Childhood trauma, neglect, and abandonment leave clients with overwhelmingly painful memories and emotions and a compromised nervous system that impairs their capacity to tolerate everyday life, much less trauma-related activation. Unaware that their intense reactions are driven by implicit traumatic memories lodged in the body, they resort to desperate measures to manage the overwhelm: self-harm for quick short-lasting relief, suicidal ideation to restore a sense of control, eating disorders, addictive behavior and substance abuse to numb emotion and alter consciousness. Traditional methods of treating unsafe behavior, whether in hospital, residential, or outpatient settings, cannot address the underlying trauma and have generally been only moderately effective with issues of safety.

TIST or Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment was developed to provide a trauma-informed approach to the challenges of treating self-destructive behavior. Based on theoretical principles drawn from the neuroscience research on trauma and structural dissociation theory, TIST offers a treatment approach that integrates mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, ego state techniques, and Internal Family Systems. It has been used successfully to address the challenges of treating individuals with diagnoses of complex PTSD, borderline personality, bipolar disorder, addictive and eating disorders, and dissociative disorders. Because it contextualizes self-destructive behavior as trauma-related, patients feel less pathologized, increasing their motivation to overcome self-destructive impulses as a step toward overcoming trauma.