Trauma across the Shrink Network.
The post-traumatic pattern across the network, covered from every angle.
Reviewed by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA
Trauma sits upstream of more diagnoses than most people realize. It's the obvious driver of post-traumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder, but it's also a major contributor to anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, dissociative disorders, substance use disorders, and several personality disorder presentations. Recognizing trauma as the cluster underneath, not just one of several conditions, is often what unlocks effective treatment.
Each site in the Shrink Network covers trauma from a different angle. Shrinkopedia provides the clinical reference. AnxietyResource provides the Trauma Map, the cluster of experiences visualized as one picture. AnxietyResearch summarizes the evidence for prolonged exposure, cognitive processing therapy, and EMDR. PsychiatryRx covers the medications used. shrinkMD provides the care option, with awareness of which clinicians actually do trauma-focused work.
This cluster page collects all seven layers. Trauma-focused therapies are among the most well-evidenced treatments in mental health, but they only work when the cluster is named and the right type of clinician is found. The work of that naming and that finding starts here.
Shrinkopedia
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
The clinical encyclopedia entry. DSM-5-TR criteria, the four symptom clusters (intrusion, avoidance, negative mood, hyperarousal), and the treatments with evidence.
Read on Shrinkopedia →AnxietyResource
The Trauma Map
The visual cluster page: hyperarousal, intrusive memories, avoidance, emotional numbing, triggers, sleep disturbance, hypervigilance. The cluster laid out together.
Open the Trauma Map →AnxietyResearch
Prolonged exposure, CPT, and EMDR for trauma
The evidence layer. What the research actually says about the three trauma-focused therapies with the strongest evidence.
Open AnxietyResearch →PsychiatryRx
SSRIs and prazosin for trauma
The medication layer. SSRIs as the medication baseline, prazosin specifically for trauma-related nightmares, and the cautions around benzodiazepines.
Open PsychiatryRx →shrinQ
When the body is still on guard
The pattern layer. The hyperarousal cluster operates partly through learned threat-detection patterns that persist after the danger has passed. shrinQ addresses the pattern side.
Open shrinQ →shrinkMD
Trauma-informed care at shrinkMD
The care option. Telepsychiatry with clinicians experienced in trauma-focused work, not just generic anxiety treatment.
Get care at shrinkMD →shariqrefai.com
Essays on trauma and recovery
The reflective layer. Long-form essays on what trauma teaches the nervous system, and the slow, specific work of unteaching it.
Read essays →Trauma is one of the categories where the right specific treatment matters more than for most conditions. Generic anxiety or depression treatment often doesn't move the trauma cluster, even when it helps the surface symptoms. The cluster above is the network's coverage in one place, so the search for trauma-focused clinicians and trauma-specific treatments has a complete starting point.