Supporting a Loved One Through Trauma

If you’re reading this, chances are you know someone—a family member, a close friend, a colleague—who has been through a deeply difficult experience. The statistics are sobering: almost two-thirds of people in Canada will experience a traumatic event in their lifetime. While not everyone develops PTSD, the impact of trauma lingers, reshaping how a person sees the world and themselves.

Consider the two stories below

There’s Sam, who grew up in a supportive home. At 18, Sam was sexually assaulted at a party by friends. Choosing to stay quiet at first, Sam’s parents noticed the change—the hypervigilance, the flashbacks—and gently created a space where Sam felt safe enough to speak. Even with a loving family, the world now feels like a less safe place.

Then there’s Jo, a 15-year-old who never had that foundation. With alcoholic parents, Jo’s childhood was marked by neglect and witnessing domestic abuse. This early trauma manifests at school through an inability to focus, disruptions, and even run-ins with the law for fighting. For Jo, the world has never felt safe or predictable.

Their stories are different, but their needs are similar. If you have a loved one working to heal from trauma, here are three powerful ways you can support their journey.

1. Frontload Information: Create Predictability

Trauma shatters a person’s sense of control. For both Sam and Jo, their worlds were turned upside down by events they had no power to stop. This often leaves them in a state of high alert, anxious about what might happen next.

You can help rebuild a sense of safety through frontloading—providing information ahead of time about plans, processes, or even ambiguous situations.

• For someone like Jo: Informing them that you’re having guests for dinner well in advance, instead of an hour before, gives them time to process and prepare. It removes the shock of the unexpected.

• For someone like Sam: Acknowledging uncertainty is powerful. Saying, “I don’t know how this meeting will turn out, and I might be disappointed if it doesn’t go our way,” validates their anxiety while modeling how to navigate uncertain outcomes together.

This simple act of forecasting reduces the power of unknown triggers and makes the world feel more manageable.

2. Collaborate, Don't Dictate: Reverse the Power Imbalance

At its core, trauma involves a complete loss of power and voice. The healing process, therefore, must be about restoring that agency.

Collaboration is the practice of reversing power imbalances. It facilitates partnership, mutual respect, and shared decision-making. It shifts the dynamic from ‘helper’ and ‘helpee’ to a team working together. As Dr. Scott Giacomucci from the Phoenix Trauma Center notes, this provides a crucial sense of psychological safety where the individual feels seen, heard, and valued.

This could look like:

• Empowering Sam or Jo to express what they need in a given moment.

• Asking, “What do you think would work best for us here?” instead of issuing a solution.

• Establishing new daily routines together, through conversation and agreement.

When you collaborate, you send a powerful message: “Your voice matters. You have choices here.”

3. Foster Safe Connections: Rebuild Trust

So much trauma involves a betrayal within interpersonal relationships. Both Sam and Jo were profoundly let down by people they should have been able to trust. Healing, therefore, often happens in the context of safe, reliable connections.

Your role isn’t to be their therapist, but to be a consistent, trustworthy presence in their life. Show up for them. Be predictable. Follow through on your promises, no matter how small. This consistency helps restore their faith that not everyone is bad and that the world holds safe people.

Gently encourage them to widen their circle of trust at their own pace. And perhaps most importantly, model healthy behaviors yourself, including forgiveness. Holding onto anger and resentment eats away at a person’s health; showing them a path through those feelings is a gift.

Supporting someone through trauma isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about offering presence, patience, and these simple, trauma-informed approaches that can make all the difference.

If you are interested in support for you as you support a loved one who has experienced a traumatic event, please reach out to us at Panorama Wellness Group - we offer in-person and virtual psychotherapy and counselling sessions in Langley and Surrey, BC as well as throughout BC.