The six stages of the TR6 Trauma Model™

The TR6 Trauma Model™ presents trauma not as a diagnosis but as an orientation: a ladder of six recognisable stages with an above-the-line and below-the-line structure. People do not climb the ladder in a straight line, they oscillate through it.

1. 1

   Lack of Reconciliation

   The struggle to reconcile the irreconcilable: an open wound and the seeking of ambiguous closure.

2. 2

   Re-Injury

   The repetition of harm through a conditioned lack of boundaries, fawning or appeasement, reinforced by cultural and family obligations, celebrations and ongoing entanglement with what first caused the injury.

3. 3

   Ruminations

   Obsessive loops of ‘why’: the mind circling endlessly without resolution as an attempt to regain control, a defence against the despair of accepting the starkness of what is.

4. 4

   Resentment

   Embodied embitterment: the weight of unresolved pain that could not be discharged.

5. 5

   Rage

   The psyche’s protest against violations that demand truth. Rage acts as an ultimate boundary. Suppressed or explosive anger is the rupture of truth, long denied expression, that masks deep pain and hurt, the anguish of powerlessness that structures beliefs and can perpetuate a victim identity.

6. 6

   Revenge

   The final rung, where the longing for justice turns toward retaliation, fantasy or self-erasure. Named here not to endorse it, but so it can be seen, understood and moved through.