A Trauma-Informed Curriculum for Teaching Interpersonal Neurobiology to Graduate Students: Building Resiliency and Efficacy

Students in mental health care professions, including counsellors, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatrists, will inevitably encounter patients who have experienced trauma. Estimates are that 80 percent of American adults have experienced trauma (Benjet et al., 2016; Kilpatrick et al., 2013, as cited in Briere & Scott, 2025), and for many of them, cumulative/multiple traumas. As a result, trainees need to be cognizant of several domains of knowledge that factor into a broad understanding of traumatology to best serve their patients, to practice ethically, and to strengthen their own resilience with respect to burnout, vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue. We view trauma as the neurophysiological and continued impact on the nervous system and less in terms of the actual traumatic event itself. We teach the assessment and treatment of trauma within the broader field of interpersonal neurobiology and have over many years of instructing carefully considered what elements need to be included in a graduate-level course on trauma for health care students. This paper outlines the development of such a curriculum and includes an overall focus on building clinician resilience through emphasizing the importance of a regulated nervous system, part of which includes an understanding of one’s attachment “style”. The course emphasizes concepts in interpersonal neurobiology, including therapeutic presence, affect regulation theory, Polyvagal theory, adverse childhood experiences, posttraumatic growth, mirror neurons, and vicarious trauma and self-care practices. These concepts are situated within a strong social justice framework, an emphasis on what clients needed to do to survive, as well as an appreciation of the roles of intersectionality, culture, and diversity, and how language practices impact and shape the discourse around trauma and interpersonal violence.