How Integrated Care Can Help Minimize and Prevent Medical Trauma

I was so happy to get a chance to talk with Nic Schmoyer-Edmiston, Ph.D., NCC an asistant professor in the department of counseling at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, about Integrated Behavioral Healthcare and the Enduring Somatic Threat Model and how these two topics can significantly reduce and medical trauma! If you want to check out the podcast, you can find it here on Spotify or find it here on YouTube.

Nic researches Integrated Behavioral Healthcare, which is incorporating behavioral health/mental healthcare, into traditional medical settings like a primary care doctor’s office, a surgery center and hospitals. There is research that shows the positive impact it can have on someone’s experience of the medical event. And we know that trauma is based on someone’s experience of an event, not the actual event, so making resources available that improve the experience and offer a place to process a scary, oftentimes painful event can make the difference between it being a medical trauma or not.

We also discuss the Enduring Somatic Threat Model which is a different way to understand and treat medical trauma. The Enduring Somatic Threat Model approaches medical trauma differently than the traditional PTSD model because medical trauma is different. Medical Trauma happens to our bodies and there is often an ongoing experience such as when we have a chronic illness that we are reminded of daily. This is different than a one time traumatic event that happened in the past, medical trauma is often part of an ongoing physical experience. Because a one time traumatic event and medical trauma are often so different, it is important that more people are aware of this model and the differences that people with medical trauma experience.

I hope that reading this and listening to the podcast, which shares more in depth information on integrated behavioral health and the Enduring Somatic Threat Model, will help you to see that you aren’t alone and that there are people who understand what you are going through. Through Nic’s work researching these topics as well as teaching this information to new mental health counselors, more and more people will become educated on medical trauma and there will be more support options and less incidences of medical trauma.