Essential Tools on How to Identify Triggers

Many therapists help their clients understand how to identify triggers—especially if they work with clients that have gone through a traumatic event or have trouble coping with distressing situations due to their own experiences.

These clients may have maladaptive reactions to emotional triggers and could benefit from the therapeutic process of unpacking and forming new reactions to triggers.

As clients share more of their story in therapy, clinicians may begin to grasp a larger picture of how they engage with and manage their triggers.

Together, therapists and clients can then begin tackling the multi-pronged process of how to identify triggers—particularly emotional triggers—including how to deal with emotional triggers, how to react when someone triggers you, and how to overcome triggers.

Clients may have a wide range of skills around how to overcome triggers. Some may know tangible steps to take, while others may not even be aware when they are triggered in the first place.

Why it’s important to teach clients how to identify triggers

Triggers happen so quickly that they can be hard to catch and address. This is especially true given that emotional triggers impact the nervous system and generate a triggered reaction, to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

Thus, an important aspect of therapy is to help clients break down triggers, understand their origins, and learn how to deal with emotional triggers as they come up.

As a clinician that works with older adults, I find that triggers arise often around themes of grief and loss. My clients frequently avoid triggers related to grief because it feels too painful to be reminded of their loss, which can be an obstacle to learning about how to identify triggers.

However, a client who avoids triggering situations may still be able to parlay their awareness of what they avoid towards how to identify triggers in therapy.

For example, if a person experienced the death of their partner through a vehicular accident, they may avoid anything related to cars or transportation.

In learning how to identify triggers, this client may identify cars as a trigger, which will help build a plan for how they navigate this type of distress in the future.

When assisting clients in the healing process, it is important to address emotional triggers so that clients can prevent themselves from entering a state of panic, fear, or dissociation. While this takes a great deal of time and trust, I have found that the process of learning how to identify triggers can be broken down into three useful techniques.

These techniques have helped me, my clients, and other clinicians support clients to become more emotionally aware and better equipped to cope with triggers:

Techniques and steps for how to identify triggers 

The tools discussed in this article can help clients figure out how to identify triggers, so that they become more knowledgeable and empowered to embrace their emotional experiences.

Trigger management involves the following key steps for clients:

• Recognizing they have been triggered
• Identifying the source of the trigger
• Processing through the trigger
• Learning to cope with the trigger over-time

The steps listed above can be implemented through the use of therapy activities and techniques, detailed below: 

Coping with triggers through the SIFT method

SIFT is an acronym that stands for Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts.

The concept was developed by Dan Siegel, MD, an important figure in interpersonal neurobiology (the study of the mind, body, and relationships).

SIFTing involves finding a way to slow down and connect with the core aspects of experience. You can use this tool if a client is in a triggered state and/or reports that they’re having a strong emotional reaction to something.

The SIFT tool can help a person connect to their experiences, and as a result, be able to better understand the source of their trigger.

Sensations 

The first letter in the acronym, S for Sensations, is body-based.

Somatic perception can be challenging for clients who have experienced a great deal of emotional or physical trauma, so stay attuned with your client and proceed at a comfortable pace for them..

A body scan can help clients pinpoint tension in their head, a swirly feeling in the stomach, or a clenching of toes. Speaking this aloud can help the client embody the sensation and gain increased connection to their emotional state.

Images

Next, you can try and probe about images that might be coming up in their mind.

These can be actual memories or visualizations that have happened. It could also be imagery that is connected to a feeling or state of mind, and untethered to a memory or experience.

Feelings 

For feelings, it can be helpful to utilize an emotions worksheet, or wheel, to help clients locate the emotional state they are in as they figure out how to identify triggers under duress.

It is essential to move slowly through this part, as the emotional state can be connected to their physical and cognitive experience.

Thoughts

Lastly, for thoughts, it can be helpful to name any thoughts that are present for the client—even a stream of consciousness. Anything that comes to mind may be useful and help them answer the question, How to identify triggers? and then find out how to cope with triggers.

With all of this information at hand, you can reflect back to clients what they observed and what their responses say about their initial trigger.

For example, through the SIFT exercise, a client may notice they have a headache, visualize the color red, and report feeling angry when thinking about their family. They may then recognize that their trigger is feeling a lack of control and that their emotional response is related to their perceived lack of autonomy.

Meditate or relax to mitigate trigger responses

When an emotional trigger occurs and the nervous system is activated, clients may experience a range of instinctual responses—both emotional and behavioral.

As the nervous system response plays out, it becomes very challenging to stay present and work through the trigger at hand. An important tool in how to identify triggers, as well as coping with triggers, is to engage in meditation or relaxation exercises.

Triggers can result in painful memories or emotions resurfacing, and meditation can alleviate the pain from emotional triggers by creating a sense of safety.

Whether utilizing guided meditation, breathing counts, or practicing mindfulness, these relaxation techniques give the brain an opportunity to reach a place of calm and emotional regulation.

One relaxation exercise that may be especially helpful to teach clients how to identify triggers and understand their reactions to emotional triggers is called progressive muscle relaxation (PMR). PMR is a somatic intervention that was developed by Edmund Jacobson, MD, in the early 1920’s.

There are two steps to PMR: 

1. Creating and releasing tension: This involves creating tension in certain parts of the body and then focusing on releasing the tension. As a clinician, you can guide your client through various body parts (it is recommended to move systematically, such as starting with the face and moving downwards), and inviting them to hold tension for a handful of seconds and then releasing.
2. Inhale, exhale, then reflect: Pairing the first step with deeply inhaling and exhaling can add an extra benefit. Once finished, you can help your client notice the difference in tension in their body from the beginning of the exercise and reflect on what created their trigger response initially.

Journaling about emotional triggers

A journal is a powerful tool for reflection because it helps clinicians and clients gather historical data for further understanding of emotional triggers and patterns.

The best time to journal for tracking triggers would be after a highly triggering, or emotion-inducing event, occurs.

Prompts that can guide the writing might include:

• What was the antecedent to feeling the strong reaction of emotion?

• • Describe the situation in as much detail as possible: What happened? Who was there? What was the environment like?
• Describe what specific emotions occurred during and after the emotional trigger.
  • How did my body respond to the trigger? What thoughts went through my mind after the trigger occurred?
• Has this trigger taken place before?
  •  Are there any patterns that I am noticing with triggers and emotions I experience?
• What has helped me in the past when this trigger took place?
  •  Is there anything I could try for self-care or support if this happens again in the future?

Writing and journaling is a wonderful option for clients who may not be as inclined to explore triggers using somatic or meditative tools.

If the client is more cognitive or creative, journaling may offer a different pathway for trigger identification and trigger management.

Collaborating with your client on how to identify triggers

Identifying triggers is unique to each client and requires a person-centered approach to therapy.

However you decide to support your clients in understanding their emotional triggers, maintaining trust and and security in your therapeutic relationships will be what helps your clients most on their journey to growth and healing.

The more attuned we can be to our clients’ needs, the more we can guide them toward learning to live with, and even how to overcome, triggers.

How SimplePractice streamlines running your practice

SimplePractice is HIPAA-compliant practice management software with everything you need to run your practice built into the platform—from booking and scheduling to insurance and client billing.

If you’ve been considering switching to an EHR system, SimplePractice empowers you to run a fully paperless practice—so you get more time for the things that matter most to you.

Try SimplePractice free for 30 days. No credit card required.