What is TIST, and how can it help me?

Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST) is a type of therapy designed for people who’ve experienced complex trauma—especially those who feel emotionally overwhelmed, disconnected, or like different “parts” of them are pulling in different directions.

If you’ve ever felt like one part of you wants to move forward, while another part is stuck in the past or sabotaging your progress, TIST helps make sense of that inner struggle. It focuses on stabilizing your emotional world before digging into deeper trauma processing—so you can feel safer and more in control first.

This approach is especially helpful for people who:

• Have experienced long-term or early life trauma

• Feel emotionally fragmented or disconnected from themselves

• Experience dissociation, flashbacks, or "zoning out"

• Have symptoms like Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), where trauma shows up in physical ways (e.g., seizures, fainting, numbness)

In TIST, you’ll learn to:

• Recognize your “parts”—different emotional states or survival strategies that show up at different times (like a scared child part, a critical inner voice, or a shutdown part).

• Build a relationship with your adult self—the part of you that can lead with compassion, wisdom, and grounding.

• Create daily tools and routines that help you feel more emotionally steady and reduce overwhelm.

What happens in sessions?

Your therapist may guide you to:

• Learn to manage flashbacks or emotional floods by practicing a technique called “dual awareness”—where you gently notice when a trauma memory is activated, while also staying aware that you’re safe in the present.

• Build a stabilization routine—a set of practices you use daily to stay grounded and connected to your adult self. This might include mindfulness, breathing, checking in with your inner parts, and using grounding tools when emotions spike.

• Work with your parts gently—getting to know them, earning their trust, and helping them feel safe enough to stop using extreme coping strategies like shutting down, acting out, or withdrawing.

TIST is all about helping you feel more emotionally balanced and less overwhelmed—especially if you have a history of trauma or dissociation. It gives you tools to feel safer inside your own mind and body, and helps different parts of you work together instead of against each other.