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
Sign up for the Gold Package
We want you to get better outcomes from having invested your time and continuing education dollars into watching this program. What are you going to do differently after watching this module?
Thank you for this!! So helpful to understand the why.
I had not considered the Pleasure Center not being fully developed.
I love using the, “I am alive,” statement and the Two step approach for helping clients move toward pleasure
1. Identify fears
2. The Gestalt chair dialogue with the different parts of the Self
Thank you!
Thank you, Dr. Ruth B and all participants. I hope to use this info to inform others I mentor and supervise who counsel our clients but who themselves are non-professional pastoral associates. Also especially to motivate others in related pastoral counseling fields to take these courses and delve deeper into the research of these experts. This session reflects highly valuable research results and synthesis it has taken decades for people with the greatest minds in the field to discover, articulate and collaborate in presenting. This encompasses psychological depth which includes all areas of the brain, mind, “heart and soul.” As members of a collectively traumatized society and culture, we have normalized the numbness of trauma. Above all is the awareness of the deep warmth and compassion of each presenter who chose this profession from their own depth of internal strength and resources. They go above and beyond the neutral technical methods of the clinician and relate to clients authentically and humanely.
This session brings together in a harmonious fashion a Tapestry of brilliance, research, collaboration. Dr. With weaves it together. Our job is to assist our clients at deeper self-knowledge to achieve true healing.
I just want to say thank you. It is very helpful and I use all the knowledge I got every day in my pratice as a Rosen Method Bodyworker. It just explane to me why Rosen Method bodywork always has been helpful to my self and my clients.
Regarding moral injury: after your program I realized that many women who have felt pressured to have an abortion may carry great moral injury. The partner who impregnated them may also experience moral injury as a result of the abortion. Thank you for bringing out how healthcare providers may also have moral injury.
This has been an excellent program. I so appreciated your connecting with brain development in this last program…especially the notion that if a child is not attuned to and felt that he/she is special that a critical part of brain development may not have happened. Thus, it would be harder for that person to accept being cherished/appreciated in later life….as a function of brain development.
Emma, Thank you for having the presence to express that concern. I am in the field of working with people who have experienced abortion to help them heal spiritually, psychologically, and improve their lives. That is why I take these courses, because the normal recovery work needs to be trauma-informed. We (in my field) also work to educate people to not choose abortion. We work with them to uncover the trauma in their lives and take steps to rehabilitate them. This society has chosen abortion as a method to avoid providing true compassionate care for very needy younger people. it has resulted in collective trauma in the U.S. and worldwide. a fetus in the womb is already a child.
The various comments et expertise of weel known professionals gave me a broad range of ways to understand trauma and its manifestation in the life of patients as well the way it is manifested during the work in therapy.. VERY COMPLETE APPROACH.
I will change my perspective of patiënt who are not able to feel and/ of are not aware of what the feel , instead of assuming that is is avoidance.
The perspective that some people only feel alive when theu are experiencieng a trauma respons.
And more imporantly for some, this is the only way to feel connected.
Thank you so much for sharing your compassionate understanding and information.
With kind regards, Marjolein Guit ( psychologist in the Netherlands)
Just wanted to express how grateful I am every time I get the chance to watch any of your broadcasts for free. I’m from Syria and I live in Egypt, I’m a certified grief therapist and I work in trauma and grief therapy. Thank you for all your efforts and for providing this valuable training for free.
I have a visually impaired client who has not felt alive for about 1 year. We watched a video of her singing at a music tribute to a famous artist. She became animated and I will use other physically active interventions to get her up and moving and singing in sessions.
Thank you for this offering and for making so much of it complimentary. I deeply appreciated it and I plan to implement many of the things I learned.
On a little side note – I appreciated when the clinicians used the word “clients” rather than “patients.” Maybe it’s just because I’m a therapist rather than a psychiatrist or psychologist, but for some reason it feels more honoring to them. Just wanted to mention that.
Thank you again for everything! I especially loved hearing from Bessel van der Kolk!
Me, too.
Thank you, I am a writer and will use the information in my novels about trauma and issues that are never spoken about. This is why I write about them.
Many years ago, we read novels to learn about human emotion!
I have attended all the modules and the bonus one too. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, wisdom and techniques. This program has been invaluable.
It’s been such an eye-opening experience! Thank you for sharing the wisdom of so many fantastic speakers. The key insight for me has been the acknowledgement that trauma survivors need in their recovery.
I have a client person in mind with a similar medical trauma situation, though not as early in life. I know there is a part of them that felt they did not survive that surgery, symbolically. I LOVE the idea of of asking this person to say “I am alive” and noticing the parts that resist. Powerful, thank you!
Brilliant insights. Thanks for this great session.
As always, I love your work. Thank you so much.
I work with CSA survivors every day, and often, someone will speak up and say they are contemplating breaking their silence.
We always discuss, “What if you get a negative response? Will you be able to be OK with that?” But I really liked the litmus test specifically about being believed. “Will you be ok if they don’t believe you?”
That is a very important scenario to specify because it is such a deeper level of invalidation than just a generic unsupportive or negative response. Really powerful and indicative of their readiness to move forward without putting themselves at risk of serious setback. Great idea.
I also liked, “I am alive,” statement, and am curious about the deep brain reorienting. I have never heard of that.
As always, thank you for creating these wonderful programs and sharing them with us.
This has helped me to much better understand and confirm why traumatised clients do what they do. I will be asking my client if they would be willing to try some empty chair work, as we have already engaged in looking curiously at that part that does not want them to feel any happiness or pleasure for too long.
I love the simplicity of some of the interventions, such as asking the client to say “I’m alive” and see what happens.
Dear contributors to this five week module on trauma,
I learned so much. I plan to use what I learned in my private practice with alienated children and
alienated parents. The parallels to trauma are significant. Also I plan to use these clinical tools in
my work with traumatized victims of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East.
Your commitment to education of mental health professionals does not go unnoticed.
Thank you very much,
Linda Gunsberg
thank you very much Ruth for allowing me to watch these seminars free the last 5 weeks. it has helped me as i try to heal.
Blessings to you and your staff
I really appreciate the information given today. These were my take away:
1. The two steps approach for helping clients:
– Identify fears
– The chair technique to help them move toward pleasure.
I thought this statement was insightful and it jump out at me profoundly: When Dr. Ruth Lanius said, “I feel therefore I am… Not I think therefore I am.”
I sincerely found the explanation given between aliveness and the pseudo- aliveness. i know that I will be utilizing the content gained here in a practical way.
Thanks much.
Reneé Mair, Jamaica
I don’t quite understand this yet but in sessions (as the client), I find myself wanting to share the stories of my experienced trauma, some of which might have occurred early on in life but more recently as a caregiver to my husband. He had Lewy Body Dementia. Our 10 year journey was filled with so much daily variability & a host of traumatizing / traumatic events. What I don’t understand is the “why” do I feel the need to tell the stories. I have a hard time sharing in sessions for many reasons (which seem to remain illusive) despite my therapist’s compassion, understanding, acceptance, respect and gentleness. People have not wanted to hear the stories of caregiving & the enormous rollercoaster of LBD. Part of me feels that while aurally repeating the many events & tribulations could be re-traumatizing, it would also feel restorative. Is this to experience the activation & psuedo-aliveness presented in this module? As I continue to explore trauma & trauma treatment all the experts caution, as did Bessel van der Kolk in this session, to steering clients away from 1) re-telling, & 2) to not push / rush; dealing with trauma takes time. I find both to be extremely challenging especially as I now need to start “anew” – identity, career, living environment, etc. I have come to learn much from my therapist re: mindfulness, somatic experiencing, the embodiment of trauma, self compassion & perhaps one of the greatest results of this exploration has been to lead me to NICABM. At this time I can’t afford to buy the package. I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to view this series & the one previously presented; to have the opportunity to view one module more than once (which I need to be able to fully understand); to those who are able to purchase the Gold Package allowing those of us who are unable to pay, participate & which also allows the possibility of further programming. Lastly, I am also grateful to all who were involved in putting this series together. I know it has indeed taken thousands of hours, dollars & many people.💕
Dear MC…God bless you for caring for your husband. As a caregiver, I have cared for a precious man with LBD, as well as my mom who had LBD.
I resonate with you a bit in that after my husband left me for another woman, and a very tumultuous 25 year marriage ended, I shared a brief bit of that as part of my story when asked. What was healing about that for me was that it was, indeed, a part of my story, and I was clear to also share about the benefits to my character that came of it, and the fact that I drew close to God in ways I’m not sure would have happened without the trauma. In that way, it was not just a retelling, but a meaning-making opportunity and a message of hope that trauma doesn’t have to define us. That way, there is a comma, not a period, after the summary of the telling of trauma, in my own lived experience, and for the benefit of others.
I found that in time, I didn’t feel the urge to share that part of my story as the healing unfolded. Other aspects of my lived experience loomed larger. I pray healing and meaningful growth for you.
Dr. van der Kolk clearly states in other teaching that a traumatized person’s painful experiences need to be told in an accepting environment, witnessed by the adult self, validated, and unburdened as taught in Internal Family Systems parts work. When he cautions about repeated re-telling reinforcing the trauma he talks about his VA patients repeatedly re-telling their war stories without integrating the painful emotions or without processing the memory so that the nervous system can label it as having happened in the past. He seems to think the veterans were reinforcing their default mode network to be activated under threat, which is what kept them alive in combat and allowed them to keep memories of their buddies fresh in their minds, but was less adaptive when living with their families, where it’s typical for the default mode network to be activated under calm. Have you read his book?
Thank you, Ruth and all your caring Professionals who have shared information and experiences that allow “the penny to drop” – with insights useful in expanding ways to help clients.
All their words, advice, and the variety of approaches are so full of value.
I have a better understanding of clients who constantly talk about their trauma and engage in risky behaviors. It makes so much sense because these clients verbalize feeling dead inside or not having a purpose.
The free video sessions were eye-opening to me as a lay-person and understandable as English is not my native language. I feel very grateful for hearing the expertise of such great researchers and practitioners! This helps me to understand myself and my behaviors better.
Two annotations:
I am a victim of abuse in church and wonder after yesterday’s session, if I chose my career because it activated and gave me a sense of pseudo-aliveness. Apart from that I must have been existing – because living is a too big word for it – in a state of chronic shutdown for years because I never moved out or pursued romantic relationships. So I was diagnosed with clinical depression several times and being pushed by family, friends and mental health professionals to “do something” and to “make something out of your life”. We couldn’t understand why I was unable to change and it left me feeling ashamed of my perceived lack of willpower and laziness. Now it makes a lot more sense!
I also wonder if it is the loss of connection to my body that prevents me from enjoying sports and outdoor activities. I never seem to have that amount of fun others derive from cycling, running, hiking, playing volleyball, archery etc. and I feel kind of bored instead. Now I practice yoga within a group. I would also love to take up swimming but I have a hard time floating and trusting that the water will carry me. It’s impossible for me to lay my back on the water for fear of sinking. Climbing wasn’t pleasant because of my mistrust in the rope and my fear of heights. Just about every material or element feels unsafe to me.
Is it just me or do other traumatized people experience such obstacles to enjoying exercise too? It is as if I have trust issues with my body because it let me down so badly in the past.
My take-away from the session is to not give up trying to expand my window of tolerance for feeling pleasure, explore new things that seem to be fun, include more humor in my daily routine and somehow restore a connection to my body. I do polyvagal exercises for a start.
Thanks for sharing. I have clients in clergy I will explore all this with.
Thank you for your courage for sharing this. How wonderful you found this webinar and are able to recognize you have so much life to live forthcoming. We are blessed each day is a new beginning.
Thank you so much for sharing. Your statement, “It is as if I have trust issues with my body because it let me down so badly in the past.” was a profound penny drop for me in equating my great distrust/disgust of church (which I describe as body dysmorphia to myself) and my actual physical body which lives with a genetic disorder.
I am not a professional or Gold member, but a survivor of domestic abuse during my marriage and, neglect as a child. What I heard in bits and pieces were insightful and helpful. I was very moved by the idea of violence (domestic violence) being a crime, which regardless of the ‘he said she said’ story that is hushed within the family and not easily punishable, I am naive and stunned by the fact that domestic violence if it happen in public, would have been seen as criminal.
I feel a bit empowered by that thought. And amazed at my need for justice and that just giving it a name sound help me..
I had not found the right word to describe what I went through….Thank you!
Hello Everyone, I am one of the at large listeners. I only practice on myself! That is a joke. I have learned humor to connect. I still say nothing bad happened because I have skillfully maneuvered my life to the age of 75.
My point is that all the modules and especially Module 5, dig, scrape, excavate, use brain research to unearth the twisted and helpful wires to detangle, not untangle, why life progressed as it did. To think others are responsible in this dress down of a human life. I am very glad to hear it is not only my father, my mother, my history, the prior generations, but also lifetime communities has some part in acknowledging and accepting their part. This gives me not, hope, but some relief I am not TOTALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHERS BEHAVOR and must forgive them.
As Mae West who must have known said. Better to be looked over than to be overlooked. That’s why jokes reflect truth and I can hear what they mean. I also use what I read in a Bob Neuhardt interview. ” I had to be a com
I am a very much “want to be” practitioner, if I could find a way to do it without the investment of years, as I am already 64. I have been attending and listening to BBRF for at least 8 years. I am a wellness coach and nutritionist (I suffer with a chronic condition), but also I am a trauma survivor and this information was absolutely wonderful! It took me 44 years before I realized my experiences and coping mechanisms were the result of PTSD, trauma and a lot of shame. I finally read The Body Keeps the Score during COVID, after reading Waking the Tiger decades ago. I also was introduced to the magnificent work in When the Body Says NO, and most recently read Getting Past your Past, attempting to see if EMDR is effective. These are the most wonderful productions ever! From the bottom of heart, I thank you!
This has been a great additional resource for me as a physician based in Nigeria who also facilitates trauma healing using the faith-based model developed by Trauma Healing Institute of American Bible Society.
Thank you for free access to the live sessions and repeat broadcasts. .
Thank you for making this information so accessible, understandable. As a lay person, this series has helped me ‘know’ on a deeper level why I am able to function at high levels. At the same time, what the source and possible pathways to regaining my core self, feelings, and sense of aliveness and deep self compassion. Thank you. Your work makes a difference and for that I’m very grateful.
I really appreciated this opportunity to listen and engage with these ideas and insights. I can’t afford the Gold Package, but this opportunity to tune in and receive helpful insights was deeply appreciated, this really elevates your work, and the mission of psychological wholeness of communities of individual lives putting the broken pieces back together to live joyful and productive lives. Thank you for this opportunity. Blessings. Franklin LaVoie
What an enlightening series this was. Thank you for helping me refresh my knowledge and adding to what I already know and use in my therapies.
thank you for this useful webinar. I will be putting into practise the idea of moving towards aliveness and connecting with their body.
The ideas about how clients can be fully accepted and offered ideas about feeling alive are limitless. This program touched on “how to open the door to these ideas”. I have heard this referred to openmindedness and willingness. Thank you very much. And on behalf of the clients who benefit from it, thank you very much.
Magnificent material to help our clients trascend their pain and feel alive.
Wonderful video. I’m a layperson in the adoption community. I would like to see this developed for the larger adoption ecosystem — not just the individuals in each constellation. Thank you
Thank you so much for making this series available to everyone. It was excellent! It has helped me tremendously, as a “lay person,” who has been working on healing my developmental trauma for 40 years. When I started, and kept working on myself during the years, information at this level about developmental trauma was not available. I am so happy that knowledge and insight continues to be developed and shared. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who helped put together this program. Thank you for giving me just what I needed at this time — I am so grateful to have been in the right place at the right time to be receive the benefit of everyone’s work and compassion. And thank you for making it available for free! Cheers and appreciation to all of you!
Thank you for this informative teaching, can I ask, is the default mode network related to the reason that people feel fully alive when they work in emergencies as doctors, and then feel unalive when they come home? And is it related to why some people climb mountains and do extreme sports? Thanks
I regret not makng this course a priority and engaging in all the lessons. I fully engaged in this final lesson and it was incredibly helpful. I am a 4th year psychiatry resident from México and we have been focusing a lot of clinical sessions in our hospital towards complex trauma; first learing to recognize it and soon I hope learning to treat. A lot of what was said helped integrate what I have learned. Recently had red Peter Levine´s paper on trauma and identity and it was much clearer with this session. I take away a few points; First, helping patients recognize trauma but not let it dominate their life, second, that encouragment, accompaniment is necesary and third to point the shame where it belongs.
I do have a question about this last point; If the patient doesn´t get the shame pointed in the right direction by the person they would like to do it; for example, a mother that turned a blind eye towards a stepfather´s sexual abuse and negligence, how do we help them cope and eventually forgive?
Hi Alexa,
They do not have to “forgive” There is no obligation to do so. The whole area of ‘forgiveness’ is very complex and very individual. I think we need to be very careful that we don’t place any artificially created burden on an already burdened shoulder.
Hope this makes sense (?)
Sue Misrachi,
Author: Lives unseen: unacknowledged trauma of non-disordered, competent Adult Children Of Parents with a Severe Mental Illness
Many many thanks to Ruth and all of the other expert speakers who put together such a wonderful 5-week program. As a psychotherapist in private practice, I have purchased many NICABM programs and have benefitted from them all.
Though not a therapist, but a lay person, I find these sessions invaluable -both in the one-on-one teaching I do in my music studio, and also to better understand my own journey of healing. Sometimes, when I notice patterns of stuckness in myself or others, I buy the Gold package, and am always glad I did! Although never attempting to delve into the emotional lives of my students (as a ‘pseudo-psychologist’), there are such evident patterns that arise when working with others, especially when alone together in a room over a period of years, that I find the learning I do here makes me more sensitive to discerning subtle nuances in receptivity -or resistance- to learning. I listen and observe far more closely, especially to subtle physical movements/breathing/facial expression. I’m more careful in how I might be ‘encouraging’. Where in the past, when I felt a window for growth might start to open up, I would encourage a student to ‘be brave’, and to push through their apprehension, when my enthusiasm for their potential breakthroughs was in fact triggering (often tiger parental or past bullying teacher) traumas, closing the very doors I was hoping to have open. I could go into much more depth, but basically…thank you! Always so much more to learn, and your offerings make that possible, financially and otherwise 🙏🏼💞🌻
Not sure if you’ll see this comment but I wanted to just send a ‘thank you’ on behalf of your students. As someone with C-PTSD and only recently diagnosed with Autism, I wish that many of my teachers had had access to this type of information and been willing and able enough to just notice those details and adjust their style. This is many years ago now so I know my teachers were doing what they thought the most encouraging, and I never understood until recently why, the more effusive they were about progress – especially if it was a sudden leap forwards or mastering a very complex piece – the more it would make me want to shut down or back away, despite very much wanting to continue to learn and celebrate my accomplishments with my teacher. But when they were passionate about praising me, for me it created a ‘threat’ that if I couldn’t keep bringing that level and eliciting that passion every week, they would be disappointed. I did not know how to handle the activation created by passionate praise, whilst also
Holding inside me my feelings about who I was as an abused child taking up ‘too much space’ and never being able to be perfect enough to prevent the abuse (from An adult outside my family).
So you noticing which of your students may need compassionate, as opposed
To passionate, praise means a LOT to me and I know it will to them too. You are truly giving those students a HUGE gift by noticing them.
Like you, I’m a lay person and now coach youth soccer goalies – and noticing how each individual reacts to praise and adjusting my style accordingly, perhaps not being effusive during the session but just taking them aside for a mi Ute when others have gone, to quietly and calmly point out what they did very well, works better. And I always end with a wry smile and tell them that I do NOT expect them to be that good every week – they might be, they might not be, but working away on your skills whether you feel you’re doing well that day or not, is a good way to learn the equanimity and self-compassion needed to be a goalkeeper!
Thanks again for what you do.
Wow, thank you do much.
I sincerely have acquired much in this session than I can pen down, however, the greatest point I cannot leave without mentioning understanding the connection of the negative childhood experiences and the activation of vitality; how they can undervalue the reward of pleasure and can be reluctance to try new things, which may make certain interventions more difficult for clients with these experiences. I too appreciated to understand that most time therapists associate emotional dissociation with emotional avoidance, and hardly differentiate “activation” from Vitality (being alive).
This session was so so so so … great. I appreciate.
Psycho-education is a fantastic intervention which I have used on the population group I worked with and researched titled “Lives unseen: Unacknowledged trauma of non-disordered, competent Adult Children Of Parents with a Severe Mental Illness” often suffer a lack of aliveness. People can find it by simply googling that title. Some of the articles I’ve been invited to write by a psychiatrist on trauma and grief directly and indirectly relate to traumatised people not feeling the full potential of their aliveness. As soon as the NSW psychiatrist publishes each article I modify it slightly then put it on medium.com for free for the general public. (People just need to put in my full name Suzette Misrachi followed by medium.com).
Thank you for this insightful presentation! I learnt a lot and it was wonderful to see Professor Judith Herman come back on board!
Learning about the default neural network for sense of self and others and creating bonds with others helps me understand why a client said to me. ” I dread holiday dinners and others seem to be happy and all I can think of talking about is my abusive childhood, so I just don’t talk.” I would have had a different response had I heard this broadcast about feeling alive after trauma.
I am going to:
1. validate that to be healed from trauma not only heals that individual but the healing ripples out from them. this would allow that person to experience that sense of expansion.
2. also get person to talk about about the allies who supported them (not just those who colluded with any trauma)
.
Im a 4th year Doctoral candidate writing my case study on the correlation between attachment trauma and physical illnesses (somatic symptoms). I am very much enjoying this programming.
Thank you.
You ARE in a noble profession, and I am grateful, not only for myself, but for all those that benefit from your efforts. One of my biggest take-aways today is the concept of feeling safe enough to feel, and pursue pleasure; the loneliness that arises from that experience. Another is the connection with hyper arousal and risk-taking behaviors. Once again, thank you.
I am a trauma survivor and I desperately want to live while I am alive. Thank you for making this available.
I value these trainings so highly. I love that there is a focus beyond surviving trauma – enhancing the lives of those who have experienced it. Thank you to the esteemed professionals who contributed.
Previous information has helped me in consumer advocacy in educating MH and other clinicians at the hospital, my clinicians and former colleagues from my nursing days, and I’m starting to see positive changes in their approaches (eg helping support pt with graded exposure after medical trauma by consult across from hospital in park with support animal, a first for 2 doctors), and whilst I can’t afford the cost of the package, this session will help me further educate them on assumptions such as looking at the symptom rather than reason behind the symptom/behaviour.
Thank you so much for doing this programme and it has been a lovely five weeks with NICABM.
My take away today is that psychoeducation about how trauma affects the sense of being alive is important. Also, I would pay attention to the language that I use.
The greatest benefit is the continuity and consistency of making this psycho-education and introduction to experts in the field widely available. the presentations are balanced and and deeply informative but not overly academic. This module 5 is greatly appreciated and full of insight for working with several clients. My personal favorite is Dr. Janina Fisher. Her observations are based on compassion. She speaks slowly and reassuringly. Next is Ruth Lanius, M.D. and PhD. I am very interested in her work and that of her colleague Dr. Frank Corrigan to develop electronic Biofeedback technology. Third is Dr. Pat Ogden. Then Judith Herman, another pioneer who is still active. I will get the books each of them authored to go more deeply into their work. The other gentlemen experts are also excellent. Deepest gratitude to Dr. Ruth B. and NICABM for creating and putting these series together. They have helped me in my practice and corrected many therapeutic diagnostic errors we were taught in the past.
It is also wonderful to have multiple opportunities to listen and re-listen. The pacing of a new module offered once a week is good. NICABM also offers other short courses that are extremely relevant to my clients’ needs during the same time frame as this. I purchased another one of the short courses at this time to “digest” that before making a decision about this purchase. I have purchased a few other courses and series also. The customer service professionalism is great. NICABM is excellent in every way. I prefer the traditional approach. Being able to obtain continuing education from the top tier of original experts who were co-creators of the field gathered in one place is truly a unique gift to all therapists, clinicians, counselors.