The TR6 Trauma Model™

What happens when trauma is no longer simply about what happened, but about what remains unresolved, repeatedly reactivated and woven into the way a person now experiences themselves, other people and the world?

Why do some people thrive in spite of complex trauma and significant adversity, yet others continue to suffer, become unwell, even die? That question became the foundation of my life's most significant body of work: the TR6 Trauma Model™: Descent into the Shadow.

TR6 is a non-diagnostic model developed to understand complex and relational trauma not simply as a collection of symptoms, but as a dynamic process in which people can move, adapt, become caught, regress, recover and reconstruct meaning.

We use the language of post-traumatic stress very readily, yet for many people living with relational trauma, the trauma is not "post." A person may still be emotionally, financially, physically, culturally or mentally tethered to ongoing obligatory rules and abuse.

Even if the relationships have ended, their psychological unravelling may continue, especially after relationships with narcissistic or psychopathic personalities. A person may have left the family system but still carry its rules or secrets. The person who stands for truth, succeeds or refuses to hold secrets may be collectively punished through scapegoating or gaslighting.

Betrayal and moral injury can have a lasting impact on trust, identity, attachment and safety in the world. Even when danger has passed, the nervous system can continue to behave as though threat remains.

A person can hold the duality of functioning while living in various TR6 territories of unresolved complexity they have not yet been able to articulate, acknowledge or truly sit with. These layers can be deeper than conscious awareness.

There is an enormous space between surviving an experience and becoming free of its organisation of your life. That is the space TR6 was created to explore.

Chronic unresolved trauma can carry profound psychological and physiological burden: depression, addiction, chronic stress states, suicidality, relational collapse, somatic distress and a life increasingly organised around survival rather than freedom.

The framework took approximately three years to formally develop, but represents the accumulation of ideas, observations and clinical methods from decades of psychotherapy practice. I undertook a two-year practice-based comparative evaluation involving ten therapists, each working with five clients, in which TR6 was examined alongside five established assessment approaches.

I wanted it tested in practice. I wanted other therapists to use it. I wanted clients to experience it themselves. The outcome of that independent study and external critique appears in my book, TR6 Trauma Model: Descent into the Shadow.

I then placed the conceptual framework before anonymous academic peer review. The TR6 Trauma Model was accepted for publication in the Australian Counselling Research Journal following academic review, Volume 19, Issue 1, 2026. I wanted the work examined from more than one position: clinically, conceptually, experientially and academically.

Trauma as an existential crisis

TR6 is paired with existentialism because relational and complex trauma can be an existential crisis. Healing may require navigating ambiguity, nuance, injustice, betrayal, moral injury, sadism and deeply distorted experiences that require a reworking of the soul.

If you are spiritual, you may understand this instantly. If you are religious, there is space for alignment. If you are agnostic or atheistic, it may be a dance with the mind that bends into new perspectives, renewed narratives, self-agency and resilience. Existentialism holds space for us all.

Trauma can alter a person's relationship with morality, justice, belonging, intimacy, safety and meaning. It can change the ground from which a person understands their own life.

I am now 62, with almost 32 years of clinical work behind me, and remain deeply motivated by this field. At this point in my professional life, I am particularly interested in contribution. What have decades of sitting beside trauma taught me? What can be articulated more clearly? What might we be overlooking? What can I leave behind that helps people understand suffering without immediately reducing it to pathology?

The TR6 assessment is freely available because I want people to have access to that language and map. The larger system is explored through the book, and professional training will allow therapists to work with the framework in greater depth. The larger purpose of this work is conversation.

I welcome opportunities to explore trauma that is not truly "post," relational and complex trauma, betrayal and moral injury, psychological ties to experiences people have physically left, rumination, resentment, rage and revenge, adaptive and maladaptive emotional states, the shadow, over-pathologising human suffering, and the existential work of reconstructing identity and meaning after trauma.

I welcome podcasts, interviews, panel discussions, professional forums, articles, collaborations and broader conversations. We need models that can hold both science and lived experience, recognise pathology when it is present, and not mistake every painful human response for disorder.

We need models that give agency back to the person who holds the greatest healing within, the only person who should answer the question, "Who am I?"