The Steep Cost of an Unlived Life: How to Help Patients Who Struggle to Feel Alive After Trauma
with Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Judith Herman, MD; Janina Fisher, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Usha Tummala-Narra, PhD; Eboni Webb, PsyD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; Kathy Steele, MN, CS; Ellyn Bader, PhD; Megan Schmidt, PsyD; Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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Thank you Judith Herman for that 4th aspect of Trauma Recovery. I work in Restorative Justice with youth ages 12-24 that have been charged by the police but sent to us as an alternative to the court system.The program is voluntary and if the youth work through the process and complete their agreement with us their charge is expunged. In this program the responsible person (offender) and the person harmed (victim) meet with the restorative justice facilitator and members of the community who have been impacted by the incident. The responsible person(s) tells their story and is required to take responsibility for what they have done. The person(s) harmed do not tell their story unless they wish to but may wish to express the impact of the incident on themselves and others.Then the community group including the responsible person and the harmed brainstorm about ways the responsible person can make amends, restore relationships and move forward in a more positive way. Eventually an agreement is drawn up with actions, deadlines and people to monitor the process. All the actions have to be agreed to by the person harmed as well as the responsible person.
All that has been going along quite well and the recidivism rate is about 5%. What has always bothered me though is the amount of time we spend on the responsible person(and we should) but not as much on the person harmed. Yes, we gave them a voice and we do support them with suggestions in a way to tell their experience without being retraumatized. But I did not think of what Judith Herman spoke of; having their trauma acknowledged by the community. That is exactly what I was looking for and shall integrate it into our process . Thank you so much.
Thank you for this Webinar. I could personally relate to so much of it. I grew up in a family of seven kids. My parents did the best they could but we were impoverished and emotionally neglected. The psychological community seems to have focused so much on abuse of all sorts (and we should). In my training, some 50 years ago, people tried to tell me I must have been abused because I had the symptoms of abuse. I knew I wasn’t abused but certainly knew I was neglected, so I often wondered; when will we we look at neglect? I’m glad we we are, and I thank you for this webinar.
I first signed up for the free webinar then decided to buy the Gold Package. After making the purchase, I clicked on the access button to go to the course. What I got instead was a list of many courses with the instructions to mark the ones I wanted to receive educational credit for. I do not want, nor do I need, any educational credit for any courses at this time. What I want is access to the course I purchased.
There is no way that I can see to get past this “Mark the courses you want educational credit for”. I am not able to access the course I purchased. And now it is Friday evening and everything is closed until Monday.
Could somebody please contact me about this issue? Thank you
I am very grateful to all the professional therapists who have contributed to this series. As the spouse of someone who did not become aware of a major dissociative disorder until recalls began 32 years after our marriage and who did not receive professional therapy after diagnosis I have been working to understand what it was and what approaches a family might make to facilitate recovery for 30 years. Possibilities for further exploration have been clarified. Our family suffered significantly. The new understandings from neurobiology have been extremely helpful. I hope therapists will develop ways of including the family in situations like we experienced, through educational literature and podcasts as well as live sessions to assist family members from time to time. Blessings on all who are actively working to help traumatized people throughout our world!
I found in this program a path to more effective healing for myself, and a deeper understand of my family for 5 generations. This will help me to better communicate and hopefully share this pathway With them.
oh my goodness. This session spoke to me deeply and triggered some deep realisations. Psychoeducation is incredibly powerful! This trauma series is an invaluable tool. Thank you for making it easily accessible
The client needs to know that he is a survivor, not a victim anymore. The trauma doesn’t define them, and we have to reaffirm: “You are alive, you made it!”
Appreciated the neuroscience explanations- helps understand and reframe the approach. I will use the feeling alive topic with my patients traumatized by advanced cancer diagnoses who out of fear and anxiety “stop living” while they are alive. All the se Great sessionssions were great. Thank you for offering this to us and the rest of the world!
The addition of the 4th stage seems very much like restorative justice, which I hadn’t really thought about in a more clinical context, but it certainly makes sense.
Interesting to me that the clients were more interested in that acknowledgement of harm from their community than from the perpetrator.
I have gotten some good take aways with 2 clients who have recently said they were dead inside due to trauma. I also bought the gold package! Thank you.
What a privilege to hear Judith Herman.
Thank yo so much for this presentation. I am so grateful as a single mom living on benefits to be able to access this wisdom, as I heal from complex PTSD. Being a medically trained physio and from studying somatic movement education, my scientific, engaged adult brain is loving the opportunity to understand my traumatic childhood. It is also so affirming to see that my own psychotherapist, that I am personally working with, is using most of these methods to help me heal my inner child.
This last presentation has reminded me how far I’ve come in the past few months, being able to find joy and practice and relax into feeling safe being happy. Your presentations have given me even greater hope and faith that I am on the right path for healing and mindfullness through Tara Brach, who introduced your work to me, has been a big part of that. Thank you so much for being a huge part in the change we want to see in the world. Much love, gratitude and blessing to you all xx
This content is valuable to my own understanding, which I recognise as one of the most important parts of my life. I’m not a practitioner, but if I were, bringing understanding & compassion to my clients would be at least, if not more important than sharing it in my relationships with others, and with myself.
A question arose regarding whole cultural, ethnic, political groups et al, who have deep shared trauma as part of, if not difining their whole lives.
Lastly, I think there should have been a partial or full scholarship offered for people in THIS country who have difficulty with the program cost.
Thank you. ♡
That is such a versatile subject. Thank you for giving insights to be more humle and not conclude to fast but explore
and see that sign can point many ways. Some times alivenes is a cover a not really alive, but inthrallment.
Also the importance of babysteps and avoiding the core-traume storry, but instead investigating the outscirts and the sensations – tahnk you
Thank you, I’m very happy to hear all of your knowings and wisdom. Grateful to listen to and see (and sense) Judith Herman, the pioneer of (complex and developmental) trauma work – happy about the added 4th fase of healing which I find very important. I missed it while working with torture survivors – saw the effect of Play Back Theatre for example, narrative witnessing can be used etc.
Thanks again, on behalf of many maybe not writing anything here, for your sharings!
Music Psychotherapist
So much rich food for thought here that it is difficult to isolate just one take away … but, for me, it was the fourth step in Dr Judith Herman’s stages of Trauma Recovery. We have heard often about the client feeling ‘seen’ and this element of bystander acknowledgement and community vindication is clearly so key to this. It was especially helpful that Judith went on to talk about how she prepares clients for the possibility that they may not get this outcome.
Appreciate this platform/broadcast- reminders to continue to motivate and provide individuals with positive tools to help assist them with processing and maintaining a healthy mindset.
-P.Medy
The big take away for me is the explanation offered for the engagment in risky behaviour. Especially if it is linked to early trauma and potentially shameful behaviour so also an element of re-enactment, and how this brings a sense of arousal in feeling any kind of aliveness- but not really the vitality that is wanted. Very informative of working with risky sexual bevaiour and addiciton.
I want to thank you very much for making this workshop available for free . As a Missionary working among Refugees I am not able to buy or pay. I want to extend my deeply gratitude for those who did and are doing.
The tips and insgihtsed me bless beyond. Thank you very much.
Lots of useful stuff from the various practitioners.
However there seemed to be a recurring vocabulary that a client “didn’t” get whatever from parents, caregivers, etc. Sometimes that’s because the parent, etc “couldn’t” – because of circumstances, or their own past experiences or trauma. If the client isn’t helped to acknowledge that there might be an element of that in their own trauma it can lead to becoming more stuck. I’ve observed this many times – the loop has a tight knot whereas a spiral has a beginning and an end. Hence one reason why bodywork can be so effective.
Thanks for the input from all
I had therapist who was the first person to get in deep real contact with me. 1 second of eyecontact made me feel valuable and alive. But getting that far took more than two years. she reached my “5 month” old alter long before I knew about my insiders.
Thank you for this workshop. There were many tips to refresh knowledge about diagnosis and the various forms and symptoms of trauma. But as far as treatment is concerned I believe more discussion with experts and their views on cases would be needed. Of course such a clinical project (ie. discussion of therapeutic practice focuses on cases) cannot be covered in four hours and this does not mean that this package looses its value. Of course not. It was precious. Thanks again!
My biggest take-away from this series and many previous series is to study further with the pioneering scientific research work of Dr. Ruth Lanius. Her research work provides methods of achieving actual break-through with scientific methods she learned from Dr. Frank Corrigan. She adapted his private lab work and brought it to the world by creating general, widespread application for use with a broad client base. This is a method of affecting the physiology of the brain to recover. Therefore. the symptoms do not even matter. Symptom resolution is transcended when scientific methods are nowcavailable. Dr. Frank Corrigan is difficult to understand. Dr. Ruth is a fantastic presenter to educated audiences of students and practitioners. She is the ultimate polished professional educator in her presentation methods. She engages the listener and attends to important details of personal presence. Her slides are quite charming and engaging, making a technical study very digestible.
Dr. Ruth B. put together this collection. It must have been tremendous editorial work to cull segments from many diverse presentations and re-state what is said to guide listeners through.
Dr. EBONI Webb is a fantastic presenter. Highly polished professional. Full of warmth, richness, compassion and spirit. She brings to mind the words of a familiar traditional prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread” interpreted in the words of Mary Baker Eddy, “Feed the famished affections.” Dr. Webb feeds all human needs for “clients” (not patients). She reflects the human craving of patients to be seen as human people, without clinical labels. Her attention to engaging the audience with her smile, gestures, gorgeous backdrop enhancing her personal attire, feed the clients’ desires for “creating beauty from ashes.”
Other professional presenters are Janina Fisher and Kathy Steele. I learned about them through NICABM. I have continued in the past by ordering gold packages. Then went on to obtaining many of their full-length teaching presentations and buying their books. This is the best C.E. I never could have done this in classrooms. The presenters in this series are full of compassion for the suffering of clients. That is why they do what they do. Thank you, Dr. Ruth B and the incredible and generous team.
yes!
Beautiful put Janine, I echo your words. Thank you to you and to all the presenters and work done here.
My father could’ve taught a graduate level Worst Case Scenario course if he’d wanted to, so hearing the distinction between aliveness and arousal in today’s session was fascinating to me. It’s helped me better understand the mass skepticism and cynicism on social media as well as become way more aware of the thoughts forming out of my own state of mind and notice whether they’re rooted in protection/arousal or openness/aliveness. Thank you for that!
Hi, I’m glad I was able to attend this webinar.
I have been a massage therapist by profession for 10 years, I have worked and worked with patients from spinal cord injuries but also with neurological conditions. At the moment, I am a student in the last year of the Special Psychopedagogy specialization and my bachelor’s thesis is communication with the patient and his involvement in recovery. The approach you presented is very interesting and I am glad that I am not the only one who has a similar approach when I work with patients. one of the strategies that helps both me and the patient is humorNow I understood better why patients felt better just seeing me in the hallway.
Thank you for the way you organized the presentations.
Unfortunately, at the moment I cannot financially afford to purchase the Gold package, my financial situation does not allow me much and the costs in Romania are quite high for the current income 9 at the moment I cannot work due to the fact that I have to complete my bachelor thesis which is not very easy to do). Once again, thank you for the presentation.
May I leave a comment related to Kathy Steele’s ideas about enthralment? I would just like to say that monotropic focus on a single item or subject brings joy to autistic people and it may be necessary to distinguish between enthralment in neurotypical populations and hyper focus in neurodiverse populations. A monotropic mind that enters a flow state is part of the normal way of being in the world for autistic people.
That is very interesting. Many older age clinicians have little or no experience with people with autistic symptoms beca7se it is a recent diagnostic category. Most likely they did not learn about this when they went to graduate school as it had not yet been identified nor clinically studied. It is more of an organic phyclsical impairment rather than a trauma-caused psychological symptom.
In my work with economically, intellectually, and culturally deprived homeless pregnant women, I have had the break-through awareness that some may have undiagnosed autism, not trauma, as their underlying condition. Therefore, the conventional treatment modalities for trauma resolution cannot be applied as they will not be successful. compassion seems to be the most authentic tool in the counselors’ toolbox to find appropriate ways to engage those we serve.
Two comments I have is that this is work that will work well in prisons.
The other is that these programs are helpful to us that live in the US and are on fixed incomes after providing therapy for years with low-income populations
I volunteer half my week with homeless persons’ drop-in centre (almost all carry very serious Trauma).
I also volunteer evenings and occasional days with (like myself) men & non-binary people who are doing group work (which I facilitate). We are all equal. We all share pain. These free recordings (when I can find the time to watch them) are a godsend! I wish I could afford to purchase the gold package, but I can at least see a little and it is very helpful. I have noted the simple techniques such as standing up and moving and noticing what actions like towel ringing etc. feel like. I also began to wonder about drumming and other simple noise making in a group. I thank you for you help.
Very interesting, thank you!
Hello,
it is very interesting, this couse.
I work a little bit as a coach, but to be honest I wanted to do this course mostly, because I am an abandoned/neglected child myself.
What I see is that watching the video’s has a lot of impact on myself and I can not yet translate what I hear and learn into work.
I recognise quite a lot, which is in a way kind of healing, als I have always thought that I was crazy, a poser, a narcistic person and things like that. I learn that my way of handling my problem by taking care of everybody (first as a child for my mother and my sisters and brother and later especially in my work as a gp) for years was something I did to survive, and I did. Only since my retirement I got a lot of extra complaints. And I do therapy now.
I am wondering why there is very little said about more pure fysical exercises for people with this kind of trauma?
Things like straining and relaxing of the stressed muscles, “bare foot walking”, special breathing techniques.
And I am wondering if it is possible for someone who did not do this course now can see the video’s and transcriptions later?
And how much would this cost?
kind regards Lili van Rhijn
Hi Lili,
Thank you for your positive feedback!
The cost of this course is $197 USD, and it will only be on sale until tonight, 5/14.
I hope this helps!
Thank you as one of the lay folks..(thank you for the acknowledgement!) I echo that this effort is wonderful to see happening and is important to our civilization. I feel we should, as a culture, be fluent in trauma care of all kinds. I wish I had the time to see all the webinars but only caught the last two .. even so copious notes were taken.. I do feel that since covid we are having epidemic show of traumas, when before covid, trauma was only beginning to be admitted cultually in terms of war. It was when I first found one of your well put together series on PTSD so when I saw this offered I signed though I didn’t have the schedule to see them all. The greatest take away for me is seeing neurobiology step up in a major way of understanding what is going on as we enact and navigate our existential fears and hopes..and decoupling and then reintegrating the global with the personal as a healing journey I have a lot of homework thank you for doing this! Your fan, Valeria
Thank you for another wonderful presentation! I am a survivor of extreme organized abuse as a child and I have DID. I would be interested in how to apply this module to DID clients who layer parts under a dissociative and apparently ‘normal’ part? DID clients can sometimes have a numb and disconnected affect, but can also have a ‘pseudoaliveness’ affect as well. In general, I would love to see more of these modules include how to apply these techniques in the dissociative and/or DID client. Thank you and keep up the great work!
Thankyou for this excellent set of modules. I appreciate how Dr. Ruth guides and summarises throughout the sessions. This will be really helpful in working with my clients. I’ve signed up for the gold package and am looking forward to learning more with all the bonuses included.
I am a child who was not “even alive” to the OBGYN man who fathered me, and the Registered Nurse who birthed me. I am alive today because the the trauma work of the experts presenting here, as well as, others who validated I existed, loved, and care for me. I invest daily in my understanding so that at 76 I can be a person who never traumatizes another human. These session have helped me understand what would be helpful to me now, I hope to work one on one with the experts sharing here. it gives me hope which I had not had before! I am grateful for all the evidence based research and the findings which will continue to help others, and myself. What struck me in the last module was the extent of the trauma my birth father and birth mother had to have experienced to not see that I was alive. It was more that abuse, neglect and abandonment, they existentially left me to die. This results of their unspoken trauma and unresolved hurt- everything described so passionately here, they too experience and never had help. My birth mother had electroshock therapy which separated her further from the understanding and resolve which she needed. She died young and lost, my birth father died of shame and guilt. My takeaway is that the people that hurt us so inhumanely, suffered and never returned to their heartache for all the reasons so well presented here. I had success in therapy, they never took the chance to “feel therefore I am alive”. This doctor and nurse died before they had me. I can see that all heinous acts are committed by people who lost their lives, long before they took the lives of others. I hope the ripple effect of helping others includes compassion for those who had no help.
Beautiful butterfly transformation or even metamorphosis.
Beautiful that you think of those not helped with compassion.
Beautiful that you share.
Alive and sharing.
It inspires me in my work.
You make me think of ‘traumatic growth’.
Thanks!
I am a laywoman in your areas of research and expertise and was only able to watch 2 of the sessions.
This said, I would firstly like to express my admiration for the “noble work” you do (to reiterate the term you used to describe your work/profession).
This was an excellent series, full of inventive, creative and profound approaches to the topic of trauma. Although it was so packed with new concepts to be considered, understood and processed for the layperson, the organisation and presentation of material, along with the knowledge and devotion of the presenters, was very clear and made for a highly stimulating, thought-provoking moment.
Thank you all so much.
I appreciated hearing the results of Dr. Herman’s study indicating trauma survivors unanimously wanted acknowledgment of the harms they suffered and vindication from the community of bystanders. To me, this speaks to the need to tease out if a survivor is retelling their trauma story as part of an attachment to a trauma identity or to feel arousal, or if they are seeking understanding and vindication.
Fantastic presentation. only wish I’d gotten on sooner than the last one & at or near the end (last 30-45 minutes); still so helpful. I am not a practitioner per se, though; I am a Registered Canadian Reflexology Therapist looking to best benefit my clients in any way I can.
Especially appreciate the focus on context in order to move forward into the present rather than the core trauma being forever relived.
I have witnessed all of the modules and I am grateful to all of the presenters and to Dr. Ruth who made this possible. I am not in a position currently to purchase the gold package but I took notes and have ideas of implementation. Thank you again. Are there CEU’s available?
I got to listen to modules 2 and 4. Thank you for sharing these sessions. They were helpful in putting into words situations that were difficult to articulate. More power to your work!
Big Thanks to Everyone for sharing this wisdom. Special thanks to brilliant Judith Herman for knowing and describing so clearing the fourth step to healing from trauma based shame)which is so very significant and necessary.
Maybe what was missing was the remainder of the important work on trauma of the therapist as Irvin Yalom once said @we do need to be one step ahead of the client@
Also maybe there could be more about the importance of the acknowledgment of the life context in the healing process as greatly impactful on how they are.
Awesome presentation thank you. I tremendously appreciate the thought, hours of work and investment that has created these programs. I wish I could afford the Gold Package. It is an investment in Life. Deep warmth to all involved.
I’ve recently begun work with a 64 year old client who suffered trauma in the military in several different ways but also as a child. He presents as very talkative and laughs a lot while telling many troubling events in his life. While I have recognized and discussed some of these events I realize how he has protected himself for so long from acknowledging his suffering. The good thing is that he is now curious and open to exploring. I think this training will help me serve him.
Amazing positining in new body awareness approaches of healing trauma along with simle and actrimly effectives tools: using pillows, “I am Alife”, observation of self tregerring in sake of feel arousal as a way for more alivness sensention, differ them from pseude one. Deeeeep Appreciation
OMG, I got so much out of this 80 minutes. I’m a layman who is exploring Somatic Healing through a separate training program. This so enhances what I’m learning, and expands so much of what I’ve been thinking about right now. Thanks so much to Ruth for organizing and moderating, and thanks to all the speakers who added so much to this important conversation. I’m looking forward to learning more!
Jeff Sugarman in LA
Thanks, excellent info. Signed up for the Gold Package!
Is there a place that indicated how long each module was? I didn’t see that anywhere and it would have been helpful. I had to cut off several of the webinars and not see the end because I didn’t set aside more than an hour. Thank you for disclosing this more clearly in the future. I really appreciated this series, thank you.
09-05-2024: Today was my first experience with this course. I am very enthusiastic about the program and the professionals/contributors who gave the lectures. I had two of my patients with long lasting relational trauma in mind, and after today’s session I have gained new understanding (e.g. about the default network) with respect to their symptoms and suffering, and about the options that were proposed to use in their therapy, and for that I am very grateful. I am looking forward to watching the other four modules in the coming weeks (and fortunately I already bought the gold package, for I knew I wasn’t able to watch the first sessions during the past weeks).
So once more: thank you very much!