By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- Administer the Compass Recovery Assessment (self or client).
- Interpret the stage result and understand what it does and does not tell you.
- Construct a 30-day, 90-day, and 12-month stage-appropriate recovery plan.
- Recognize the clinical red flags that indicate a need for higher levels of care (including crisis intervention, medical care, or specialized trauma therapy).
- Apply the assessment repeatedly as a pre/post measure, not a one-time classification.
Assigned Readings (free)
- Take the Compass Recovery Assessment (you must do this before continuing — it is the core exercise of this module)
- Betrayal Trauma Therapy Options
- How Long Does Betrayal Trauma Last?
Why this assessment exists
The existing betrayal trauma measurement literature is thin for practical clinical use. The Brief Betrayal Trauma Survey (BBTS) measures exposure — did betrayal happen — but does not measure where someone is in recovery. The Weiss Partner Betrayal Trauma Scale (WPBTS) measures severity, but not stage-readiness for specific interventions. Neither tells a clinician or survivor "the work of this week is X, not Y."
This is the gap the Compass Recovery Assessment is designed to fill: a stage-recognition tool that matches a survivor to the interventions appropriate for where they are now, and re-sorts them as they move. It is a lightweight 7-question instrument. The brevity is intentional — a 40-item measure is impractical for repeated use, and repeated use is the point.
This is the primary research contribution of the doctoral project underlying this curriculum. The assessment operationalizes what Freyd's theory predicts clinically, what prodependence-based clinicians have advocated practically, and what stage-matched intervention literature (drawing on Prochaska & DiClemente's transtheoretical model) supports structurally. Validation work — measuring the assessment's stability, convergent validity against TSI-2 and BTI, and predictive validity for treatment-matching — is ongoing.
How to administer — step by step
Step 1: Set context, not just instructions
The assessment is not a diagnosis. It is a snapshot of this week's relationship to the injury. Survivors commonly worry that their results will "put them in a box" or pathologize them. They will not. Explain this explicitly. The assessment categorizes the work that belongs to the current moment, not the person.
Step 2: Take the assessment
Go to trustaftertrauma.com/assessment and complete it. Seven questions, under three minutes. The questions map to four clinical dimensions:
- Recency of discovery (Q1) — predicts likely stage proximity
- Emotional regulation (Q2, Q5, Q6) — nervous-system state and dominant symptom pattern
- Relational context (Q3, Q4) — current status with the person/institution that caused harm, and current support structures
- Felt need (Q7) — what the survivor's own system is asking for (understanding / tools / connection / plan)
Step 3: Read the stage result carefully
The assessment returns one of five stage results, each with a paragraph description and a stage-specific 3-week action plan. Read the description first. Notice whether it matches your felt experience. Small mismatches are normal — the instrument is narrow by design, and your self-knowledge exceeds any 7-question measure. If the stage matches your felt experience, proceed. If it doesn't, repeat the assessment in one week. Nervous-system state shifts; the result should track those shifts.
Step 4: Take seriously what the stage is asking
Each stage has its own work. The plan you receive is specific to that work. Resist the urge to jump ahead to later-stage interventions — not because you are not capable of them, but because they will not produce durable change if the earlier stage's work is not in place. A survivor who forces Integration work while still nervous-system-dysregulated in Stabilization will produce intellectual insight without somatic uptake. The insight will not hold.
Interpretation patterns
"Stage 1: Discovery Shock"
If this is the result, the clinical priority is stabilization. The work is not insight, not deciding, not forgiveness, not understanding the offender. It is: eat one meal. Drink water. Try to sleep. Tell one safe person. If you do not have one safe person, the priority becomes finding one — a specialist therapist, a hotline, a support group — before any other intervention. Major life decisions get postponed. Information diet tightens. This is not a long stage, but it is an intense one, and forcing it forward produces collapse, not acceleration.
"Stage 2: Stabilization"
The nervous system is beginning to regulate. Sleep is partial but not absent. Eating is possible. Daily routines can hold. This is when boundaries can be drafted, support systems deepened, somatic regulation practices installed. Integration work is still premature. Relationship decisions remain deferrable. The question is not "what will I do?" but "how do I build enough stability that I can make that decision from wholeness later?"
"Stage 3: Integration"
Meaning-making becomes possible. Narrative construction — writing or telling the story with accuracy — becomes tolerable. IFS parts work can identify protective parts that carried the survivor through Discovery Shock. Values clarification starts to answer the hard questions about identity. This is the stage where many survivors first feel they are moving forward rather than surviving. Couples work, if the relationship continues, may become appropriate toward the end of this stage — not before.
"Stage 4: Healing"
Trust work begins — with self first, others second. If the relationship continues, structured trust-rebuilding protocols (Gottman, EFT, Snyder & Gordon) become stage-appropriate. Sexual repair work — gentle, paced, survivor-led — can begin. The survivor's life is beginning to organize around what they want, not around what happened. Self-worth rebuilds through action, not affirmation.
"Stage 5: Beyond Betrayal"
Integration is complete enough that the betrayal is part of the survivor's story rather than the defining center of it. Post-traumatic growth in the Tedeschi & Calhoun (2004) sense — across strength, relating, possibilities, appreciation, spiritual change — is evident. Some survivors at this stage choose advocacy or service. Many choose quieter integration. Both are valid. The assessment can still be useful here to track brief revisitation into earlier stages around anniversaries or new triggers.
Red flags — when to refer, not continue
The Compass Recovery Model is an educational and supportive framework. It is not a substitute for clinical care in acute crisis or for specialized trauma therapy. The following patterns require referral:
- Active suicidal ideation with plan or intent. Contact 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, US) or local emergency services. Do not continue self-directed curriculum work until safety is established.
- Active domestic violence or physical danger. Contact National DV Hotline 1-800-799-7233. Physical safety precedes recovery curriculum.
- Inability to eat, sleep, or care for self/children for more than 72 hours. Medical evaluation warranted.
- New or worsening substance use as coping. Addiction-informed care needed alongside trauma work.
- Severe dissociative symptoms — lost time, depersonalization persisting more than minutes. Specialized dissociation-informed therapy indicated.
- Clear psychotic features — hallucinations, delusions outside trauma-specific content. Psychiatric evaluation indicated.
- Any sign of ongoing physical violence or coercive control from the partner. The survivor is not safe enough for recovery work while the harm is active. Safety planning first.
Referral is not failure of the model. It is correct use of the model. The Compass Recovery Model assumes a baseline of physical safety and basic functional capacity. Many survivors have these from day one; some do not. The assessment should catch the latter and route them to higher-level care before curriculum work continues.
Building the recovery plan
A stage-appropriate plan has three time horizons:
- 30-day plan: immediate, concrete actions tied to the current stage. Stabilization practices, community connections, information diet, crisis resources.
- 90-day plan: deepening work still aligned with current stage, plus preparation for the stage ahead. Therapy cadence, structured reading, skill-building exercises from the relevant modules.
- 12-month plan: orientation, not prediction. Where do you want your body, your relationships, your sense of self to be? The 12-month plan is a compass heading. The 30-day and 90-day plans are the steps that align with it.
A plan is not a contract with yourself. It is a working hypothesis. Re-take the assessment at 30, 60, 90 days. Let the results update the plan. This is the rhythm the model is built for: iterative, stage-aware, self-correcting.
Applied Exercise — Your Plan
Take the Compass Recovery Assessment (if you have not already). Review your stage result. Then write:
- Does this match my felt experience? What is slightly off?
- What is my 30-day plan given this stage? (Three concrete actions.)
- What is my 90-day plan? (Two skill areas to deepen, one external resource to engage — therapist, group, practitioner.)
- What would the 12-month orientation look like if I stay with this work?
Save this writing. Re-take the assessment in 30 days and update the plan based on where you are then, not where you were now.
Self-Check
- What four clinical dimensions does the Compass Recovery Assessment measure?
- What is the #1 mistake survivors and clinicians make when interpreting a stage result? (Hint: it has to do with moving forward.)
- Name three clinical red flags that require referral rather than continued curriculum work.
- How would you explain an Integration-stage result to a survivor who was expecting to be "further along"?
- What is the recommended cadence for re-taking the assessment?
References
- Goldsmith, R. E., & Freyd, J. J. (2005). Awareness for emotional abuse. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 5(1), 95–123.
- DePrince, A. P., Brown, L. S., Cheit, R. E., Freyd, J. J., Gold, S. N., Pezdek, K., & Quina, K. (2012). Motivated forgetting and misremembering. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 58, 193–242.
- Prochaska, J. O., & DiClemente, C. C. (1983). Stages and processes of self-change of smoking: Toward an integrative model of change. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 51(3), 390–395.
- Briere, J. (2011). Trauma Symptom Inventory — 2 (TSI-2) Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources.
- Skinner, K. B., & others (2016). Weiss Partner Betrayal Trauma Scale. Addictive Behaviors & Relationships Lab research instruments.
- Freyd, J. J., DePrince, A. P., & Gleaves, D. H. (2007). The state of betrayal trauma theory. Memory, 15(3), 295–311.
- American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed., text rev.).
- Jennings, K. S., Cheung, J. H., Britt, T. W., Goguen, K. N., Jeffirs, S. M., Peasley, A. L., & Lee, A. C. (2015). How are perceived stigma, self-stigma, and self-reliance related to treatment-seeking? Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 38(2), 109–116.
Written by Megan Burton, LMHC, Licensed Mental Health Counselor (NY). Developer of the Compass Recovery Model and the Compass Recovery Assessment.