Trauma-Informed Care and The Power of Creativity and Community to Heal

Marianna Jaross

Since I started studying psychology, my training included lab-reports, statistics, cognitive psychology, and the brain. After having worked across several sectors over the last decade; my interests have pivoted towards trauma-informed and humanistic care, understanding the systems in which we operate; and how we are going to create services, environments, and attitudes that actively promote healing, lessen isolation, and help us to survive the challenges of the world we live in.

Trauma-informed care means understanding the impact of trauma, how this influences a person’s behaviour; and considering the systems and environment someone exists within. It means understanding the context of a person’s experience, and supporting them to make change. It operates on understanding what happened to the person, the resources and coping skills they are utilising for survival, and facilitating shifts towards deeper understanding, supportive strategies, choice, and empowerment.

Interestingly, from my perspective, it seems that we apply this thinking retrospectively to how we train clinicians and support people. Trauma-informed was not the foundation of a lot of my training; and perhaps we could argue that it should have been. My sense is that the times have changed, and this is more deeply embedded into training programs now than it was previously. Having studied across disciplines, I sense that trauma-informed care is more present in many counselling, psychotherapy, and social-work oriented courses.

From my perspective, our initial training in healthcare often skews towards looking for a label or diagnosis on which to base our intervention and 'treatment plan.' On the one hand, we need to understand a challenge in order to guide our next steps; but if we do this without considering a person’s environment and context; we risk individualising a problem that comes from a broken system or circumstance. We then allocate responsibility incorrectly, the burden of carrying this is placed on the individual. Yes, we need to consider ‘locus of control’ and a person’s agency to make change; but we also have to acknowledge the realities of what is surrounding them that may be stopping them from doing so, or manifesting as particular ‘symptoms.’

I know that there are fabulous clinicians and services who provide support with care; and are considered, humanistic, and thoughtful in their approach. Perhaps they are able to hold a diagnosis lightly, and believe this may provide a snap-shot of the person’s current experience; but it does not explain the deeper story or context. Sometimes, people can feel validated or seen by a diagnosis; other times, from my perspective, it is problematic. For example, certain personality ‘disorders’ may be a reasonable response to trauma, abuse, and pain.

There is advocacy for depathologisation occurring, and questions around just how useful the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is. There are arguments that it is patriarchal, seeped in stigma and problematic history; and dependant on social structures. I think there are times we have to treat diagnostic arenas with care, whilst understanding some of the problematic history of the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatry. I don’t have an answer for what we are going to do with the DSM, or how it could evolve.

There are advocates in the arena of trauma-informed care and depathologisation (Dr Jessica Taylor’s work, for example). I also think there is honey to be seeped into the current cracks of the healthcare system; and for us to create something new we can move towards that feels grounded, hopeful, and considered of the opportunity, research, and understanding that we currently have. If one part of healthcare is focused on trauma-informed care and correcting potentially outdated perspectives, my stance is that another needs to focus on what we are creating anew: Something healing-informed, community-based, creativity-based, and considered. And also trauma-informed.

Here is what I think we need moving forward:

1.)   We need to deeply understand the system and context in which a person operates. Experiencing injustice, abuse, and financial stress (amongst other factors) is going to have an impact on an individual; and this is going to present as ‘symptoms’ within what we will define as particular diagnostic criteria. These symptoms, perhaps, are reasonable responses to unreasonable circumstances. Therefore, this is not an individual problem; and when we label someone, even with the intention of treatment; we are ignoring the systemic issues that contribute to their suffering. Leave these unaddressed, and we are limiting the potential for change that needs to occur outside of individual arenas.

2.)   We need to bring other qualified practitioners to help support community mental health needs within Australia. Personally, I have learned a lot from working in multidisciplinary teams. Currently, a lot of our support needs are being outsourced to psychologists, as contingent on Mental Health Treatment Plan referrals from GPs. This said, we also have qualified counsellors, psychotherapists, and social workers who I believe could be helpful to shouldering mental health support needs; and many of them are already in a variety of settings. The question for me is: Who is going to do this work of bringing professions, disciplines, and this integration into our system?

3.)   We need to focus on social prescription, community events, and non-clinical opportunities for connection. Perhaps an agenda of connection, creativity, and community seems vague; but I believe that this would help us to align to the direction we are already heading. Trauma-informed practice is one part of the equation; but we also need to create new and hopeful environments. I think change would occur from better utilising our Creative Arts Therapists, and working together to create a new wave of healing hubs.

4.)    Bringing creativity, movement, connection, and maybe even spirituality into the healing arena. From my perspective, if we are moving away from pathologisation and looking into other ways of healing; we already have potential supportive methods for this. This can exist in the form of art. Creativity. Connection. Dance. Meditation. I deeply believe that there is a way to integrate hopeful, practical practices that would support our community health; as well as our ability to combine this with ethical and considered spaces. I think community and creating opportunities for connection addresses both our isolation, and the need for spaces occurring outside of pathologisation. If we are going to improve community health and wellbeing from a broader perspective; we need to create the context and systems for people to connect and heal outside of their regular life, and perhaps outside of individualised therapeutic settings.  

If we are going to promote healing, we need to create new spaces for healing. I see this in hopeful pockets: Social prescribing hubs. A free community breathwork event. Open art studios. The introduction of psychosocial hazard legislation to support workers and workplaces to be more psychologically safe. The environments we create can help set the tone for change.

Overall, I think the next step of trauma-informed care involves the creation of non-clinical healing hubs where we can experience connection, community, art, and creativity. I believe that we have the puzzle pieces of research, and there is an opportunity to create something trauma-informed, thoughtful, hopeful, and healing.

We need to evolve towards something new, and I think we are at the juncture of opportunity to do this.

© Marianna Jaross 2026