How to Ease the Pain of Trauma-Induced Shame
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD;
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; Peter Levine, PhD; Thema Bryant-Davis, PhD; Richard Schwartz, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Janina Fisher, PhD; Kathy Steele, MN, CS; Stephen Porges, PhD; Martha Sweezy, PhD, LICSW; Deb Dana, LCSW; Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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Shame, if freely experienced, is really powerful! Recently, during a training session with a 9th Dan Kung Fu grandmaster, I had the opportunity to witness the profound impact of embracing humiliation and shame, which, as if paradoxically, imbues an individual with both softness and power. These qualities directly contribute to success in a fighting situation. Chinese martial arts provide very interesting doors into this power.
During today’s lecture, I found great value in Kathy Steele’s emphasis on not aiming to eliminate shame and avoid phrases like “nothing to be ashamed of.” Additionally, the approaches that encourage curiosity in clients to explore their shame and inner critics are truly inspiring.
Thank you for this video series!
Thank you for another very interesting session!
My key take-aways?
– Once again, how wonderfully functional our biology is, e.g. the survival value of shame. But then there is also the other side of shame that can become limiting or problematic.
– I also gained new insights on the different strategies shame typically leads to, the approach of pumping curiosity into the inner critic dynamic to find the underlying motives (letting it do it’s job in a helpful way).
– I also appreciate the advice for practitioners about pacing, putting your own voyeuristic tendencies on hold and asking yourself what is beneficial for the patient.
– The explanations on how to deal with moral injury was very helpful as well as the information on self harm, the neurobiology behind it and the way practitioners can approach this.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for an excellent session on trauma induced shame. I work with both adults and children and will be able to use many of the strategies related to Parts Theory with both.
I particularly like the idea of helping patients think about the different parts of their personality, both the positive and the negative, asking shame (and blame) to wait in a separate room whilst we obtain permission from the other parts to speak separately with shame and seeing what we can do to make shame feel better.
The session was so informative and stimulating and has motivated me to read up on the literature. I am seeing one of these patients who is currently in hospital waiting for a bed in a mental health hospital. She took an overdose before being admitted and started self harming and is also the wife and mother of a baby who is in the care of a man whom I have diagnosed with chronic depression and who is also my patient. Therefore, I am involved with the whole family and feel a responsibility to do everything I can to support them. One of mum’s reasons for overdosing and SH, is because she feels overwhelmed by her husband’s condition and reached the point where she could no longer cope. Therefore, she is in no hurry to get better!
I, however, am hoping to make a difference.
Thanks you so much – this session has reassured me that what felt like experimental therapy ideas are on track – I have been working with a client that is so triggered by any positive emotion – we have been gently working with “feeling” playfulness and joy – both in session and in encouraging him to enjoy playing in the waves ( his safe place) and notice his whole response to this . Working with positive emotions was a turning point in therapy .
Very very much appreciated.
No ASWB affiliation for CEU’s? This is the reason I did not sign up for the Gold Package and the reason I rarely participate in NICABM offerings….. wish I could receive credit with my social work licensing board for this important learning. So unfortunate.
Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to learn from the greatest teachers in the world! I’m very interested in Part Theory of Dr. Sweezey and definitely wants to learn more about Internal Family Systems. So many great examples of working with trauma and invaluable knowledge that’s been shared – verbally but also non-verbally, by posture, face expression, ton of the voice, look in the eyes… Looking forward to tomorrow! And to bring befriending with the Inner Critic in my work with clients. Thanks!
With thanks – not too quick… be with the pace of the individual and yes – it’s in the body
These workshops have been so informative and extremely valuable for practice. Having Ruth guiding the session helps to focus each discussion.
so much shame results from the androcratic inversion of the fear Reaction. Ruth Lanius was the most clear that the natural initial reaction is to FLEE (FLight), though when not using the buzz words, others,too, described that when getting away, leaving, running away from the threat was foiled then Fight might step in. I pose now to clients that this 2nd stage after foiled escape, engorged leg muscles, geared and fueled for action, turn to Fight OFF the other, not fight as annihilate or do harm. As if to say “If I cannot leave, I want to make you want to leave!”. Freeze is being stuck between these 2 stages and flop is feigning death as some luminaries here have noted. Release for one client i worked with was to recover her memory of how she had left the scene of the violation. Another client found relief in seeing herself, Leave and the double doors locked after she went through them. I really appreciate the description of the paradoxical situation of positive experiences triggering uncomfortable even dangerous feelings. Clients and I have worked through this quite often.
Ohhh, i feel so happy and thankful to participate on these series of advanced Trauma-Healing!
I am so glad to see and feel all the 18 experts with their loving competence!
I`ve learned for example:
* to recognize the client`s pace on incresing positive emotions;
* to recognize the window of tolerance by simply asking;
* a somatic way of easing shame by Peter Levine;
THANK YOU!
michael
That of shame is in my opinion a big issue. Coming from a group-based community, the weight of “good conduct” and “doing no harm” , responsibility and sacrifice makes a perfect setting for ashaming oneself.
I found very useful the reminder of not trying to take shame away, nor feeling ashamed for not doing so! Thanks a lot for you all.
Hi there Ruth and all the great presenters and thanks so much for another insightful session. Amongst a lot of take-aways, I’ll be working more sensitively with my clients’ inner-critics. I already got the concept of working with and not against an inner critic but today’s sesion and especially Dr Martha Sweezey’s descriptions of ways to do this was so clear and helpful. Thank you.
These sessions are super informative, thank you so much!
Befriending the inner critic is a refreshing perspective and I look forward to experimenting with this idea.
I am truly enjoying these sessions and thank you for making them availlable for people with less financial ressources. As a peer-worker I do not give therapy. But I talk to patients/clients and try to help them regulate their nervous system by regulating mine and educating them. I have experienced guilt as a protector. But that shame too can be a protector is new to me. But it makes sense.
– I will ask more where the sensation is in the body
– I am clear on the difference between self harm/ suicide
– Normalize shame therapy
– I understand that is dangerous to tell to somebody that if mistreatment appears, it happened because of you!
Beautiful sessions, for self-healing and in my sessions. What an opportunity! Thank you 🙏🧡
it seems to me that risk factors for moral injury include subscription to just universe and kohlberg’s institutional stage of moral reasoning.
I have been following all the previous sessions and this one just HIT HOME in a way I could never have imagined, since it so heavily resonated with my own personal history… which led me to franticly take notes while crying heavily half of the time.
I feel such immense gratitude for all these wonderful humans, before being incredible professionals, to bring to the world such vast knowledge and experience in dealing with trauma.
I have learnt so much about how to deal with my own inner deeply rooted feeling of shame and strongly believe this content will help me so much in guiding other people in need into their own safe path of life.
Thank you so much.
Wholeheartedly,
Franck
Thank you so much for making these sessions available at no cost. The entire world can feel the positive effects of this over time
Thank you deeply for this informative, engaging learning experience.
Is there any possibility of an additional student discount? I think these videos are very important, and that I’m not able to take in everything at once. I’m a student currently and can’t afford the fee. Is there an option for me to pay a lower charge?
I am thoroughly enjoying these sessions. Learning so much about how to understand and mitigate my own trauma, as well as to help others with theirs.
Thank you for all this.
Very useful and insightful.
This series has been very interesting so far. I will be going over the handouts and using them sometimes
I liked how it moved the shame to ‘once removed’ by making it a you. So not me. Distance makes it easier.
I love the idea of asking the critical part to go into a room for a moment.
❤️
That was really an amazing session! I am a pastoral associate, and I work with sexual abuse victims abused by a church associate. All of the issues you discussed were directly relevent with my clientelle. I’ve had some exposure to IFS and other trauma strategies except polyvagal, which I’ve watched sessions on but found it way to complicated for me. Martha with the IFS and the woman who speaks from the polyvagal approach both clicked this time, I understood better the richness of the approach. Some of the other sessions have been hard to follow because the vocabulary is really limited to professionnels. What most strikes me is Pat Ogden, locating the shame in the body, but then seeing to if somehow connecting to it we liberate the self protection response that was not available to the client at the time. I can’t imagine I have the capacity now to put it into practice, but wish I could have more formation in her approach. Also the introduction, how shame is a basic element of self protection, that we need it on some level. Presenting that to a client using the stove image or classroom image. Then clarifying it’s not the whole self that is put into question, just the part that was too exuberant, etc. Just really helpful to clarify. Also to ask where (in your body) and how do you feel the shame now, then how did that protect you (serve you) at that time? (Janina’s comment)…does it serve you now? Lovely, so simple, also very close to the type of work I do already, so I feel like I could do that immediately.
I would add with sexual abuse you sometimes have an additional element of shame towards the sexual arrousal or feelings of tenderness we may have had during the abuse. Wish you could have addressed that, it resonates with all you said about pleasure.
I want to thank you for these sessions. I’m not really feeling in the current economic climate that I can invest in the Gold package. But globally I have found the program really well done, other than the vocabulary issue. The ideas are so rich and it is very intellectually stimulating. Sadly I can’t yet really use it directly, until this session, this one really connected so directly to my work experience, I didn’t struggle to understand as I did the other sessions.Thank you! Also a particular thank you to the woman presenters, I just find their way of presenting so accessible, and they are remarkable women, really inspiring for me.
The psychological principles can be helpful to support pastoral counselors who minister to those who experienced clergy abuse. The spiritual dimension of the abuse can be especially difficult because it goes deep into spiritual betrayal. As a pastoral counselor, perhaps you can invite in spirituality.
I have a similar role as you and find the psychology learned here greatly enhances my counseling in ways that spirituality alone could not.
I find that not addressing self harm directly, knowing that there is trauma underneath it and addressing that first, often makes the self harm behavior just go away. I don’t address it directly b/c the shame tends to overwhelm the real work that needs to be done on the actual trauma that is causing the self harm. This seems to be a big relief to clients too when I basically normalize it, don’t see it as a big problem (unless there is suicidal intent) and assure them that the body knows how to self heal and it will do so when the underlying cause is addressed. This seems to move things forward a lot faster with less triggering.
I call it “going in the back door.” I do that with issues like losing weight. They’ve attacked it through the front door for years and it hasn’t helped. Let’s do the work and let the weight fall off.
Brilliant!
really useful
thanx a million for what you are doing
As a Trauma Recovery Coach and a Trauma Survivor, I related with both sides of this module on shame. In my own recovery process, I had people respond to my mention of holding internal shame with, “Well why would you feel shameful about that?”. This was done from a CBT approach of trying to shift my “thinking” about it and it doubled my shame and caused alienation. Normalizing shame responses has helped tremendously in my own healing process and has also made such a huge difference with my clients. We were taught in my training to support our clients with an understanding of the function of shame and it is also just a natural intuition I have as someone who has experienced a lot of shame in my life. You cannot exile shame, it has to be gently invited in, shown that it’s not alone, given a voice, a safe space to be seen/heard/validated/honored and responded to if it needs to express an action.
I don’t work with those who may self harm as it is out of my scope as a coach, but I loved the insights and understanding about why that happens and the different approaches to engaging with someone who uses these coping strategies.
The other part of the training that I really appreciated was the mention of first working somatically before engaging in the trauma story. I feel like this is so overlooked in most therapeutic practices. I worked with a trauma therapist doing EMDR to address complex developmental trauma and it backfired because we spent SO much time mapping out the targets. It was much too activating and made me feel like I’d pulled all my guts out and had no way to hold them in afterwards. Talking through trauma is more often just retraumatizing. I don’t encourage my clients to relive their trauma stories, I do my best to work in the here and now and to address emotions, feelings and sensations and to support them in learning how to regulate to create more space to feel and process as their body naturally unwinds the trauma. It is encouraging to see this becoming more widely accepted. It’s more supportive for the client AND the therapist/coach/practitioner.
I take away the different ways of approaching the work and the vast experience that is being shared in bite size pieces that have practical applications not shrouded in psychobabble. I particularly liked the last piece on moral injury and shame and how it happened and people need help holding it….the comfort of another human being.
Ι have the feeling that shame has to do with smt a lot deeper than moral injury aw described. What about the weird imberable “pleasure” coming form feeling ashamed. The flash, the trouble of the body; we become red when we are ashamed ____smt very nodal has been exposed. Sham has a whole lot to do with sejualty.___I think tha her we had more to do with inhibition. ___In a wau with the consequences of thiw enigmatic situation we call “shame”. ____Im doing a research about ahame and all thiw has been extremely helpful . Its a vry difficult issue. THANK YOU for making me see other aspects.
Ada Klampatsea analytic psychotherapist
Thanks to everyone. This was so timely for my crisis client this week. I’m going to be reflecting on how her intense mother-bear fight mode might be indicative of shame for not being a good-enough mother to protect her children. I’m clear about the need for parts work. And I’m so glad I purchased the program last week because I definitely want to watch the series all over again! God bless you all.
Such simply and beautifully put interventions and ideas. I love Janina Fishers idea of asking the client to demonstrate the physical sensations of shame and then asking the client “and how did that help you to survive in the past?” Lovely way to normalise the shame
I had the opportunity to hear this a 2nd time, and the clarity was deepened, and the efficacy of these strategies appears more … evident. I am delighted to have this opportunity. I feel I’ll be able to apply some of these strategies to my own situation, having a therapeutic map is illuminating. Thanks to Ruth and everyone at NICABM.
wow simply fantastic! souch material I can use with my clients! thank you!!
My big takeaway is about Gradual pacing in terms of positive emotion and feedback to client. So easy to want to encourage but recognise I need to hold back.
Thank you for this very helpful session
I am so thrilled to have found this place! I get goosebumps all over my body because it knows I found something very important, something I’ve been looking for a long time :))) thank you so much!!!
I was incredibly perplexed with the statement about offering words of encouragement leading to a regression in treatment. I had never thought that the empathetic approach I had planned to utilize in an effort to make them feel better, could often cause a sort of domino effect of feeling even worse about the shame they feel and pushing positive results to quickly could be counterproductive, but it’s also best not to ignore it. I’m very glad I learned that tonight because it definitely saved me from going into this and making someone’s feelings seem invalid, or like they aren’t good enough the way they are. I learned to instead teach them that the shame grew to kept them safe. It’s a normal feeling when shrunk back down in size. The more we try to fight it, the more it fights back. I love how they explained the goal is not to get rid of the shame but to learn to regulate it. I will help them through this by asking “How did your shame protect you?” it kept you invisible! Then, start that dialog with the emotions of telling the shame, “You kept me safe, thank you for protecting me, but hey, you can rest for now.” It only makes up one small part of who you are!
The catching onto body motions was also a very Enlightening topic! I had never thought of that! It was incredible to hear about her identifying the pain in the girl’s arm and relieving that pain by asking “What’s it saying to you?” and guiding her through the therapeutic motions. Now I know, once I start practicing trauma therapy to watch out for the posture of shame, subtle noises, and the head, hands, and feet and then there’s eye darting. Now, when it comes to the eyes, I know some trauma survivors have a hard time with eye contact, how do you all, as professionals, judge that? How do you decide if you are making them uncomfortable or if they need/want the eye contact? I’m still learning, obviously.
In regard to self-harm and moral injury. I learned so much!! One part of the brain does the hurting, while the other side gets hurt. It’s not as much about hurting yourself but more about the temporary relief of releasing adrenaline to numb yourself and endorphins that relax your body. Followed by more great advice on first, ensuring their intentions are not to die. Then ask how long it helps for and how does it serve you? I would go as far as to say so you’re trading a scar on your body forever (I have some, that I’m ashamed of, to use as example) for just 10 minutes of relieve. That is my biggest fear going into this field, I care for people very deeply, hence why I want to go into this field, but I’ve been working on self-regulating my emotions. I’m still scared I’m going to cry though, and I’m scared to fail a patient. Say the wrong thing, miss a sign of distress, or just not help at all. Are these feelings normal and did anyone else feel this way?
I will also be using the dialect started for channeling anger, allowing them to feel it, so we can identify an underlying cause and encouraging them to push the anger outward instead of inward.
Thank you all for your time and effort to lead us today, I can’t wait to tune in next week and hear what you all have to say then!
Also, I am looking for a mentor.
‘Shame feels like death’ Peter Levine. I have always referred to it as ‘the death feeling’. That felt validating to hear Peter say that.
I am a practitioner but also a survivor of trauma. I have watched today’s session twice and am so grateful for all the new insights.
With 50 years of therapy I still have been stuck in shame so consciously the last 5 months. I must take time to have another hold my pain with me. I will purchase the info on poly vagal theory and exercises. I now understand why I can hardly hear the positive affirmations and the reactions in my body to that which seems so strange after years of receiving the critics. I will practice savoring the micro moments of believing I am a good person made in the image and likeness of the kind and loving God who desires my friendship though I feel so unworthy. I resonated with the practice of needing to titrate emotion. Moral injury has limited my ability to connect as my experiences create such distrust in my relationships. I have spent so much time protecting myself and see I need a stretch to dare to love, dialogue and extend compassion. As I heal from “processing my shame, regulate it and bring it down to size, I hope to become the “wounded healer” (Henri Nouwen) for my clients. I want to help them heal to impact their friends, family, community, state, nation and world to transform civilization.
Thank you for the bit on moral injury. Will be reading more about this. I come to this topic personly as I struggle to figure out how to deal with my own shame of things I am not proud of doing even as a practicing Muslim. Sometimes we learn our faith from people who teach and motivate us through guilt. Sometimes the guilt serves us because it helps us to strive harder to be a better person. The self-harm bit was on point and what really resonated with me was the bit about continuous flashbacks. We get hooked on these flashbacks to remind us never to be that person again. We can get addicted to the emotions these flashbacks provide us to keep striving. I’m trying to become a person who is motivated by love and not predominantly guilt.
Thankyou so much for these insights!
As a french psychotherapist, it really gave me a deep understanding and many practical ways to approach such highly sensitive patients. Those tools has given me more confidence in applying concretly some challenging concepts for various traumas.
It stimulated my desire to know more about different approaches and it will be a pleasure to participate to the full webinars.I hope the package includes the approach to different types of traumatic experiences (ex. sexual trauma, complex trauma and age-related etc…)
Thanks
Sincerely
H.Côté, Montréal
thank you for this module! it was very usfull informations about moral injury, shame and positive feelings and how to explain them in psycho educational sesions. Also, I found very usfull ”curiosity” as a resourse for change perspective and initiate the process of healing.
The idea that positive feeling or experiences can be extremely triggering is just brilliant. It explains a lot as to why things tend to get stuck in therapy. If pleasure is associated with danger then it becomes forbidden. To ask how NOT being able to experience positive emotions helped one to survive is a tremendous aid to awareness. Also the goal of therapy is not to get rid of shame, it is to bring it down to size. We can’t declare war on shame.
This was a great session and very educational.
I wonder if shame is also the meaning/narrative attached to the somatic experience, therefore the child must have some verbal skills. Around age one, receptive language is enough to understand tone of voice and “NO” as having done something wrong. An infant cannot have this kind of meaning or story about what their body is experiencing. Just a thought..
I concur, to have shame they must have an inner voice, to have an inner voice, they must know and be able to articulate words.
I’m not sure that I agree that one needs verbal skills to know shame. An infant knows when a smile gets a smile and attention in return. They also know when a whimper gets their diaper changed, or if a loud, sustained cry does not. Do they already have the capacity to blame themselves for not crying loud enough or long enough? Who knows… but the child learns they are not safe nor cared for, they do express desperation.
I’m not sure that you need words to have an inner voice, either. So many of my memories of being shamed are emotional memories that I never had words for. Being raised with frequent “correction”, my memories are, again, more emotional than verbal, as I find it challenging to put into words all the “helpful” messages.
Many dementia patients who have lost language have not lost their emotional experiences of life. They can still have an implicit awareness even in the absence of explicit verbal expression.
I practice Resonant Healing Practitioner work, which I learn from Sarah Peyton’s certification program, and which has been effective for me and my clients. I will use today’s learnings to keep affirming the parts of my client that made sense that could be released now. I loved acknowledging the somatic approach, too, which comes to mind for one person in particular I’m working with, to integrate somatics with time travel and release of unconscious contracts. Thank you for this module.
I very much agree with these comments. Close captioning would definitely be helpful.
I have a CC button on my window, at the bottom right corner. Maybe check there?
Thank you very much! I learned a lot and will apply the knowledge..
Thank you for today’s discussion. I realized that what you label as “shame” I simply understand as “self-hate.” Less confusing than various representations of ‘healthy shame,’ ‘toxic shame’ etc.
Working as a physician, I realized years ago that “burnout” wasn’t something external to me, but was about my personal boundaries, and what happens when I cannot live by them and still keep my job. And then I was introduced to the idea of moral injury, which made even more sense. Day after day being asked to compromise my own values about how much time to take seeing each patient, or being required to cut corners for the kind of support or follow-up I thought they deserved. I ended up retiring earlier than I’d expected. For the last 7 years I’ve been doing fill-in work, and the joy is back. Along with the gratitude to patients for what we create when we meet together.
I appreciate your comment ““burnout” wasn’t something external to me, but was about my personal boundaries, and what happens when I cannot live by them”.
I burned out twice at work, and I like this reframe. Due to complex early life trauma, I had no conscious awareness of personal boundaries, so for me, this aspect was a sub-script that eventually my body acted on by shutting down.
Thank you for your point about burnout. I also am in a caring profession, and feel consistently that I am never able to meet my own expectation based on my own values in my work. There is just too much, too much trauma, too many victims, I can’t respond empathetically to all that without a great deal of active self care which I have decided finally is also a part of my job. I do supervision, therapy, and even some walks on work time, giving breathing time between clients, etc. Not possible for everyone, but it has really helped me to reduce guilt to realize that self care is part of my job,
This is very good information! I love what each of the presenters does to help people heal.