Relational Trauma Support: The 4 Components of Self Care
What are the biopsychosocial basics that form the foundation of trauma self-care?
What does biopsychosocial basics even mean?
Biopsychosocial basics refers to a comprehensive approach to health and well-being that integrates biological (physical health), psychological (mental and emotional health), and social (relationships and support systems) factors.
This integrated framework emphasizes the importance of balancing all three dimensions to achieve overall well-being.
Esteemed psychiatrist and interpersonal neurobiological expert, Dan Siegel, M.D., has conducted extensive research and work on this concept of the biopsychosocial basic, teaching it in the form of what he calls “The Healthy Mind Platter.”
The Healthy Mind Platter (which I’ve written about before “I’m So Dysregulated. What Can I Do?” (Part One) but will go into more detail when I release the future piece on biopsychosocial basics) outlines seven essential mental activities necessary for optimum mental health, similar to a balanced diet necessary for decent-enough physical health.
These activities include (fairly predictably) sleep and physical activity and (less predictably) focus time, time in, down time, play time, and connecting time, all of which contribute to a well-rounded and healthy mind.
The premise here is that when our biopsychosocial basics are in place, when that drawer is full and replete (as it were), we give ourselves a firm chance for decent emotional health on a daily basis.
Why is emotional regulation the second essential drawer in your trauma self-care toolkit?
What does emotional regulation even mean?
Emotional regulation refers to the ability to manage and respond to an emotional experience in a healthy and adaptive way.
It involves recognizing and naming, understanding the signal value of, and managing one’s emotions in an adaptive way to navigate life’s ups and downs effectively.
This skill is crucial for maintaining mental and emotional well-being, allowing us all to handle stress, cultivate maintain relationships (versus pushing them away and destroying them), and achieve whatever personal goals we may have.
One of my very earliest pieces I ever published was on feelings and emotional regulation, but I’ll share much more about emotional regulation skills when we dive into it in a subsequent piece.
What coping skills belong in the third drawer of your trauma self-care toolkit?
What do coping skills even mean?
And how are they different from emotional regulation skills?
Well, emotional regulation skills are how we identify, name, use and appropriately express our feelings as they come and go.
And coping skills are what we use when our feelings feel too big inside of us and we’ve eclipsed our window of tolerance.
Coping skills, in essence, refer to the strategies and techniques individuals use to manage really challenging, emotionally overwhelming situations.
And, let’s be real, for those of us from relational trauma backgrounds, really challenging situations can be “objectively” small moments that subjectively feel huge and overwhelming (especially before we’ve done more of our trauma processing work in stage two of the trauma treatment model).
So it behooves all of us from trauma backgrounds to have a really rich and full drawer of coping skills for our own relational trauma support since we’ll likely be using them A LOT.
I’ve written about coping tools before 101 self-care suggestions and “I’m So Dysregulated. What Can I Do?” (Part Two) but I’ll share even more ideas with you in the next piece exclusively on this subject.
What resilience tools go in the fourth drawer of your trauma self-care toolkit?
What do resilience tools even mean?
And how and why is this different from coping tools?
Think of it this way: coping tools are what we use in the moment when a big surge of feeling comes up in us and knocks us totally off balance.
Resilience tools are what we employ across a longer duration of time when a setback happens that evokes hard emotions, sure, but that don’t necessarily flood us.
Still though, these resilience tools are what we still need to work through in order to recover, adapt and get through tough times that would otherwise demoralize us.
In other words, resilience tools refer to a whole set of other strategies and practices that let us rebound from adversity, pivot and adjust when change happens, and attempt to thrive in life despite difficult circumstances.
We’ll dive into how and why (and how you can foster these skills) in a future piece on this topic.
When and why should you seek professional support to build your self-care tool chest?
While understanding the concept of a self-care tool chest is valuable, many trauma survivors find that actually filling these “drawers” requires professional guidance to navigate the underlying beliefs and nervous system responses that make self-care feel foreign or threatening.
A trauma-informed therapist doesn’t just teach you coping strategies—they help you understand why your tool chest is empty in the first place, tracing back to specific childhood experiences where these skills couldn’t safely develop. Through the therapeutic process, you’re simultaneously grieving what you didn’t receive while actively building what you need now, often discovering that the relationship itself becomes a living laboratory for practicing emotional regulation and healthy coping.
This work becomes especially powerful during phase one of trauma therapy, where establishing safety and stability through these foundational tools creates the necessary platform for deeper healing work.
For those beginning this journey, understanding the important things to know when considering therapy can help you make informed decisions about finding the right therapeutic support. The therapeutic relationship offers something your childhood may have lacked—a consistent, attuned presence that models the very regulation and care you’re learning to provide for yourself, gradually filling each drawer with tools that become second nature rather than foreign concepts.
What is the most important takeaway from building your trauma self-care tool chest?
So these are the four drawers I personally conceptualize when I think of a “self-care” tool chest in stage one of trauma work with my clients.
Now, at this point I’ll say that there is, arguably, a whole other tool chest related to re-parenting strategies which I’ll also write more about someday, but, for now, I hope it feels helpful to see how I conceptualize these relational trauma support and self-care ideas at a very high level.
Again, those of us from relational trauma backgrounds might have deficits in each of these drawers, but it doesn’t AT ALL mean we can’t learn or re-learn the tools to put in these drawers.
In fact, that’s a huge part of my work with my therapy clients and my online course students and I’ll share more details about each of these drawers and tools in subsequent pieces.
But for now I’d love to hear from you:
Did this analogy help you better understand what kinds of “drawers” of tools you might need to cultivate and develop in your own relational trauma recovery journey? Which drawer feels like the “most full and complete” and the “least full and most incomplete” for you?
If you feel so inclined, please leave a message so our community of 30,000 blog readers can benefit from your share and wisdom.
Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.
Warmly,
Annie
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