Unlocking Trauma with Rachel Guenther

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Welcome to Finding Noble, a podcast where we climb into the world of young people's mental health and where we provide support for the adults who support them. I'm your host, Carly Red. Welcome to another episode of Finding Noble. I'm with my co host, Dr. Kevin Skinner. Welcome.

Thank you. How are you?

So good. And Dr. Skinner, do you want to tell us who's on the podcast with us today?

Yes. We have Rachel Gunther. I am so excited. I met Rachel boy 12 years ago, probably 12 years ago.

2013. Yeah. Wow.

So, yeah. So great opportunity to have Rachel in with us. She is a therapist, Licensed marriage and family therapist.

Yes.

And just like you, and she's been practicing for about 12, 13 years and she has a lot of great life experience, especially working with trauma. And anyway, grateful that Rachel's with us today.

Thank you for having me. Excited to be here, the two of you.

Thank you, Dr. Skinner, for bringing up the topic too. We are talking about trauma today and Rachel and you both specialize in trauma work, and so I'm really excited to have you both on today. Now, as we get into this, Rachel, we would love to hear about what drew you to specializing in trauma work. How you got here, how long you've been doing this, and why you're so passionate about the work you do. And if you want to include any influential moments or people that have impacted your work or your decision to be a part of this work, I think people would be interested in that.

Okay. Yeah, I think I was in my mid teens, I was about 16 years old when I became really interested in psychology and attachment theory. And in that interest in work, I was trying to figure out, based on my own disruptive and insecure attachment in my early life, how I would be able to grow up and be a healthy individual and have healthy relationships. So when I graduated with a social work degree, I started working for the Department of Human Services, Child Welfare in Oregon. And I was there about three years, but it was not more than two weeks in when I realized families needed more support and needed long term healing that in order to stay out of the system that they would need to heal their trauma. And my initial passion was going to be working with children with trauma because of my own experiences early on in life. And then I soon realized parents really needed a lot of support to whether they were repeating patterns in their homes or their children were experiencing trauma in their extended families or in other cultures that they existed in, like school or friends and wherever they may have been exposed to harm.

So, yeah, could you touch A little bit more about what those childhood experiences.

Were like for you.

Do you want to go into that at all?

I. I grew up with a family that was disrupted with divorce at 2 years old. And then there was domestic violence in my. The next eight years of my life, I witnessed that recurring essentially daily. And drug use and alcoholism. And so when child welfare took me away at 10 years old, I went to live with my dad and stepmom, and I lived with them a few years until I went to live with my grandparents at 15. And so I again, wanted to understand how to heal from trauma, because at that time, I had done a lot of talk therapy. And by the time I reached adulthood, talk therapy for me did not seem sufficient enough to break some of the patterns.

That sounds really hard. Thank you for sharing that. Now, I was curious if both you, Dr. Skinner and Rachel, if you could define for us or give us more understanding on what constitutes trauma. What is trauma? Maybe. Dr. Skinner, you go first. Let's hear what you have to say about trauma.

First of all, Rachel, thank you for sharing your story and your experience. I think sometimes we, as professionals, we are looked at, okay, we have to have all the answers. But the reality is we all have gone through our own experiences, and I think that's important to our listening audience to understand that people who've been through a significant amount of trauma, therapists are sometimes have been through it themselves. And because they've been through it, they really understand a lot of hurt and pain and the trauma that people go through. So if we were to define trauma, one of my favorite definitions, if I can say favorite, is actually an event that triggers a separation from self, others, and society. So it's an event that separates me. It's something that I don't know what to do with. And it's sometimes so shocking to the mind, the body that we don't know how to respond. So we separate from self because we don't know what to do with it. Whether that's abuse, neglect, witnessing something, all of those things could be a traumatic event. And then the other component of that is that I lose trust in others and society because I don't know if I'm safe. And so really, trauma is a perception that I'm no longer safe. And sometimes I don't even feel safe with myself because of whatever the event or events may be.

Yeah, I think that's where a lot of our work in our office begins, is rebuilding trust with self. Because when we don't trust others and we don't trust Ourselves, we don't really have a starting point and gaining that back or finding it maybe for the first time.

Could you explain what that means a little more? What does that mean? Trust in yourself.

Often, regardless of what has occurred, people will internalize it and make it a problem with self, especially young children. A lot of negative core beliefs are said to have developed before the age of eight, before we can really differentiate self. And so a child may witness abuse or experience abuse and they develop negative beliefs about self. Like, I'm bad, I don't deserve safety, I'm unlovable, I've done something wrong, I failed. And we have to, no matter the age of the client, we have to typically start there. At least that's my experience. What about yours, Dr. Skinner?

Yeah, and I think we go back in time and sometimes if I have experienced trauma, sometimes people don't even realize it until they're older. Because we don't necessarily define things as trauma. An 8, 9, 10 year old, an adolescent, typically do not see things and define it as, oh, that was traumatic. Maybe we're getting more there, but we just see it as a difficult experience or is really hard. But when we break it down, one of the core things that happens is that trauma begins to percolate, come up in our lives and it influences how we see self and how we see others, just like Rachel was just talking about. So this core belief, I'm not like others, there's something wrong with me, I'm bad, I'm unlovable. Often those come from traumatic events or experiences that again, we didn't label em as trauma, but they are traumatic.

Yeah, I liked your definition, Dr. Skinner. The definition I use is typically anything that affects the way I see myself and, or the world or my relation to it. And it's pretty interesting that the definitions that are out there, I think even Wikipedia defines it as outside the realm of a normal or an average human experience. And I just think that's so minimizing. I really do like Bessel van der Kolk's explanation of trauma and how we look at it in big T's and little T's and big T's being measured by intensity and little T's being measured by duration and big T's. For example, maybe a childhood illness, a tragic event, witnessing or experiencing one. Whereas a little T, maybe those negative beliefs, I am damaged, I am unlovable. And those may be reinforced hundreds of times throughout a person's life. So there really are a lot of ways to look at what is trauma.

And if we were to add to that, then we would say an event occurs and it's how we respond to that event.

Right.

Again, sometimes that event, we don't necessarily see it as traumatic at the time, but over time we begin to see the significance of how that's influenced our behaviors or our thoughts or our emotions. If we look at adverse childhood experiences, divorce, substance use, witnessing abuse, being abused.

Right.

And we just look at that as a whole, having a family member with a mental health challenge, those are called adverse childhood experiences. Now again, I grew up in a home where my parents divorced. I probably would not say that was traumatic. But as I look at the consequences and how that influenced my thinking later on, I look and say it had a significant influence. How I saw myself in correlation with other people, but I didn't know it as a child. I experienced it more in my dating and adult relationships.

Is trauma then always relational? Does that mean it usually involves other people? Or can trauma be isolated within oneself because of an experience that you've had? Will it always influence your ability to relate or have relationships with other people? Is that kind of what I'm hearing.

Is that.

Directly or indirectly impacts our relationships with others?

I have a thought, but I'd love to hear your thoughts, Rachel.

I most certainly think if we look at the internal family Systems model and Dr. Skinner is mentioning the self, and I think, yes, we can have an experience within self that leads to traumatic emotions and sensations. We may have thoughts or we may have behaviors that can cause us to experience trauma. Based on this idea of how we feel about ourself and how we orient ourselves to the world and to others.

I think that's exactly right. And then if we add to it. So now I've had this event, I'm trying to make sense of it. How does it influence how I see people remember, usually a traumatic event. We don't know if we are safe. And so with that event, then I begin to say, okay, I don't know how to trust this person. So now it begins to influence how I see myself in relationship with other people. And then traumatic experiences also makes us question ourselves. Am I not lovable? Is there something inherently wrong with me? And so as we experience these traumatic experiences, it's going to influence us relationally. Going back to your original question, Carly, because I think we internalize a concept of shame. A shame based voice. I don't fit, I don't belong. I'm unlovable, I'm not important. That's a shame based voice. And if that's Going on in my mental background, I'm not as smart as I'm not as lovable. And so then when I interact with other people, I'm naturally going to hold back or I'm going to try to be the clown, try to get attention, but I won't really let people into my world because of the events and my lack of trust in people. Or maybe seeing it another way, I don't want to be seen because if people really knew me, they would reject me.

Yeah, I think shame is where a lot of suffering and impaired beliefs come from, or from the thoughts. Right. And the meaning we attach to our experiences that lead to shame. And as you're talking about that disconnection and that fatal flaw, if they knew me, they wouldn't love me.

When we experienced these ill conceived ideas of who we are because of trauma or because of experiences we have, we start these negative beliefs, thoughts turning into negative belief systems. It's interesting because it removes you from association with the whole system that you're a part of.

Right.

And I don't know why all humans do this. I do it as a parent all the time that if something negative happens, it automatically comes down to, well, I must have done something horrible then, or there must be something about me that made this situation negative in some way. And the truth of the matter is we all exist within an ecosystem of so many moving parts and so many different humans who've all been acted upon and acted within their own little ecosystem. And now we're trying to all act together and not just the people, but circumstances, our human experience. We have all these different objects and humans and experiences working on us at all times. Why would we think that we could carry the cause or be the cause of all the negative experiences that we're experiencing? Does that make any sense?

It does to me for the following reason. We have a concept called the locus of control. And that concept is, is that we, we think we can influence things. And when we realize that we can't influence them, often we don't want to give that up. And so the locus of control is sometimes we try to keep in control. If, if I was better, if I did more, then this wouldn't have happened. But when we recognize what we can control, what we can't control, then we realize that's not on me. I can't control the environment that I grew up in. I can't influence their actions. I can only influence what's happening within me.

Yeah, and that's a very childlike state. Right. We can experience that at all developmental stages in our lives, but I think especially in children and many of us, actually, if we have control over it, then we can change or fix it. It's a common defense mechanism.

Interesting. So then, when you're working with people in trauma, what does that look like? To extricate this isolated inward place of shame and blame that they may be experiencing without even recognizing they're experiencing it a lot of the time? Because it feels like trauma is typically hidden, that it's not easy to access. Is that true?

I don't know that it's hidden, but I think we are getting better at recognizing it and becoming more aware. Okay, may have said it earlier. We are more comfortable acknowledging it, and we have more resources in place. Podcasts, books, forums, clinicians, even life coaches, psychologists, psychiatrists. So with the forward movement in treating mental health, we are getting more familiar talking about it for sure and giving it space. But, yeah, a lot of people come in and they say, oh, I. I know you worked with someone who referred me, and they did a lot of trauma work, and I don't even really think I have trauma. And they feel a sense of inhibition and do I belong here? Do I have the right to your time? And that's when I go into explaining to them. I actually usually give them the list that I have in my office laminated of negative core beliefs, and they look over that list, and majority of people, they can identify parts of them, 75% of that list. I do think this way. I do feel this way. And so when you break it down into big T's and little T's, and you can talk about the body and the sensations, and they can identify their nervous system shifting and changing when they're activated or flooded. They do feel a sense of belonging. Interesting.

And if we were to take every one of us in life, we all have experiences that are. I'm gonna change the word for a second. That are difficult. And your interpretation. My interpretation, Rachel's interpretation, they might be very different interpretations. So we also have to recognize that some individuals go through an experience, say a parent's divorce, and they have very different experiences because no children go through exactly the same divorce, even though it's. They had the same parents.

So are you saying within the same family system, all siblings within that family system could be experiencing a completely different experience, even with the same parents? Is that what you're saying?

Absolutely, dude. There is no question in my mind, because let's just say, for example, both children have gone through a divorce or more than that. And now you've got one child who basically is distanced from the parents, but one child connects with the mom or a dad. The other child turns to friends and peers and is influenced by them. And let's say that those peers have a phenomenally positive influence on that child, but the other child is influenced by a parent who maybe took them under their wing but turned them against the other parent. And so now you've got one child who's having a positive experience with other friends, parents, and another who's being maybe groomed to criticize people to be negative. And so just. That's just a small microcosm of a possibility. So. So no two children are going to go through a parent's divorce the same way, or I witness an event and come out with the same conclusion.

Yeah, the WHO says actually 70% of people will experience a traumatic event, but only 6% will actually develop PTSD. There's a lot scientifically. I know, Dr. Skinner, you're brilliant at pulling up facts by numerous researchers and authors and pioneers. But there's a lot hormonally and chemically that happens that affects how. How we process. And things I've read have said low levels of oxytocin and even estrogen and thyroid hormones, many different hormones affect our experiences and how we process an event.

So overall, I'm hearing you guys say, when we compare our trauma with someone else's trauma, that's probably obsolete because nobody will experience the exact same experience altogether when given a certain set of difficult experiences that. I think that we do that so often. Well, they. This woman also had a spouse die, or this person also had their dad die young or I also went through a divorce and I'm handling it better than you are. I think that's what we do a lot of the time. I think a lot of shame is created within that as we look sideways and see how someone else might be handling something. I think from what I'm hearing you say that it's fair to tell ourselves, stop looking around at everybody else. If this is painful for you, it's painful. Like you said, all these little T's, small T's, little T's, big little traumatic events. Even if you haven't had some massive traumatic event in your life and you're still experiencing elements or particles of trauma, it's. That doesn't negate your experience at all. Do you guys have anything to say?

I think that's really important where you're just summarizing there. When we, in any environment, when we are Suffering and it's influencing our interactions with others, then we have to honor that. The numbers of people who've experienced some form of traumatic event are very high. Some people, BY estimates over 87% have experienced at least some negative event. And the truth is everybody will experience a traumatic event. Losing a grandparent, getting in a car crash, going to the dentist.

Hear that noise?

I just got back from the dentist. But my point is this. When we experience something, and I'm not trying to make light of trauma, I'm simply saying we all will experience some event or events. It's how we interpret them, how we go through them. Do we get support? Do we reach out? Do we do it in isolation? Do I feel like I belong? Do I fit all of these components that influence how I make sense of an event? So really, it's how we make sense of the event that determines, in many cases, the traumatic experience itself.

This is good. I want to go in this direction. I like this.

Yeah. When you're talking about validation, Carly, DBT acronym, fast and under the A, it means no apologies. It says don't invalidate the valid. And I think everyone's experience is valid. I hear you, Skinner, saying the need for social support really helps and determines. And I know for years you use the perceived social support skill in the practice or the clinic that I worked at with you for 10 years, and we really saw that correlate. The higher the perception, the greater the mental health and resilience. And it wasn't even about numbers, how many support people somebody had, but it was that word perception or perceived. And so that's critical. And then also self compassion. If we fight against, if we minimize, essentially we have denial, which we can't consciously control. But if we fight against it and we're not compassionate and we're not mindful and open, then we can add to our suffering greatly.

Very much so.

So that kind of goes back to an earlier question that I had. How do we begin to acknowledge or perceive that we may be storing a traumatic event? How would you even word that? Like, are we storing trauma in our body? It because of a traumatic event, we have these negative experiences compounding inside us. How do we begin to see them? How do we know that they're there? And then how do we begin to extricate them? How do we begin to take it out? It sounds like to me that trauma likes to be in dark places and that when it's brought out into the light with ourselves, with the people around us, that when we can connect like you Said trust yourself, connect with yourself, connect with others. That's when it starts to. I almost picture it dissolving away. It's. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I just have this imagery of pulling it up and out and getting it out of us.

Yeah, well, that's actually a technique for working through trauma. If you're looking at Accelerated Resolution Therapy or arc. So then you go in there and you do you use a tool or an instrument to removal through a series of exposures. So your question is how do we identify?

Identify, that's the word I'm looking for.

Yes. So we've talked so far about a stressful experience or a triggering event. Right. And we look for other marked alterations and mood and behavior. So sleep disturbances, changes in eating habits, changes in mood and behavior like irritability, overwhelm, confusion. Help me out, Skinner. What are some of the things triggers.

Trigger triggered by many different things. Nightmares, flashbacks, memories that keep bugging us. And then we also find avoidance, where we begin to avoid situations that remind us of what happened, or we avoid people or places that remind us of it. So those are some of the symptoms, but I think you covered most of them.

Rachel, I'm very curious to know, do children at a young age start showing those signs, those identifiers, or is it typically as they age, like you said, that a lot of the time we don't recognize it as a traumatic event or experience until we're older.

How do children demonstrate to us whether they've experienced trauma or not? So with children, their behavior is usually the best indicator. That is what typically bring parents in. Sometimes they'll learn of a traumatic event and they'll want to help the child, but the child is not showing signs of distress that they really want to help them work through it. And so sometimes it's waiting to see if it will present itself later. But with children, most typically is even non verbal children who are very young and whatnot, they'll struggle with nightmares. They'll avoid sleeping in their room alone. A lot of clients who come in and bring their children in for art, it's because they won't sleep in their rooms or they will not go to school. And so there's been a big change in their behavior.

Just going to what you're saying there, Rachel, sometimes this shift is imperceptible and sometimes there's something so markedly different. All of a sudden they're not sleeping, all of a sudden they don't want to go to school. So you see, sometimes it's a very Marked something's happened, but we don't necessarily know what it is. As parents, we just observe that there's a shift in our child's behavior, but in many cases it's just a noticeable shift. I don't want to go to that friends anymore. Right. They're not nice when in reality they experienced or witnessed something that was difficult for them to experience. And so the shift may be somewhat subtle and sometimes it's as loud as can be, but when it's a traumatic event. That's why the concept of being attuned to ourselves and to our children is being aware of these shifts and being sensitive enough in the moments to help them feel like they can talk about it with us in a safe environment.

Are there actual phrases though, as parents we might use? I'm just curious, how do we get that out of our kids? Because all of these are really great in theory, but when I'm thinking about having these conversations with my kids, almost always they don't want to talk about anything that I might be concerned with.

Yeah. So open ended questions are typically helpful questions that can't be answered in a yes or no. Okay. You'd like to tell me about your play date today? Was your playdate today any different than it usually is?

Yeah, I think it's a little bit different than directness. It's. It's more of an observation. And so I. It's not going in the front door. Sometimes it's just observing. And we're going in the side window or the back door where it's like you get a ball and you're playing with your kid or you're doing something, hey, let's go get an ice cream. And. And, and you're just doing in a natural sequence where it's just a natural flow of conversations.

I think that comes as unnatural response to most parents. I think especially when the fear kicks in and when we have a super protective response to anything, we want to attack it dead on. And so going through the front door, as you say, is my natural response. And so I think it does take real intention to take a breath, to not act out of fear, but to, like you said, come in this side door and really play it cool. Which I am really bad at playing it cool.

But let's talk a little bit further about this. Sometimes it's not, and I want to be very clear here, sometimes we need to be direct. But more often than not, in this interaction with them, it is an ebb and a flow. It's just being an observer and you're here with them and as you go through that experience, their body language, their communication, remember their initial response. If something difficult or traumatic has happened to them, they might not know if they can come to you because they don't know if you're how you're going to respond. So even there, we have to create an environment where it is a, I am safe no matter what. You can talk with me about anything no matter what. But that means that we're dialoguing and we're having fun and sometimes teasing. And we built up this relationship to the point where they're safe enough, they can say anything and not fear our response.

Yeah. So Carly, if you feel that anxiousness and what you're saying. Dr. Skinner. So getting yourself to a grounded place before you try to have those conversations. And yeah, a lot of it depends on the child too. Some are more okay with direct conversation, but generally that's probably not the case.

I have a wonderful sister in law who calls it the no trouble bubble. And they know that they can say, hey mom, let's go into our no trouble bubble. I always love that and I think.

It'S worked really well for them and their family.

But anything can happen there. Anything can be divulged. Even if it's a breaking of the rules or something that's a little more serious, they can go there together. And I've always loved that idea.

That's a nice ritual.

Now, in terms of adults who are now recognizing how a traumatic or difficult event or situation in their younger years or maybe even currently, how can an adult process trust trauma in a way that helps their relationships at home, with their spouse, with their children in a way that isn't super disrupting?

It's never great to have two people in a partnership doing trauma work at the same time. That can be very, very rough. And it's not always possible to take turns. And sometimes a couple or family is all processing your trauma simultaneously. But there are modalities that I believe are faster than others at helping people work through trauma. One of them mentioned earlier is ART Accelerated Resolution Therapy. And the other dmdr my Movement desensitization Reprocessing the statistics shared in art. It's said to be a one to five session, but I remember from training three plus years ago it was a one and done is how it's presented. That's generally been my experience with clients. When it's a big T, it's a one and done one session. But if it's a small T or a little T and that duration and reinforcement has been there. There may be numerous sessions around an event to resolve it, but that type of therapy uses desensitizing like emdr, by going into and exposing you to the distress in small little increments and coming in and out, so you can ground and calm the body in between as you process those sensations associated with it.

And when we look at trauma just in and of itself, we've mentioned this throughout the podcast today, but trauma is stored in the body. And I appreciate Peter Levine's phrase, we don't talk trauma out, in other words, because the body stores the trauma. The body actually releases the tension that is associated with trauma. And one of the indicators that we are making progress is the body actually feels a release of the tension and the tightness. I remember some of the work that I've done with people as we get done with trauma work, and one of the last things we do is ask them to identify tightness or sensations in the body that. That tightness, and they'll give a score between, say, a 0 and a 10. And if there's still tightness and tension, there's still work to be done. But as we go through the trauma work, one of the indicators that they're releasing it is there's their tension goes down, and they acknowledge and they identify. It's like what just happened. When I did some of my own research work on this, I was amazed as I was going through the trauma work, just the sensation of all of a sudden, this weight is on me, and now it's gone. And so it literally is a physiological. You feel metaphorically and literally the trauma leave the body. And that really does happen in therapy.

Yeah, that reminds me of Tara Brock's quote, we live above the shoulders, and she says we like to live up here. We like to intellectualize our stories and use denial, that form of denial, to do that. But really, multiple people continue to talk about. We have a lot of books on trauma nowadays that talk about the energy that is stored in the body with trauma. So there are a lot of ways to move through it.

Is it almost still like it's the body's way of alerting you to the.

Something's not quite right.

Maybe you need to be taking care of this vessel.

Vanicolks the Body Keeps the Score is literally. It's a beautiful title to me. It is the. The indicator. Right. The body keeps the score of our traumas and our events and whatever we're storing inside. And again, the indicator that we're releasing it is we feel calmer, we feel more relaxed. And going back to a question you asked earlier. If I'm an adult and I've got my own trauma, it's harder for me to show up when I'm in trauma. It's harder to me to show up in relationships as a parent, it's harder for me to be a partner in a relationship. And so working through our trauma is a gift we give not only to ourselves, but to the people around us.

Yes, it creates a lot of space. I'll use the analogy of a trash compactor. When we have these experiences throughout life, they often get put in the trash compactor and that saves us space. Turn on the button and compact it and eventually at some point, that bale has to be unloaded. And so it just frees up space. And again, there are lots of ways of doing that. Talking about trauma is helpful for many, but body somatic processes like EMDR art I've done over a dozen holotropic breathwork sessions, and that uses timed releases of yelling and laughing. And through the breathing, there's a lot of energy moving out of the body.

That's fascinating.

And let me add to this. I love what you're talking about there because there's not one formula fits all, because now that there are many different forms for treating trauma. Example on that yoga, there's a trauma informed yoga. There are certain times in yoga where people will have incredibly emotive, just so much emotion that goes with an experience, because what their body's doing is it's recognizing the trauma that's been stored. And again, it can trigger difficult emotions, but it can also be very healing as people go through that. So again, there are lots of different ways to deal with trauma. And I would tell you, with children in particular who've had a lot of trauma, we're not talking it out, especially with them. That's why play therapy, sand tray therapy are so important for children. They're literally playing out their trauma as a way to give a voice to the experience. Trauma, as I often say, it needs a voice, it needs a way to express itself. Otherwise it gets stored in the body. So we want this trauma coming out through play and literally movement. These are powerful ways to let, so to speak, leave the body.

I'm curious, as you're speaking, if maybe two could touch on individuals who treat their trauma. Is there a correlation between past trauma and does it help them with maybe another issue that they're dealing with, such as an addiction?

Do a lot of my practice is trauma work and after spending a year in your clinic, Dr. Skinner, doing addiction work, it's apparent underneath the addiction is our traumatic events and that disconnection with others. And it's very important to treat the addiction, to put into place protective mechanisms and boundaries and a safety plan of sort. But ultimately, treating the trauma that's leading people to escape into addiction is the root, is the way I see it, and I know you do, too.

Yeah. And again, in my clinical experience as well, it's really important that we recognize the pacing, because when people are doing trauma work, there's a lot of stuff that we're coping, we're trying to cope. When we have an event and we don't know what to do with it, we generally cope. We do a thousand different things. We become a workaholic, we spend money, we turn to other unhealthy habits or behaviors, because that's how we cope with the event or events that we don't know how to make sense of. So when we bump into trauma, we all have our own coping mechanisms. It's not if, but what. How am I coping with it? And if I try, if we as. Even as clinicians try to take away the coping mechanisms too quickly, they're going to turn. We're going to turn somewhere else. So trauma in a traumatic event, we have to make sure that they have. And Rachel was referring to this, we have to make sure that they have resources of how to deal with difficult emotions, how to deal with difficult memories before we try to just take away what it would be, their coping mechanisms. Bessel van der Kolk, I think the way. One of the ways that he said it is we have to be very cautious to take things away prematurely when people aren't prepared to deal with the loss of whatever that's going to be.

That makes so much sense. That seems so logical. But that's the first time I've heard anybody explain it like that.

That's really powerful. I will often tell the clients, it's like a Jenga tower. If you pull these blocks out, it's very unstable. You want to replace that base with a healthy. Coping with.

That's such a good analogy. Before we wrap up, I'm really curious. As someone who is not trained and doesn't have a lot of experience in those modalities such as EMDR and art, what is happening inside there that is healing? What's healing you when you are being treated with these different ways of treating trauma?

Going back to the somatic process, a lot of clients come in so numb and Dissociated, they can't identify their emotions other than they feel blah or numb. And some engage in very risky behaviors to feel something, like acting out, you know, sexually or with a lot of risk physically using self harm to feel something, eating disorders, you know, to numb as well. And even those individuals who maybe never felt safe to feel or show emotion can, even if they can't identify their emotions. I have the feelings wheel sitting there with the negative core beliefs as another cheat sheet I call them. But it's just a tool. They can identify sensations. And the thing I really love about art is, you know, I stood on a soapbox. I worked with you at the time, Dr. Skinner, and provided EMDR for eight years. And I just found it so healing and such a valuable resource from any other modality I'd been exposed to, being utilized in my own healing work. But the, the art, because it's such small doses of, of that going into that exposure and then coming out of. Clients are less likely in my clinical work to become dissociated and leave their bodies and have that derealization. And so they're able to identify those emotions, notice them for 40 counts, and then it feels lighter and better and they're ready to go back in, and then they come out and they're ready to clear that. And as Dr. Skinner said, the distress, the scale just keeps getting. Getting lower and lower and lower. So one of the things we say is the more you see it, the easier it'll get. And they probably think, yeah, right, and they feel that within, you know, seconds. And so I always tell clients the first 15 minutes are usually the most painful, but just 40 counts on this timer is drastically different. So I just try to reassure them. And I've used ART with clients who've come in after half a decade to a decade of experiencing trauma, losing family members tragically in accidents, and witnessing that. Last year I used it with three clients who had experienced separate car accidents and fatalities. And one woman lost her child in the middle of the night due to a seizure. And they had all been diagnosed with PTSD and had been being treated for ADHD for five to 10 years and were not finding any reprieve. There were still a lot of obstacles, really. I see it in a lot in students or professionals trying to advance in licensing or taking tests. And they cannot pass these tests. They. One client sealed the bar eight times. Another client, we've got students too, lsat. It can be really. This work can be used on anything. But just seeing in one session, after years and years of trying to treat their trauma and just them being able to move forward. It truly is a miracle. And it's so hard to fathom. I was actually a skeptic for years. I don't know if you two recall. I presented at a conference atto held on, and I presented on EMDR and another clinician on art. And I just thought, there is no way. And I think I also felt irreverent, changing the story and the narrative of the trauma. But in art, we reassure people we're not changing reality. We're only changing the images that are associated with this tragedy and traumatic event and how it affects your body. And that's all we're doing. We're not trained to brainwash ourselves or perpetuate dissociation and denial. And so it's really, really amazing in.

A quick concept here today, we are better at treating trauma than we ever have as professionals. For years, we didn't understand what we now are understanding about the body's way of healing and dealing with traumatic memories and dealing with the beliefs that come from traumatic events. And the method or methods that Rachel's talking about, whether it's EMDR or art, we're learning, even, even art is a progression from emdr. And so we're just beginning this understanding of what's most effective and with which population these are most effective. And so if I could have any influence today of saying, look, we're getting better, and for so long, I think psychology and therapy maybe had a bad rap because there are certain things that it was not doing well with. I think we're getting so much better than we've ever been as a field. And I really do think we're trending in the right direction. There aren't magic bullets, but there are things that are working. And the research is very clear. We're getting better at treating really difficult traumatic traumatic memories and events.

It's phenomenal. And we get to witness that every day. And it is such an honor. And I tell people, you don't have to live with this idea that you'll always be affected. And people expect there may be some triggers. And I really have seen and experienced that that does not have to be the case at all. So I, I tease and I tell clients, it's body amnesia. We are not going to forget what happened, but our bodies are going to forget what happened. And that is why I'm excited to go in and work with clients every day.

I love this quote from the poet Mark Nepo. He says the pain was necessary in order to know the truth. But we don't have to keep the pain alive in order to keep the truth alive. And so I like what you're saying, that you're not dissociating completely from the difficult adverse experience or experiences that you've had, but you're taking the pain from them and they're no longer being stored there.

There's been nothing more empowering for a client to say. I did that, that one session last week. I'm here again because I say it's like bobbing for apples. Sometimes when we pull an apple out, the surface tension, another one pops right up, Right. And so excited. Who knew you could be excited going in and slaying these teas and feeling so much change in their relationships? And I remember when I was doing my own trauma work, I was real embarrassed one time when a trauma trained and informed yoga therapist said, you seem so different. And I was like, I'm different. You know, it's like I. I didn't feel the outward change because everything looked normal. But other people then start to say, you seem different. And I hear that all the time. And it's such a reward for clients, and they feel the change. I have at least one client a week do art on their relationship with a child. I've had a couple who come back every six months, and they just. They know they'll just do one session and things are okay again. And I have an individual who comes in every year at the exact same time, and we'll usually do three sessions and he'll be back on track.

It's what I call a human oil change.

I love that.

A human oil change. Just a bit of a tune up.

Yeah. And there's acceptance there.

All right, is there anything else either of you would like to add before we wrap up this episode?

My only summary would be, we do hard things in life. We go through hard things, and if we have things that are holding us back, specific events or memories that are holding us back, as Rachel said, we don't have to live with the things that have been holding us back to traumas. There are solutions and finding safe people who understand, who have the right skill set, you'll be amazed at the progress you can make. And that has been my clinical experience, along with just witnessing people do amazing work. And when people come in, I'm so encouraged by their courage. It's just incredible to watch.

I agree. There's nothing more respectable than seeing people change their lives. And witnessing that and the gratitude and again, that trust they have in themselves.

Well, I have so much gratitude to call you both my friends and to learn so much from both of you today.

This was really good.

I just, I have a few people in my life who have harbored a lot of childhood trauma, and they're now in their older years. They're kind of almost done here on this planet. And I even still feel like that pain could be released from them if they felt safe. And they've never found a way to feel safe. And so even just all the things that you both mentioned in this brief hour, I feel like would be enough to create change and have the courage to go in and say, actually, I do want to work through some of these things and have it feel like it's not going to be too disruptive to their everyday life. So thank you both for everything that you shared and for spending time with us on Finding Noble.

Thanks for having me.

Good being with you guys. Good seeing you, Rachel.

You've been listening to Finding Noble. I'm Carly Redd. Follow Finding Noble on all available podcast directories and find out more on our website, findingnoble.com that's finding noblen o b l e dot com and if you or anyone close to you are looking for further resources on young adult and adolescent mental health, Dr. Skinner and a host of other leading professionals working in the mental health world share courses and even answer your questions, all on parentguidance.org that is parentguidance.org brought to you by the Cook center for Human Connection.