A Simple Metaphor to De-Shame a Client’s Trauma Response

After a traumatic event, a client might feel deeply ashamed by how they responded to the situation.

Perhaps they froze and now blame themselves for not fighting back. Or, maybe they ran away, but now regret not standing up for themselves.

As clinicians, we’re able to recognize that these reactions happen at the level of the nervous system – they’re reflexive responses. The question is, how do we get clients to see this?

In the video below, Ron Siegel, PsyD, shares specific language he uses to de-stigmatize a client’s trauma response.

He’ll also share one metaphor that can instantly help alleviate shame and self-blame in trauma survivors.

Take a look.

Click here for full transcript

“Just talking about shame in terms of physiology is already de-shaming because we’re talking about it as a mammalian response. Rather than it somehow being our fault or our moral failing, but instead seeing our typical responses to threat for example — which is either to come at it with aggression or to come at it with a frozen deer-in-the-headlights response — seeing that as a defense. “The organism is just taking care of itself,” is a way to be nice to ourselves about it. Like, “Oh, well, okay. This organism that I call ‘me’ was just trying to take care of itself when feeling threatened. It shut down or it acted out of rage.” This is part of building a general sense of common humanity.Or I’d take it further: it’s a common mammalian nature that we all participate in. Which, when we feel part of the larger collective, that is such a powerful antidote to shame.I found it particularly useful to see it as a reflex. If we think of reflex as like the patella reflex in the doctor’s office, where the doctor hits that area under the kneecap and your foot comes up. Virtually nobody would feel guilty or ashamed about that. That seems like, “Well, that’s just the body doing what the body does.”If we see all these other things as just the organism doing what the organism does as reflexes, it takes us out of the whole realm of this narrative about the self and puts it much more in a realm of curiosity. Like, “Okay, so what factors and forces brought about that behavior at that moment that made this organism we call ‘you’ do it at the moment?” When we look at it that way, it just feels better.”

If you’d like to hear more strategies for working with shame, have a look at the Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma.

In this program, we get into how to work with trauma-induced shame, including how to recognize shame even when clients don’t think it’s a problem, and how to help clients who are triggered by positive emotions. To sign up, click here.

Now we want to hear from you. What are some ways you help clients alleviate shame and self-blame after trauma? Please leave a comment below to let us know.

If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:

Treating Trauma: How to Work with the Shame of Moral Injury

Questions That Can Help Your Clients Talk About Shame

[Infographic] Shame vs. Guilt – A Client Handout

7 Comments

Catherine vines, Counseling, AU says

I am working with a client who seems “Stuck-Numb”( her words) in her PTSD symptomology.
“what’s the point of talking about it. it happened so long ago”
Cathy Vines
Northern rivers Counselling
cathyvinescounselling@gmail.com

Li, Teacher, CA says

A very insightful and helpful perspective.

Beverly Botelho, Another Field, Belvidere, NJ, USA says

It is very comforting to know that disengagement is a response shared by other survivors and serves a purpose.

joy ehrman, Marriage/Family Therapy, IL says

I enjoy all your resources. They are so enriching and keep me focused
Thank you

Janice Allen, Supervisor, Newberg, OR, USA says

Very helpful. Thank you for your generousity, for sharing.

Frances Smokowski, Another Field, Ossining, NY, USA says

Over the years I have had clients who felt that they were “damaged” by sexual assault or other intrusive, life/self altering trauma. To varying degrees they were, indeed, changed profoundly in physiological ways as well as emotionally. I found that talking about how the body naturally replaces each and every cell on a rotation cycle can be incredibly freeing, especially when it is highlighted that after 7 years, literally, not one cell left in their body was present at the time of the trauma. This is a biological fact that I’ve seen create helpful distance and hopeful reconsideration of beliefs. Of course, there’s muscle memory and other long term impact that functionally imprints or handicaps, but in many cases, dwelling on the fact of cell regeneration helped the client (especially pre-teens and Teens) feel they had a right to feel renewed/renewing and deserving of self-love. The body itself is evolving and growing the best it can, always. Teens are aware of this profoundly, regarding stature and secondary sex characteristics. But connecting the dots that regeneration is natural, growth is automatic and worthiness regarding change can be embraced and cultivated, too is useful. This coupled with explicit discussion of healing metaphors creating a reparative mindset helps catalyze a shift to holiness/wholeness supports acceptance, a reboot to the here and now and a forward looking vision of no longer being defined by the event and/or the stigma. My verbiage shifts to fit where the client is, and developmentally what languaging they need. But introducing this biological fact is typically pivotal.

- Kim K., Counseling, USA says
  
  Beautiful and empowering metaphor, as well as biological fact! It is necessary for our survial to let go of/eliminate ‘poisons’, what is no longer needed, as a basic matter of functioning. The physical body does this naturally, and efficiently, whether we are aware of this or not. Our process of healing, psychologically, essentially looks the same, if we can just embrace it.
  The Life/Death/Life cycle that Dr.Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes of~ If we can let go of what is no longer needed- if we can trust enough to let go, to embrace the small deaths that are necessary for rebirth- all ultimately heals and finds balance.

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