When Trauma Disrupts Careers: Rebuilding Meaning Through Trauma-Informed Coaching

At the Resilience Under Pressure Seminar hosted by American Friends of NATAL, NATAL, and the Israel Center on Addiction (ICA), Dr. Hadar Ben-Sira Rothman presented “Bridging Trauma and Career: A Multi-Disciplinary Model for Professional Reintegration.” 

The talk centered on a practical problem: post-traumatic stress does not stop at the clinic door. It follows people into job searches, interviews, and offices and often showing up as hyperarousal, avoidance, sleep disruption, and difficulty concentrating. Because work provides structure, financial stability, social connection, and a renewed sense of capability, supporting re-entry is not a nice-to-have; it is central to recovery.

A Case Study: Jenny

Jenny had plans to attend the Nova Festival with her friends. She overslept and they ended up leaving without her.  Waking up in time for the festival, Jenny got in her car and arrived just as the attacks were happening. Running for her life, she survived, but came home traumatized and unable to get out of bed, eat, go to work or school.  After several months, her friends and family convinced her to seek help.  She went through the program outlined below. Using coping strategies and working with Dr. Ben-Sira Rothman after 12 sessions, Jenny found employment and has been able to keep it. While she is still dealing with trauma, she is able to work through some of it with the right support.

Why Traditional Coaching Misses the Mark

Many career services assume intact executive functioning and steady self-regulation. Trauma alters that baseline. People may struggle to get out of bed on time after broken sleep, to tolerate noise and bright lights without becoming irritable, to accept managerial authority without interpreting it as a threat, or to maintain a coherent sense of occupational identity. 

A Trauma-Informed Career Coaching Intervention

Using NATAL’s program as a case example, Dr. Ben-Sira Rothman outlined a trauma-informed coaching model that treats employment as both a recovery goal and a recovery tool. The model combines knowledge from trauma care, labor-market realities, and professional coaching. It is short and structured, delivered by senior career coaches, vocational social workers, or occupational psychologists with trauma training. 

How the Process Unfolds

The program begins with an initial outreach and a brief intake to understand educational and work history, relevant traumatic exposure, current supports, key challenges, and goals. Participants complete a structured assessment that may include standardized symptom measures (e.g., PCL) and self-ratings of readiness and needs. Coaching then proceeds over a time-limited series of sessions with brief follow-ups, combining psychoeducation and regulation strategies with practical work on career direction, soft skills, and job-search execution. After the core phase, some individuals continue with mentorship to sustain progress, pairing with professionals in their field. 

What Changes in Day-to-Day Functioning

Because the intervention is symptom-informed, it directly targets common workplace pain points. Executive functions are rebuilt through small, repeatable practices that make impulse control, planning, prioritization, task initiation, organization, self-monitoring, and flexible thinking more accessible under stress. Sleep routines and environmental tweaks help reduce lateness and improve concentration. Sensory triggers are anticipated and managed so that lights, noises, and odors do not cascade into rage or shutdown. Authority relationships are reframed and rehearsed, turning potentially threatening interactions with managers into predictable, tolerable exchanges. Over time, these practical adjustments help knit back a sense of competence and occupational identity.

Why Employment Itself Supports Recovery

The program treats work as part of the therapeutic landscape. Employment interrupts stagnation, strengthens family and personal well-being through economic stability, and restores self-esteem by translating effort into visible results. Conversely, prolonged unemployment can deepen negative self-beliefs and erode functioning. Trauma-informed practice, as defined in guidance such as SAMHSA’s principles, aims to recognize these dynamics, reduce re-traumatization, and use understanding of trauma’s effects to shape safer, more effective support. In a career context, that means mapping how symptoms show up at work and teaching people to manage them in ways that protect productivity and dignity.

The Model’s Distinctive Features

What distinguishes this intervention is not branding but design. It integrates clinical insight directly into career work rather than treating mental health and employment as separate tracks. It pairs directive, goal-oriented coaching with a non-judgmental stance that encourages autonomy and responsibility. It is time-limited yet extensible through mentoring. And it remains systemic by asking what additional supports exist in the participant’s world and how to enlist them.

From Clinic to Career: A Practical Bridge

This approach does not replace therapy, nor is it standard placement services. It occupies the middle ground where recovery meets performance. By translating symptom knowledge into workplace strategies, and translating workplace demands into manageable steps, it offers a realistic route back to participation. 

The program was developed with Shaked Arieli, MSW; Tamar Lavi, Ph.D ; Liron Lapid Pickman, Ph.D; and Rachel Dekel, Ph.D.

The lesson from Dr. Ben-Sira Rothman’s talk is straightforward: when programs honor both vulnerability and capacity, people can move from surviving to contributing. For many survivors, that is the way not only back into the labor market, but back to meaning.