Create Trust Psychological Safety in Healthcare: Learn Trauma Informed Communication
Most communication breaks down not because people don’t talk—but because they don’t feel safe enough to tell the truth, ask questions, or repair missteps. The “Communication That Transforms” Online Course gives leaders and teams a framework and simple practices to create trust and psychological safety in real time through trauma informed communication —so people feel seen, heard, and valued while work moves forward.
Your communication can transform outcomes—for clients, teams, and leaders. Rooted in neuroscience and emotional intelligence, this course uses the R.E.M.A.P.™ Framework to help healthcare professionals speak, listen, and lead in ways that build safety, connection, and belonging.
A Transformational Training for Physicians & Providers
- Understand the many manifestations of trauma
- Recognize how trauma impacts patient trust & transparency
- Learn the types of communications that can either cultivate or threaten trust in both patients and fellow colleagues
- Get to the root of resistance & cultivate deeper trust with patients more quickly
- Manage difficult conversations & conflict with relative ease
- Learn trauma responsive language to navigate emotionally intense interactions
- Effectively address harmful and unacceptable behaviors and be fully heard and understood
Foundational Tools for Healthcare Leaders & Executives
- Understand the many expressions of trauma & trauma activation in self and others
- Recognize how trauma impacts provider well-being, health equity and access to care
- Learn what threatens & creates psychological safety and the impact to a culture
- Learn the communication & interactions that cultivate trust and safety in those you lead
- Provide better and more effective feedback and motivate your teams to bring their best self
- Contribute to the well-being of your providers and staff
- Create a culture that helps your workforce thrive
“The program combines clear explanations of the concepts with very practical skills of listening, speaking and asking questions that are surprisingly different from what I have seen offered before. It’s a program designed to change the way you see yourself, your people connections, and your world.” ~Dr. Conor Hughes
The R.E.M.A.P.™ Framework: Your Foundation for Learning
This course is structured around your future behaviors, not just learned content. You’ll cultivate:
- Recognize, Reflect, Regulate, & Respect – Foster self-awareness and ethical presence in communication
- Emotional Awareness & Courage – Lean into hard conversations with empathy and composure
- Model, Mirror & Mend – Role model trust and repair when things go sideways
- Adaptability, Accountability & Acknowledgement – Navigate complexity with cultural humility and responsibility
- Practice Progress Over Perfection – Embrace continuous growth and resilience as your communication evolves
As a Result of Your R.E.M.A.P Learning Journey You Will:
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Understand how trauma influences communication and their stress window of tolerance.
- Recognize how trauma, trust, and safety shape the workplace, and how emotional intelligence transforms leadership
- Build trust through building expanded listening capacity, applying advanced language frameworks, and learning trauma informed tools for navigating conflict and difficult conversations.
- Practice what they learn in real conversations, receiving live coaching for dealing with everything in communication from resistance to repair.
- Create a plan for sustainability—integrating trauma informed communication into daily practice.
See the course overview
Communication Foundations
Communication and the Brain
- Understanding the Brain & How We Process Information
- The Already Always Way We Listen & Communicate
- New Assumptions for Empowerment
- Creating SMART Goals & Well Formed Outcomes That Create Results
- Introduction to the R.E.M.A.P. Framework
Understanding Trauma
Understanding Trauma & Psychological Safety
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Why The Trauma Informed Journey
- Trauma, The Brain, & Communication
- The Interconnection of Trust & Safety
- What Creates & Destroys Trust and Safety
- The Interconnection of Trust & Safety
- Emotional Intelligence & Emotional Fluency
- Tools for Emotional Regulation
- Creating Brave and Safe Spaces
Expanding Your Listening
Expanding Our Capacity to Listen
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Rapport as the Foundation to Connection
- Listening Beyond the Words
- Non-Verbal Communication: The 93%
- Listening From Curiosity
- Listening for Another’s Values (What’s Important to Them)
- The Three Positions of Listening
- The 6 Awarenesses of Listening
- The Assumptions In Our Speaking & How to Hear Them in Others
Conscious Use of Language
Language to Connect & Transform
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How We Delete, Distort, & Generalize Information
- Powerful Questions to Get to the Root of Concerns
- The Specificity & Abstraction of Language
- Navigating Resistance in Conversation
- Frames to Help Shift Perspective
- Providing Effective Feedback
- De-escalating Conflict
- Navigating Difficult Conversations
Practical Application
Moving from Trauma Aware to Trauma Informed
- Integrating Trauma Responsiveness in Your Organization
- Using These Tools in Your Organization
- Applying The Tools in Your Relationships
- Creating Personal Accountability & Sustainability
This Course is For Individuals & Organizations:
- Hospital & Healthcare Executives Leaders & Staff
- Physicians, Advanced Practice Providers & Allied Health Practitioners
- Culture, Engagement, Belonging & Health Equity Leaders
- Medical Schools & Residency Programs
- Medical Associations
- Peer to Peer Physicians Leaders Working wtih Healthcare Payors
- Private Practice Owners
From Trauma Aware to Trauma Informed
We take leaders through the trauma informed communication journey, beginning with trauma awareness. In understanding trauma, and its impact on our brain, behavior and communication, one becomes more trauma sensitive. Then we move into practical tools that teach you:
- Emotional Intelligence, Psychological Safety, & Listening as an Equity Practice
- Emotional Regulation Techniques for Navigating One’s Own Trauma Activations
- Practical Communication Tools for Navigating Resistance and Challenging Communication
- Tips for Integrating Trauma Informed Tools into Your Organization, Relationships, & Life
Learner Objectives:
- Define Trauma, recognize it’s impact on our thinking, communication and behavior, and identify the relationship between trauma, stress, and the window of tolerance.
- Define psychological safety, what creates or destroys it, and recognize how psychological safety impacts health equity, patient trust, employee well-being, workforce stability, and the provision of culturally appropriate care.
- Identify the trauma informed journey, and utilize trauma informed listening and speaking to cultivate rapport, trust, and psychological safety with patients and interprofessional between colleagues and leaders.
- Identify practical and applicable next steps for creating a plan and accountability structures for ongoing training and development in order to bring psychological safety and trauma responsiveness to leaders, providers, employees and staff.
Principal Faculty: Maiysha Clairborne
The course director(s), planner(s), faculty and reviewer(s) of this activity have no relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
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- The course is delivered through online platform
- Instructions: In order to obtain credit, each participant is expected to complete the online material in its entirety and complete a quiz at the end of the course with a minimum 80% passing grade. Participants will then evaluate the course and claim credit. The course is expected to take 12 hours to complete.
- Estimated time to complete the educational activity; 21 hours
- Dates of the original release
- Begin Date – 4/4/2024
- End Date – 4/3/2027
CME Disclosure & Accreditation Statement for Physicians & Healthcare Professionals
Disclosure Information
As a provider of continuing education, Rush University Medical Center asks everyone who has the ability to control or influence the content of an educational activity to disclose information about all of their financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. There is no minimum financial threshold; individuals must disclose all financial relationships, regardless of the amount, with ineligible companies. Individuals must disclose regardless of their view of the relevance of the relationship to the education. Mechanisms are in place to identify and mitigate any potential conflicts of interest prior to the start of the activity. All information disclosed must be shared with the participants/learners prior to the start of the educational activity.
Unapproved Uses of Drugs/Devices: In accordance with requirements of the FDA, the audience is advised that information presented in this continuing medical education activity may contain references to unlabeled or unapproved uses of drugs or devices. Please refer to the FDA approved package insert for each drug/device for full prescribing/utilization information.
The course director(s), planner(s), faculty and reviewer(s) of this activity have no relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.
Accreditation Statement: In support of improving patient care, Rush University Medical Center is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
Joint Providership Statement: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of Rush University Medical Center and Mind ReMapping Company LLC. Rush University Medical Center is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.
Credit Designation Statements
For Medicine: Rush University Medical Center designates this enduring activity for a maximum of 22.00 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM. Physicians should claim only credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the learner to earn credit toward the CME of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program. It is the CME activity provider’s responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABS credit.
