dependent personality disorder with a congenital heart condition.
About Sacha McBain, PhD & Michelle Flaum, EdD, LPCC-S, DCMHS
Sacha McBain, PhD is a clinical psychologist and associate professor at Rush University System for Health in Chicago. Her work focuses on medical traumatic stress, including research on the conceptualization and treatment of medical trauma, clinical training, mental health screening and intervention after traumatic injury, and trauma-informed approaches within critical care and surgical settings.
Dr. McBain contributed to the American College of Surgeons Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Best Practice Guidelines Work Group and is an active member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.
Michelle Flaum, EdD, LPCC-S, DCMHS is the author of Managing the Psychological Impact of Medical Trauma: A Guide for Mental Health and Health Care Professionals and founder of the Certificate in Medical Trauma-Informed Care at Xavier University. She is a Fellow of the American Mental Health Counselors Association and a Dual-Diplomate in trauma counseling and integrated behavioral health care counseling.
Dr. Flaum has worked with the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative/Stanford University and The Council on Patient Safety in Women’s Healthcare to develop medical trauma assessment tools. She also serves as medical trauma specialist and executive board member for Live the Pain.
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Join Sacha McBain, PhD and Michelle Flaum, EdD, LPCC-S, DCMHS for practical, evidence-based tools for assessing medical traumatic stress and supporting clients through the psychological impact of a health crisis.
