How to Work with Patients Whose Trauma Triggers Problems in Their Current Relationships
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with Stephen Porges, PhD;
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with Stephen Porges, PhD; Terry Real, MSW, LICSW;
Janina Fisher, PhD Richard; Schwartz, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Martha Sweezy, PhD, LICSW; Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; Deb Dana, LCSW; Thema Bryant-Davis, PhD; Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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I don’t know how to thank you for these sessions. I feel each week was a deep therapeutic session for me. I am a lay person. And I been through so much therapy it’s ridiculous. You have reinforced what I learned at a 6 week in patient dual diagnosis center last year so much.there were so many factors that brought me there and I was very disregulated, and spoke fast and rocked a lot. I was healing snd learning of my childhood Trama, that i didn’t view as Trama. But when I stopped making Trama a bad word I learned more about why I am who I am. Unfortunately, while I was there my father died which brought me back to disregulaton.I went home for funeral and then went back to the facility…I have barely been able to process a year later that my father isn’t here anymore, we had an outstanding close relationship. Finally I returned home. But we left 2 weeks later to travel for months on our RV…I have a good therapist now, but not a good psychiatrist. I went to a ‘sister’ Trama in January center where they put me me on too much medication. I should have been home with family. And because I see I fall into freeze/ collapse/please response my whole 55 years of life due to a multitude of reasons. A therapist there took advantage of his knowledge of my history, my state of mind and my medications…he also knew things he manipulated me with because my husband had gone there and received healing help. Me- I was raped repeatedly several times, no words ever really spoken, just blind compliance because of what see now as very careful slow grooming…I am having a ridiculous hard time. So strange how being raped makes me feel guilty..why didn’t I scream, why didn’t I say something, why didn’t I protect myself, why did this therapist do this to me, why did the facility not notice and protect me. I was alone because there was a lapse of other clients… he took advantage of that. Why did no one notice or see or help. Everyone else was kind…this man is obviously not well. I have pressed charges but between SVU, department of CA board accreditation, and my lawer and the DA it’s an painfilled long horrific journey. And I just want my dad back. I have support through some family and a few friends but I see myself falling into collapse…and my whole body is in pain constantly from the mental and emotional pain. It’s having an effect in every aspect of my life. So I thank you for this series and the further education and validation. I pray I heal, because 12 weeks of my life were spent in 2 Trama centers and one helped…and the other one broke me…my trust level is low…and I am just wanting to sleep and isolate…I’m 55 I deserve snd am Worthy of more. So I will continue to search for help healing…thank you for your part in helping. I’m here for the winter in Indio CA and trying to find resources. My husband has to be exhausted from all of this…how it’s effected me, him , us….is profoundly upsetting….I pray I Rise❤️
Thank you for taking on the ordeal of reporting this predator. It all helps.
Lisa you are brave – keep rising. x
There was so much in this , thank you for making it available.
For me the Lightbulb moment – when a male clients says sex is a game, infidelity is a norm, how can i change this, why do I do this. So much to explore. Having already started to talk about the psyche and adaptive child , I feel I will be able to help my clients work with their functional adult to start nurturing this adaptative child state and self mentor. I work with some clients online so instead of Empty chair I have started to use russian dolls, which can reflect at clients choosing, the different states and even where they want to be.
Thank you so much for this, I feel this will enrich my practice.
I personally feel this knowledge is essential so I am eternally grateful for everyone involved in sharing this course!
I am a counselling student who is deeply inspired by the path being paved before me.
With knowledge like this in tow I feel confident and ready for the challenge ahead!
Deep bow to you all.
With love,
Alyssa
To All,
Thank You very much for all the work and the wondrous presentations throughout this series.
Love & Air HUGS ☺♥ xxx
Marie-Claire Boyle, BScN, RN, Psychotherapist
Thank you so much for sharing such valuable content. I will be definitely implementing what I learnt with my clients. Among today’s many meaningful take aways, my favourite ones are:
Speak FOR an angry part, not FROM an angry part.
There is no such thing as an OVERREACTION, the person might not be reacting to what happened in the present, they could be reacting to their past.
Thank you all very much for making this available to watch. I am not a practitioner of psychology or psychotherapy, but I still found this information extremely valuable. I will take it with me in trying to improve myself for the rest of my life.
I am using the current ideas to work with a family you are emerging from the disordered attachment due to family trauma
Today’s session will help be deepen my work by applying the advanced techniques such as going further with parts work and mindfulness approaches to help expand clients awareness so that they then have options and choices as to whether they change their behaviours based on new awareness and wisdom. Thank you to all the presenters! 🙂
Wonderful insights by each presenter with an especially memorable contribution by Kelly Wilson.
The series has been very interesting – my thanks to all who have participated and shared their knowledge.
One comment that I’d like to make regarding this and other programmes is with regard to honesty in relation to cultural and gender identity. There is now so much fear of causing offence it appears that even therapists won’t differentiate black from white (or any other shade) or which culture they so obliquely refer to. It makes a big difference where the individual originates from – the Caribbean or from countries which have multitudes of cultures within their borders such as Russia, China. Sexual behaviours in particular vary considerably so education is a key component in change rather than blaming/changing a “culture”. Regardless of any “identity”, at the the root is an individual of any shape, size, colour, nationality, gender, belief, etc. Hurting or being hurt is not exclusive.
From this side of the Atlantic it does appear that there is a cultural identity developing in the US which seems rather exclusive and which is being fed both overtly and subtly into many areas. including, unfortunately, into some therapeutic sessions and thus colouring behaviours even further.
Controversial perhaps, but after 70+ years of life and working with people of all different ethnicities, social status and environments, maybe I’ve seen a thing or two. ……. And I’m still happy to learn so thanks again NICABM for making me think!
I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude to NICABM for the organization and presentation of the materials and information gleaned. Your panel of Professional Advisors offered varied suggestions and practical strategies to work with clients and loved ones to reframe current and/or future relationships.
In my opinion, this series on the treatment of Trauma is invaluable. Made even more so due to our current world circumstances, fears, challenges and Isolation. We must acknowledge we are being chronically traumatized daily.
It is with knowledge and understanding of our responses that enables us to take a eagle’s view, allowing and encouraging healthy choices for ourselves and relationships with others.
Thank you for for Sourcing the Ripple effect. 👏👏👏
Thanks so much for this wonderful series and all the work and time that have gone into creating it. The reminder of how important it is for us as practitioners to be fully present is key as well as encouraging our clients to share their feelings about the therapeutic relationship. I have learned so much from my clients from asking if there is anything they would want me to do differently within a session so they can feel safe, express themselves more authentically/honestly. Genuinely welcoming this feedback has transformed the power of many a session.
My family has four generations of sexual abuse and this series can help us all .
I live in a three generation home and I am the eldest. These suggestions will help us all to learn how to treat ourselves and each other.
I can better help my clients see their coping mechanisms/ strategies/behaviors as Positive rather than shameful, disruptive or distasteful. I will then be able to help them to re-frame it in a positive light, so they can see their own inner strength, which can help them recognize the Power of their existing skill sets as an asset rather than a defect. Very Powerful ideas!
These videos also helped Reinforce the Therapeutic power of my being Present with them, not just as a practitioner, but more importantly as a caring human being. This aspect has always been a strength of mine, you now helped reinforce its efficacy in their healing process.
Thank you for your Wonderful work and may G-D bless your future endeavors.
With gratitude,
Shifra Milworn
Sharon,
Is it possible you might prepare a “proposal” for your former employer and volunteer your services, perhaps for a period of 3 months or so? Part of the proposal could address how effective such positions might be by having participants in your “program” provide feedback with impacts and suggestions for future development.
Decades ago, I heard police scanner radio traffic that, while discreet, suggested to me the officers were dealing with a sexual assault case. I called the dispatcher, offering assistance to the family if they would like same. A couple of hours later, I received a return call and met the family at the local hospital. It was amazing to me how the victim and other family members second guessed and blamed themselves for the situation. I accompanied them to later events, explaining processes as they went thru them.
Several months later, another violent sexual assault occurred, and the police asked me to help in this case. Eventually, the county supported a victim/witness assistance program.
It seems to me, what you have in mind is a similar concept, but for the health care experience. Certainly, there are many aspects that people may experience as traumatic and your “intervention” could be helpful. Perhaps it could lead to programs in all hospitals, making people in future decades wonder how could “they” have functioned without this.
Thank you so much! Invaluable information, wisdom and practices for all presenters and professionals.
Id like to review again some modules especially the latter No.5 and buy gold package but in my country the economy and business is just beginning to reactivate after the pandemic.
very grateful for great tools to change the world
Thank you so much for presenting this program.
Therapist’s skills, presence and responses / interventions are crucial in helping clients to experience healthy relationship.
Thank you in supporting our work as practitioners so we can continue with improving professional effectiveness to serve clients better.
Thank you again for a wonderful webinar series. I shared the webinar with several home visiting co-workers who were so appreciative of the practical nature of the information. Our clients are at-risk families in our communities. We are not counselors, but in our family advocate work we encounter difficult discussions: job loss, legal disputes, child custody, domestic violence, homelessness, poverty, childhood abuse, unhealthy relationships and poor parenting skills. This series has helped me become more aware of body language as clients speak to me (when a conversation is becoming overwhelming) and given me ways to speak into those moments of vulnerability with compassion and professionalism. I also appreciate the guidance to take into account my own reflexive responses, reading my own nervous system and keeping flexible yet professional boundaries. I connect our families with local resources, when available, including counseling. I am often the only other adult they see in a week. Your series inspires greater compassion for them and for myself. Thank you.
A wonderful 70 mins experience. Learning from experts is a privilege. Thank you for sharing. Today, I received a lot of new learnings. Some I can recollect here.
1. Need to deal with adaptive child in order to heal the wounded child.
2. The explanation of teenage protector for child in relationships makes an enormous difference in relationship therapy.
3. The entry point of building awareness in clients about their trauma.
Great strategies are given here to deal with different clients.
From these insightful videos sometimes we can understand ourselves better and being aware is the first step in healing.
My gratitude!
Arva
Thank you so very much for this invaluable program. I will be a much more present and empathetic counselor after learning how to lovingly engage a client with a traumatic past.
Thank you for making this available to everyone. It has been a Hugh blessing.
So lovely and healing. As an early childhood sexual abuse survivor by multiple family members in a large family (8 siblings, me the youngest), I love what Dr. B. says about psycho-education. Since I analyze everything in life, psycho-education is stabilizing, comforting and is essential in helping me grow in my counseling. Psycho-education is front-and-center in my toolbox of self-care, and that’s why I love participating in NICABM’s webinars. Blessings to all of you healers.
This last segment was amazing because it pulled it all together so helpfully. I’m not currently a “practitioner, as I am retired, but it makes me long to be back out there with this new understanding and ways to help. It helps me to watch these and my therapist often watches and uses some of it in our work and work with other patients.
I have purchased others of these but can’t afford all of them on my now limited income. So I love to watch several times to take notes on what I miss. Thanks for that, and when you post a transcript, as last week, I think, it helps a lot to get what I can’t write enough to get during video.
So lovely and healing. As an early childhood sexual abuse survivor by multiple family members in a large family (8 siblings, me the youngest), I love what Dr. B. says about psycho-education. Since I analyze everything in life, psycho-education is stabilizing, comforting and is essential in helping me grow in my counseling. Psycho-education is front-and-center in my toolbox of self-care, and that’s why I love participating in NICABM’s webinars. Blessings to all of you healers.
A great hour. It made me really FEEL compassion for myself and thus also for someone with whom I am presently involved.
With gratitude, Carol
I have really enjoyed this series. So many excellent points throughout! Thank you for making it free, and for sharing the transcript last week!
Thanks so much, as a student of psychotherapy and someone who suffers from cptsd and has family members who also suffer from cptsd this has been so helpful.
One of the most powerful ideas I will use from today’s session is that of “helping clients see the Self-Protectective Functions of their own and other’s Wounded Children or Teenage Protectors”:
I’m excited to see how this “consciousness-expanding perspective” might allow folks (not just trauma patients) to look ‘directly’ at a broader range of thoughts, feelings and behaviors (good, bad & ugly)… from a new angle (free of self-shaming/blaming/guilting, denial, projection, etc.),… activating the more evolved parts of their brain,… ‘experiencing’ a whole other “sense of self” that can ‘safely’ bear witness to pain & suffering,… and building new neural pathways,… with a new degree of understanding & compassion.
Thank you for the interesting program, yet again. I am more or less conformed, in what I do, but that feels reassuring. I found it very helpful, to hear about the effects of discrimination, in as concrete terms, as it was presented.
You plead with your audience, to buy the gold package. Under the circumstances, that would be too much for me. It is an investment, and I wouldn’t use it. But I would likely make a contribution, if you would allow for that.
I really liked that the issue of the sexual assault of males as boys was touched upon. There seems to be generally little discussion of the impact of sexual assault and trauma caused by females in a family, sisters and mothers, on the development of young boys and their capacity for healthy positive sustainable intimate heterosexual relationships as adults.
The idea of an adaptive, adolescent inner child, or an adaptive inner part that doesn’t learn skills I found intriguing. I have an example of an adult male in their 60’s who had a long history of profound treatment resistant depression.
One aspect that came up in his therapy was a remnant, strong sense and belief that he couldn’t draw. This sense and belief had been either created or reinforced as a 17 year old when he studied architecture for a year then discontinued due to strong feelings of embarrassment, humiliation and shame at having to display beginner drawings for group criticism at a particular vulnerable time in his life. Later in adult life he became a fine artist very skilled in drawing.
Nevertheless there remained a part of him that was untouched by his own experiences of mastering the skill of drawing. That part continued to sense and believe he couldn’t draw despite the external evidence to the contrary.
The idea of a historical adaptive part that continues with the historical adaptive beliefs, bodily reactions, feelings, and responses even when those are not the optimum adaptive responses in the present I’m going to reflect upon in dealing with the man’s chronic profound depression. It may offer an insight into the nature and treatment of his depression.
Thanks for a wonderful, informative five sessions.
The knowledge offered through the many specific and practical suggestions given by the expert therapists who spoke within the videos bring value to this program on addressing trauma. I will be able to use the knowledge – especially of how to ask questions of clients who may have minimized or even not seen abuses from childhood as the abuses they were… to bring awareness and compassion into present-day healing.
I also valued the way many speakers confirmed the importance of bringing education/awareness to clients regarding seeing past survival behaviours as useful and necessary in childhood, but unhelpful or harmful to relationships when continued as an adult.
The presentations made it easy to see how offering an educational awareness of please/appease (and other reactions to trauma) can help remove inner criticism or shaming of childhood survival behaviours. It was helpful to see ways expressed to empower clients’ motivation to welcome changes, instead of fear them.
The information contained here was valuable, and appreciated.
Janice Smylie, CCHt, NLP, TFT,
EFT Practitioner Trainer & EFT Coach
I found throughout the course that the information of the body`s biological pull to the repetition of the past most helpful. I am a psychoanalyst working with trauma and supervising therapists working with sexually abused patients. I think seeing the reenactment of abuser-abused relationships being repeated in the therapist-patient diad being reframed also in biological polyvagal conceptualization will add an element of understanding and empathy to my work. It explains in part some of the powerful effects of what in psychoanalytic theory is called transference- countertransference phenomena.
I have also benefited from the naming of techniques I have used often intuitively such as gentle voice and asking the patient to “return to the present” by opening their eyes, looking around etc . It helps to be able to name this as “grounding techniques”. It also helps me understand why the non- verbal communication ( right -hemisphsere to right – hemisphere communication to make patients feel safe) is so helpful, not just to see that it is. I have written a book about a long-term therapeutic journey with a dissociated patient, mainly from a phenomenological perspective and this course has helped me understand what I did intuitively in a more theory-based way. Thank you for your great investment and contribution.
I was really glad to have the conversation opened up regarding men and how sexual trauma in particular is framed for them and often overlooked in our culture. Talking about this is really, really, important; not only for the men who are abused, but also for the rest of us. Men are often in positions of power; to create balance, we need not only more women in positions of power, but more healed and healthy men. Acknowledging the trauma that men face (but are often expected to gloss over) is vital to the creation of a healthy society on this planet. THANK YOU for bringing this up and giving us the opportunity to understand the impact of this. Without understanding, it’s so easy to go into blame and shame and judgment (of others or of ourselves). To me, cultivating understanding and loving awareness is at the heart of all things truly healing. With understanding, we grow. With blame and shame and judgment, we stay stuck in pain and resistance. Thank you so much for sharing this whole series, I appreciate it and will use some of these insights with my clients.
Thank you so much to each and every one for their contribution in this program. It has helped me to revisit some concepts in different trainings done long ago.
The course reminded me specially about the function of the Adaptive child which I haven’t taken in consideration for a while. I certainly will pay more attention to it now. I will also use the “Please & Appease “ concept more often in psycho Education with my clients.
Thank you again for the great work
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us. It has helped heal the practitioner so that others can be healed through this process.
With gratitude,
Sandra
I loved the perspective of the protective teenager as the adaptive child. It makes it that much more relatable. All of the information was invaluable. This final session was a great way to tie everything together. Thank you for what YOU do.
Idea about how the reenactment plays role in relationship either with partner or the therapist, is one of the insightful things from this session that I will apply with my clients. Thank you to all the speakers for your sharing.
I am grateful for session 5 on relationships. I feel more hopeful that I can pursue an intimate relationship with the help of a therapist.
I thoroughly enjoyed this 5-part series. I am not currently a practitioner as I am a student. I found so much of this series opened my eyes as to how to move forward through dissociation and to recognize the child responding to trauma. When I finish my studies I hope to use much of what learned in these sessions. I hope that at some time in the future I will be able to purchase the entire programme even at full price as I have found it incredibly eye-opening to how adults respond to childhood trauma. Thank you for making these seminars happen.
Thank you so much for session 5 on relationships. As a survivor of developmental trauma my method of coping with intimate relationships has been to avoid them. I am now much more hopeful that I can explore this important part of life with the help of my therapist.
Thank you for these excellent trainings! I learned so much!From this week’s video I learned how to talk to men about repressed/unprocessed memories of sexual abuse.
Excellent information. I am looking forward to purchasing the Gold Package and learning more about the treatment of Trauma. Thank you
Sharonda, LCSW
superb
As an attorney dealing with abuse cases, I rarely see witnessing abuse/trauma, experiencing it, and perpetrating it as “mutually exclusive. I often if not usually see all three in the same person. A child might be abused by a parent, see their sibling abused, and bully others at school, for example. I think that is more the norm than each of these being “mutually exclusive”.
Spot on. From personal experience, tragically, many times in families (especially larger ones), the abuse gets “paid forward” acted out through victimization from family member to family member, and morphs into dysfunctional fragments of each victim’s adaptive personality, just trying to survive the day. The dysfunctional fragments morph into a “survival mode” whole which is not “mutually exclusive.”
as 1 of 10 kids, very interesting ! thanks
This information is so insightful and im so grateful for the opportunity to listen. Im.confident that the videos I’ve watched has given me a great gift to help my clients and myself
Thank you so much. That was truly great….practical and super insightful.
I am very grateful.
Thank you to all the speakers for their amazing insight into how to help our clients after trauma. I have learned so much form the entire 5 week series. I printed all the illustrations you emailed to us and filled out the worksheets for each segment. This has been so helpful for a 60 something year old practitioner in her second career who has only been licensed for 4 years. But age is only a number…
One thing I will apply is the Traumatic attachment piece to a client who keeps repeating the same issues with each of her boyfriends and let her know that she is wired to want more of this but we have to acknowledge this and break that pattern. And to work with the “adaptive child/protective teenager”. and to teach many of my clients that “protecting themselves was adaptive but is now limiting”. And, and, and….. So many great new ideas to help my clients!
Thank you all again!!!! Fantastic series!!
This series takes me deep into layers of trauma behavior I couldn’t access before. I can’t wait to receive the gold program; already clients are calling. I hope it will include some actual sessions.
Thank you! I was only able to watch part 5, but it was helpful in thinking about how I’m entering into a new romantic relationship and addressing conflict. We are reading Gottman’s book – 8 dates and just finished date 2. It’s our hope that this will help us grow in our own relationship and help us identify if we are a good long-term fit.
I experienced neglect growing up and forming healthy relationships is vitally important. And my adaptive child has done a lot of work and I’m working towards releasing them from their duties, by forming healthier relationships and growing the ones I have.
Thank you so much for these sessions. I’m a visual artist and recently finished an art therapy training at a University of Madrid. I come back and forth from Mexico to Montreal and hope that soon I can live in Mexico most of the time. I started working with vulnerable gruops in Mexico, and given that there’s so much trauma from all sorts fo causes including nature, I realize I have to deepen my knowledge on dealing with trauma. I wish I could by the gold pacage, but I can[t at this point, maybe in the future. Thank you very much. I learned a lot about how to make patients become aware of paterns and an easy to explain the 3 aspects of ourselves and how we take them to relationships, and how to know whos acting. Thanks a againlot