Growing After Trauma

Counselor Brad Hambrick offers a comprehensive 9-step guide for navigating the aftermath of a traumatic experience.

Trauma is an intense past experience with lingering effects in the present. It is futile to minimize trauma’s impact, but trauma should not have the last word on our lives. Growing After Trauma seeks to help readers strike this balance. As we understand and counter the impact of trauma, we can live satisfying and fruitful lives. Hambrick outlines a process for finding peace after trauma by establishing an environment of safety, processing painful memories, and reengaging the life God designed for you to live.

This biblically-rooted plan can be used as a personal study, with a counselor, or in a group. Whether your experience of trauma is from military service, serving as a first responder, abuse or human trafficking, a natural disaster, or a mass violence event, Growing After Trauma helps readers understand the impact of their trauma and identify ways to become increasingly free from its impact. It emphasizes patience, self-care, and reliance on God’s care while encouraging individuals to move forward at their own pace, while celebrating each marker of progress.

9-step model helps participants understand the struggles that accompany trauma and gives actionable strategies for overcoming with the hope of the gospel. In-depth resource for churches and individuals to use for support groups to heal from trauma in a faith-filled and safe way. A resource in the Church-Based Counseling series, built on the G4 model of subject-specific, lay-led counseling groups, designed to help churches create sustainable lay counseling ministries.

1. Opening Credits
2. Feeling Like There Is No Place to Rest Step 1: PREPARE yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually to face your suffering. Part 1: Where Are We Going?
3. Step 1 Part 2: Where Do I Begin?
4. Living with “I Can’t Forget and I Don’t Want to Remember” Step 2: ACKNOWLEDGE the specific history and realness of my suffering. Part 1: Gaining Categories for Understanding Trauma
5. Step 2 Part 2: Learning to See the Impact of Trauma
6. What “Invisible Injuries” Have I Suffered? Step 3: UNDERSTAND the impact of my suffering. Part 1: From Victim to Survivor to Steward
7. Step 3 Part 2: Factors That Influence the Impact of Trauma
8. Step 3 Part 3: Common Impacts from Trauma
9. Is God Dead or Life Meaningless—or Am I Crazy? Step 4: LEARN MY SUFFERING STORY that I used to make sense of my experience. Part 1: How We Narrate Our Lives
10. Step 4 Part 2: Who Is God? Who Am I Now?
11. Step 4 Part 3: Who Are Others? What Is Life About?
12. Step 4 Part 4: How to Articulate Your Suffering Story
13. Trusting God with My Tears Step 5: MOURN the wrongness of what happened and receive God’s comfort. Part 1: What Are You Mourning?
14. Step 5 Part 2: Differentiating Mourning from Fixation
15. Step 5 Part 3: Learning How to Mourn
16. Accepting Challenges to Overcome in God's Strength Step 6: LEARN MY GOSPEL STORY by which God gives meaning to my experience Part 1: Who Am I Now? Who and Where Is God
17. Step 6 Part 2: Where Am I? Is Hope Worth Fear? What Am I Living For?
18. Reengaging Life and Relationships Step 7: IDENTIFY GOALS that allow me to combat the impact of my suffering Part 1: Settling Hyperarousal Symptoms
19. Step 7 Part 2: Countering Intrusive Symptoms
20. Step 7 Part 3: Alleviating Constrictive Symptoms and Fragmentation
21. Step 7 Part 4: Refuting Shame and Healing From Abuse-Rooted Trauma
22. Experiencing the Anticlimactic of the Post-Traumatic Step 8: PERSEVERE in the new life and identity to which God has called me Part 1: Marks of a New, Healthier Normal
23. Step 8 Part 2: Preparing to Transition from G4
24. Learning to Live for Good Instead of in Response to Pain Step 9: STEWARD all of my life for God's glory Step 9 Part 1: Nine Questions to Stewards Your Life for God's Glory
25. Appendix A: A Word to G4 Group Leaders
26. Appendix B: Understanding and Responding to Secondary Traumatic Stress
27. Closing Credits