Four Steps of Trauma Therapy: Stabilization, Safety, Reprocessing, and Integration
Addressing trauma can feel overwhelming, especially if you have avoided it or been told to “just move on” and “forgive and forget.” Unfortunately, trauma doesn’t work like that. The effects of trauma live in the body, in the nervous system, in memory, and in the ways we relate to ourselves and others.
That is why trauma therapy is not a quick fix. Trauma recovery is a layered, compassionate process that unfolds in steps. Judith Herman, in her book Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence, outlines a three-stage model of trauma healing: establishing safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection. Many trauma therapists have built on this framework, including by identifying an essential stabilization step that must come before safety can be truly felt.
The following are the stages that I usually reference in working with clients:
Stabilization
Safety
Trauma Reprocessing
Post-Traumatic Growth (Integration)
These stages don’t always happen in order. You might circle back, repeat, or spend longer in one stage than another. That is normal. What matters is moving at a pace that feels safe and supportive for your body and nervous system.
Step One: Stabilization
Before diving into trauma memories, the first step is stabilization. This is an essential first step because recovery cannot occur in isolation. Survivors must first establish a secure base from which healing is possible. Stabilization is about ensuring basic survival needs are met so the nervous system can come out of constant crisis mode.
What stabilization looks like:
Housing: Having a safe, stable place to live; not staying with an unsafe partner or family, not in constant fear of eviction. For someone leaving a high-demand group/ cult, this might mean finding housing outside the group’s community, which can be both freeing and destabilizing.
Access to food and clean water: Regular meals and hydration are fundamental. Trauma survivors often come from environments where even these needs were neglected or controlled.
Healthcare and medication: Access to doctors and necessary prescriptions (such as for chronic illness, pain, or psychiatric support). Without this, healing stalls.
Financial stability: Having enough income or resources to meet basic needs. Financial dependence on unsafe systems or people can keep survivors stuck.
Freedom from ongoing violence: Healing cannot begin if someone is still in the middle of active abuse, intimate partner violence, coercive control, or in the middle of active political violence. Removing oneself from immediate danger, while can be incredibly difficult, is part of stabilization.
Substance use support: If substance use has become a coping strategy for overwhelming pain, stabilization often means accessing recovery support. This does not necessarily require immediate abstinence, but it does involve reducing harm and finding safer ways to cope, whether through medical care and harm-reduction programs. This is because recurring substance abuse can prevent you from accessing the next steps.
Example from high-demand groups:
For someone leaving a strict community, stabilization may look like:
Finding employment outside the community.
Learning to manage finances independently, especially if financial control was part of the group dynamic.
Accessing healthcare after years of medical neglect (e.g., being discouraged from therapy or psychiatric medication).
Building a safe support network outside of the group context.
Stabilization is about survival and getting out of crisis mode. While therapy can certainly help address the roadblocks and barriers that get in the way, true trauma processing requires a baseline level of access to basic needs. Without that foundation, the nervous system remains in crisis. Expecting someone to heal without stabilization is like expecting a child to perform perfectly in school while living with ongoing violence at home. It’s simply unrealistic.
Step Two: Safety
Once a foundation of stability is in place, the next step is cultivating safety. Safety is about learning to feel safe in your own body, in your relationships, and in therapy. Without it, the body remains locked in fight, flight, or freeze.
What safety involves:
Relational safety: Building trust with your therapist and with supportive people who don’t replicate old patterns of control. For many survivors, this can be the first relationship where their voice matters.
Body-based safety: Trauma often disconnects us from our bodies. Safety work includes grounding exercises, nervous system regulation, and recognizing bodily cues of both danger and safety.
Resourcing: Creating inner and outer tools of support. Examples include visualization of safe places, using calming music, or having a trusted friend to call.
Boundaries: Learning to say no, recognizing red flags, and trusting yourself to protect your own needs.
Practical examples of safety-building:
A client learns grounding techniques: pressing feet into the floor, holding a cool glass of water—to bring their body back to the present.
Acquiring a “tool kit” of resources and ideas to regulate panic attacks. (e.g. breath work, ice pack, 54321 technique, soothing activities, candy, etc.)
Rebuilding a sense of spiritual safety after religious trauma, perhaps by redefining or rejecting previously imposed beliefs.
Identifying which relationships truly feel supportive and which continue cycles of harm.
Safety work often takes time. For many survivors of chronic trauma, such as childhood abuse, coercive control, or religious trauma, learning to feel safe again can take months or years. But it is foundational for moving into deeper work. This can also be revisited as many times as needed. You do not need to be an “expert” in safety to move to the next step.
Step Three: Trauma Reprocessing
When stabilization and safety are strong enough, survivors can begin the deeper work of reprocessing trauma. This step is about dual awareness, being able to remember what happened while staying anchored in the present.
Traumatic memories often get stored in fragmented, sensory-driven ways. Instead of being filed into the brain’s adaptive memory systems, they feel stuck, like they are happening “now,” not “then.” Reprocessing helps integrate these memories so they become part of the past, rather than continuing to hijack the present.
Different therapeutic approaches to reprocessing:
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing): Clients recall traumatic memories while engaging in bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tapping, or sounds). This helps the brain re-store maladaptive memories in the hippocampus, where they can be integrated adaptively.
Somatic Therapy: Focuses on the body’s experience. A client might describe a traumatic event while the therapist helps them track bodily sensations, ground in the present, and breathe through discomfort.
IFS (Internal Family Systems): Explores protective parts of the psyche. For example, a part that uses perfectionism to avoid criticism may be trying to protect a younger part that still carries the burden of past trauma. By understanding and honoring these roles, healing occurs.
Psychodynamic Therapy: Examines how unresolved trauma shapes current behaviors and relationships, helping clients make connections between past and present patterns.
Examples:
A client who was shamed in their religious community for questioning authority might, in IFS, begin by noticing the parts of themselves that still carry the shame and fear. Perhaps a protective part insists on staying silent to avoid criticism, while a younger, more vulnerable part still holds the pain of being dismissed. With the therapist’s guidance, the client can develop compassion for these parts, learn how they have been trying to help, and gradually release the burden of shame. Over time, the memory no longer feels like a current threat.
In Psychodynamic therapy, the same client might explore how early experiences of silencing shaped current patterns, perhaps avoiding conflict in relationships, hesitating to assert needs, or carrying chronic guilt. By bringing these unconscious patterns into awareness, the client begins to see how the past is replaying in the present. Over time, this awareness allows them to experiment with new ways of relating: speaking up, setting boundaries, and engaging in relationships without the same fear of rejection.
Through EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), the client could call to mind the shaming incident while engaging in bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements or tapping). This process helps the brain reprocess the memory so it moves from being stuck in the “trauma now” state to being filed as a past event. The client may notice that the emotional charge decreases and the memory becomes less overwhelming. Eventually, they may be able to think about the event without the same visceral flood of fear or shame.
In Somatic Therapy, the focus would be on how the body holds that memory of being silenced. The client might notice tightness in the throat, shallow breathing, or tension in the chest when recalling the experience. With gentle guidance, the therapist supports the client in staying connected to the present, perhaps using grounding through the feet, breathwork, or orienting to the room. Over time, this allows the body to release stored survival energy, helping the client not only remember the event differently but also feel freer and more at ease in their body.
This stage is often emotionally intense, but it can also be profoundly liberating. Herman describes this as the stage of “remembrance and mourning,” allowing survivors to confront, grieve, and release what has been carried.
Step Four: Post-Traumatic Growth & Integration
The final step is integration, sometimes called post-traumatic growth. This is where healing expands into new ways of living.
In Herman’s model, this aligns with “reconnection,” the phase where survivors rebuild relationships, engage in meaningful work, and rediscover joy.
What integration looks like:
Making meaning: Understanding how trauma shaped identity, and choosing how to integrate it into life’s story.
Identity development: Asking, “Who am I now?” outside of trauma, outside of oppressive systems. For those leaving high-demand groups, this might include exploring sexuality, spirituality, career, or personal passions without guilt.
Resilience and empowerment: Recognizing strengths developed through survival; courage, empathy, creativity.
Living forward: Creating a life not defined by trauma, whether through advocacy, relationships, personal growth, or simply the ability to feel present and at peace.
Example:
A survivor of religious trauma may, after reprocessing, find empowerment in reclaiming their voice, perhaps through writing, art, or connecting with supportive communities. Instead of being silenced, they learn to speak with authority and compassion.
Integration doesn’t mean the trauma never happened or that pain never resurfaces. It means the trauma no longer dictates identity or daily functioning. Survivors move from merely surviving to living.
Why This Process Matters
Many people wonder why trauma therapy can’t just “get to the point” of reprocessing right away. Judith Herman answers this clearly: trying to work with traumatic memories before safety and stabilization are established risks retraumatization. Survivors may feel overwhelmed, shut down, or spiral into crisis.
Healing is not about speed. Recovery requires safety, pacing, and connection. These four steps create a map that honors the complexity of trauma and the courage it takes to heal.
Reach out to start therapy or to learn more.
Resources:
Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence
Richard Schwartz, No Bad Parts
Peter Levine, Waking the Tiger
Disclaimer:
⚠️ The content on this blog is intended for informational and educational purposes ONLY and should NOT be considered a substitute for professional mental health care, diagnosis, or treatment. Reading these posts does not establish a therapeutic relationship.
If you are currently in crisis, experiencing thoughts of harming yourself or others, or are in need of immediate support, please call 911 or contact a crisis line such as the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 (U.S.) or access your local emergency services.
These blog posts are written to explore topics like trauma, religious deconstruction, cults, identity development, and mental wellness in a thoughtful and compassionate way. They may (or may not) resonate deeply, especially for those healing from complex trauma, but they are NOT meant to replace individualized therapy or medical care.
