As I wrote this I struggled to find adequate words to thank, encourage and inform supporters of Northwest Family Life and then I thought about those we are really here to support and my thoughts went to my 84-year-old mother. At the age of 23, on January 26,1963 she and my Dad (also 23 at the time) were married. Both of them, having migrated from the South a couple years earlier, were hoping for a better life. The following year on March 1, 1964, my older sister Regina would be born. I wouldn’t show up until 5 years later in January 1969.
My mother often talks about those early years when she felt that she and my Father were working together to build a home, family and a business. Although I do not know the exact details of when or what took place, my mother recently shared that the abuse began around 1972 when I was 3 years old and my sister would have been 8. I do recall the abuse and how scared both Gina and I were. I also recall running at different times to the neighbor’s home or homes of family members, like the home of my Mom’s brother, my Uncle Willie. I also recall an extended stay when we traveled throughout the night and moved to Pensacola Florida where we could flee the abuse sometime in 1976. Here we would temporarily stay with my Mom’s sister, my Aunt Bobbie until my Mom secured a job and a home for us. This I recall being a big deal, because Gina and I had to transfer to a new Catholic school. It was quite a culture shock as a child, having to learn to navigate a new environment.
The one thing that stands out for me during these times of upheaval are the looks we received from family, or neighbors every time we had to be relocated from one place to another. These looks and stares I believe taught me early to not be disruptive or rock the boat so to speak, because having a home or place to live meant stability. My Dad would come down during Christmas of that year and we would return back to Cleveland early the next year in 1977. This of course meant transferring once again back to our school. Of course, the abuse would soon pick back up and would eventually end in 1979 when my Mom resolved to leave my Dad for good and divorce him.
Flash forward to now, I think of all of the things my mom endured at such a young age and how she had to start over on her own with two daughters, me at the age of 10 and my sister 15. I know it wasn’t easy, but she always found a way and would eventually not only survive, but thrive. What assisted her were these things:
- Her faith in God which shaped her identity. She knew she was not created to be abused.
- Her desire for both Gina and I to know we were worth more, so we would not think the abuse was normal.
- Establishing a safe community of friends that she could talk to who would not judge but embrace her.
- Utilizing her creative gifts and talents including but not limited to sewing and baking as an outlet and sharing these gifts and talents with others to help where needed.
- Journaling her feelings and writing stories and poems.
To this day, these areas continue to shape and strengthen my mom, who I dedicate this to. I write this to women who may be in the midst of DV situations to date. Please know that your children value you and see you even in times that you don’t see yourselves. They see and know your worth and value and they need you. The decisions you make impact them in more ways than you know. As a child witness of domestic violence, I know what it is like to carry fear and I am grateful that my mother chose to leave and remove my sister and I from a violent household. In leaving, she modeled what it is like to live in faith and not fear, and to believe and hope for better.
I never imaged that I would be an Affiliate of Northwest Family Life. How I got to this place was in attending what once was Mars Hill Graduate School and is now The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. Having attended the college, they established a DVA program which I will be forever grateful for. Although I applied for the counseling program, I never realized that I’d not processed the grief and trauma of my childhood until I met Dr. Nancy Murphy and attended one of her classes. Once I’d sat in her class, I was hooked and would be fortunate to be an intern there at NWFL working with the women and children.
While at the Seattle School, I not only completed a degree in counseling, but I also obtained a certificate in domestic violence advocacy. During my time at the Seattle School, two individuals that I was most inspired by were Dr. Nancy Murphy who taught the DV course and Dr. Caprice Hollins of Cultures Connecting who taught the Multicultural Counseling course. I continue to be inspired by them both to this day and will forever consider them to be mentors. They both genuinely cared and helped guide and encourage me while in the program at Mars Hill and beyond. I also feel in some way that God placed them in my path to not only guide me toward my career, but to help heal some of my brokenness as they modeled genuine love and compassion even in difficult times and spaces.
I believe it is for this reason that I ultimately came to a place where I now teach about the issues of power and control which is the root of both domestic violence and racism. I feel blessed to be able to engage individuals in teaching and learning opportunities that support diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice. I have been able to continue to do this within my full-time role as faculty at Walden College in the Clinical Mental Health Department as well as in an affiliate role at Northwest Family Life Learning and Counseling Center.
In Honor of my Mom, Minnie Lee Williams. Thank you for being you!
Kristie Williams, PhD, LPC
This is the transcript of an interview with JJ, a survivor of domestic violence, and Pastor M, a pastor, mentor, and friend who walked with JJ during her marriage and divorce. This is the first of a two part series.
JJ: My ex and I were in our early twenties when we got married, and we were involved in ministry. I can say that marriage definitely did not turn out like I expected. I was taught that if you work really hard, you will create a good marriage. But that wasn’t my experience.
Tabitha: At what point did you realize that the difficulties in your marriage were more than just “regular” struggles? How did the culture of your church/evangelicalism impact your ability to recognize abuse?
JJ: It’s complex, because there was so much emphasis on how the Bible calls us not to be selfish, but to be kind and caring. But the church, in my experience, tends to put most of that burden on women. It felt expected that I would cater to the needs (and whims) of my spouse. “He’s tired. He’s been working all day. He needs sex. He doesn’t have the capacity to help around the house or with the kids.”
Tabitha: Did you have an idea of what a “good woman” or a “good wife” was? Obviously this messaging comes from more than one place–your theology, your family of origin, and the culture at large.
JJ: The subliminal messaging is part of what makes it hard to recognize abuse. It’s an unconscious framework that makes you feel validated the more exhausted you feel, the harder you work, the less you ask for, the more you have sex when you don’t feel like it. To question that framework makes you selfish or ungodly.
Tabitha: Paster M, how do you feel hearing that?
Pastor M: Triggered. Uncomfortable. Those messages are being passed around. So much of what I and my peers were taught, as far as pastoral ministry goes, was behavioral modification. And we didn’t (and don’t) understand the far reaching impact of our words. For example, serving the “needs” of your spouse–or any other person–might be the last thing they need. Saying “No,” might be the most loving act. Giving a spouse sex whenever they demand it might be feeding the beast within them.
Tabitha: JJ, how do you think your marriage appeared to those on the outside vs. what was really happening on the inside?
JJ: I worked so hard to be the “good wife.” That meant always being at the church, volunteering, babysitting everyone’s kids, and protecting his reputation. But on the inside, I was stressed, exhausted, without purpose, and so, so, lonely. Sometimes everything would be too much and I would reach my boiling point and explode, which of course just worked against me and made me look crazy.
Tabitha: Your (understandable) reaction to abuse would then be used against you.
JJ: Exactly. Then I would think, “I am this terrible, horrible, angry, selfish person.” Pastor M, what were you seeing on the outside?
Pastor M: Obviously this changed overtime as more things came to light, but I saw you as someone who was very devoted to her husband. She adored him, respected him. They seemed fulfilled. I didn’t realize at first that she was unhappy. Later, there were whispers of struggle, but I was reassured by others that it was in the past. I had no idea at first what was going on behind the scenes.
JJ: From the inside, it’s just so hard to recognize abuse because you are taught from the time you are a child, “Forgive 70 times 7, love as you love yourself,” so when abusive behavior happens it’s easy to blame yourself, or to think, “I just have to try harder.”
Paster M: What ends up happening is we create a narrative with a “front stage” and a “back stage,” and behind the curtain is where we keep all the ugliness. We just don’t let anybody see it. Something Donald Miller says that has really stuck with me is, “Everyone has a story, it’s just not the one they are telling.” And I can see how that played out with JJ and her ex, and many other couples I’ve worked with throughout my ministry.
JJ: Behind our curtain was this unsolvable mess, and I didn’t even realize it. What I needed was a demolition crew, but I was just trying to push it all around with a broom, telling myself, “Okay, I just have to love more. I just have to forgive more.”
Tabitha: And those messages, such as, “We’re all sinners, everybody struggles, nobody’s perfect;” those messages get twisted when you are a survivor. You ignore warning signs because you think it must be normal.
JJ: Yes, and that’s why my favorite verse is “The truth will set you free.” Because it does, even though it’s extremely difficult. Sometimes telling the truth, for a survivor of abuse, makes it worse before it makes it better.
Pastor M: Yes, and that is so scary. If you think it’s hard to deal with the pain quietly, what happens when it’s out in the open? But we really do need a demolition before we can rebuild.
Tabitha: That brings us back to a pivotal point in this story. Pastor M, when did you begin to realize that the issues JJ and her spouse had were more than regular “marriage stuff.” What made you realize that this was actually an abusive situation?
Pastor M: It was a slow realization as I got to know them more. I realized that her spouse needed a lot of support to confront his own issues, and we offered a lot of mentoring opportunities. But he was very good at manipulating people, making himself into a victim, and blaming others. However, it wasn’t until I sat JJ down in my office and asked her to tell me the real story that I realized how bad it actually was. She “pulled back the curtain,” like we said earlier, and that was when I took action and tried to set up the support that she needed.
Letting me see what was going on was such a brave thing for JJ to do. It took so much courage. And I want to mention that while it can be helpful and essential to let people know what is really happening, not everyone is safe to do that with. Just because someone is a pastor (and I say this as a former pastor), doesn’t mean that they will be safe. There were a lot of well intentioned people in JJ’s life and it was still really messy.
Tabitha: JJ, is it fair to say that things got harder after you spoke up?
JJ: Absolutely. When I kept silent, I could still plaster over the cracks in our relationship most of the time. But once I cracked it open, everyone could see our mess and comment on it.
To this day, I can’t even remember what I told Pastor M in his office. I didn’t have the vocabulary to call it abuse, I thought it was just “marital difficulties.”
Pastor M: When she was talking, I could sense that there was abuse, even though I didn’t really know how to define it.
Tabitha: Right. Nowadays, most people in our society hopefully understand that physically assaulting someone is unacceptable. It’s a lot easier to label that as abuse or violence. But what many don’t realize is that emotional, spiritual, verbal, and psychological abuse often precede physical abuse, and can be just as destructive and controlling.
JJ: It’s hard to recognize that you are experiencing it, let alone for others on the outside to understand how that type of abuse can devastate someone.
Tabitha: Often when domestic violence and the church are discussed, you hear two different experiences. Either the church was life saving and supportive–which is great; or, the church compounded the abuse by not believing victims, blaming them, or telling them to remain in unsafe relationships. Something that’s impactful to me about your story is that it’s really in the messy middle. There were people who knew that something wasn’t right and wanted to help, but JJ still got hurt. What went wrong?
JJ: In the beginning, my goal was to try and save his reputation. I wanted him to have as much dignity and respect as possible, because he was in ministry. I had a small group of people who tried to support me. They tried to be everything I needed, and I am and was grateful for their efforts. I didn’t have a family to support me, and I didn’t really have friends or community outside the church. I needed people that I could call and cry with. But within that support group, their goal was to save the marriage.
What I wish they understood is that, in an abusive relationship, if preserving a marriage is the highest priority, then the entity of marriage becomes a god and the oppressor is constantly given the benefit of the doubt.
It creates a permissive attitude towards the abuser, and undermines any support offered to the victim.
Pastor M: Something that I used to say (but definitely wouldn’t now) is, “I’m not on either person’s side, I’m on the side of the marriage.” But now I know, some marriages should not be preserved. Some are dangerous. When there is violence, manipulation, or abuse, I can’t tell someone that their marriage is worth more than their life.
But in JJ’s situation, I don’t think the people in her support team believed that. The church doesn’t like failure. We say we believe in the redemptive power of God, we say we believe in hope, but what happens when redemption and hope don’t look like what we thought they would?
JJ: Sometimes the church’s best efforts are actually the tower of Babel. We want something glorious and grand when it actually never should have been built.
Pastor M: When we make an idol out of marriage, something that is holy and intended for good becomes a beast that can destroy us.
Tabitha. Yes. Something you said earlier, JJ, reminded me of a quote by C.S. Lewis: “Anything that becomes a god becomes a demon.” I think the church has turned the sacrament of marriage into a god. We’ve made it a qualifier for ministry and have therefore neglected the much higher goal of human flourishing. When we talk about there always being hope, what does that mean? Does hope die when people divorce? Or does hope transcend the dissolution of a violent relationship and rise up when survivors rebuild their lives?
JJ: One of my favorite songs is by Nicole Nordmann, it’s called The Unmaking. It’s about how there can be total destruction in our lives–and sometimes there needs to be–but God can still work. I went through this terrible situation, I divorced the man who was hurting me, but now I’ve found a calling that I’m truly passionate about.
Davia was a NWFL Affiliate who specialized in working with children and adolescents from a psychoanalytic perspective and was based in Bellingham. Davia tended to use a Jungian approach often utilizing art and image-based methods including dream work with her clients, young and old. We chatted with her here about different ways to process feelings.
How do you work with kids when they don’t have language for what they are feeling?
I find in the case of working with kids who have limited language for what they are feeling, taking things to an imaginal realm helps. If you ask a kid to tell or draw you a story, their feelings will be in there, with more space for complexity (the feeling has a specific face, perhaps character, in a specific context that wouldn’t be able to surface if we stuck to the literal). If I do have to ask about things directly, I’ll have more body-based inquiries. “How did your tummy feel when mom said….” etc.
Talk to us about the importance of letting kids feel the breadth of their emotions.
When kids (and adults!) can experience the full breadth of emotions, they are less likely to narrow in on one emotion or thought in repetition. An example would be lumping entire experiences into only sadness or anger, or distraction from feelings that can’t be related to at all which can look like hyperactivity, forgetfulness, compulsion and fear. If one can learn to value that full range of feeling, the default assessments won’t rule the roost!
Talk to us about this idea of trauma ‘hiding’ when the brain isn’t able to compute what is happening.
I think of trauma as another word for an experience we don’t have capacity to fully feel. Often trauma is worked with by a person in ways that aren’t exactly recognized as thoughts or feelings. It falls outside of a thinkable or recognizable realm by definition, but it isn’t lost. It goes somewhere.
Does trauma always look like one huge event? Could you give us an example of a ‘smaller’ trauma?
In this way, smaller traumas happen all the time. Any time your mind has to attempt to put something off in order to continue because it doesn’t know how to experience it, that’s trauma.
So, everyone experiences trauma. Trauma is built into human development. Our mind grows to a point where it doesn’t recognize itself and gets organized using the tools available – largely other people’s example.
Talk about validating emotions like anger, especially in the context of domestic violence.
We learn what certain emotions feel like by seeing them on another’s face, and learn what to do about them through others’ actions too. So, if someone has only seen violent anger, connecting with their genuine feeling and affect could be difficult, but necessary work. It would be really important for such a person to find a safe place to experience strong emotion and get familiar with how it feels to them particularly.
In my work with children especially, though certainly with adults as well, I will meet folks who deny experiencing anger if they’ve seen it predominately violently, or will recognize it as something else (sadness, depression, anxiety). Another might only feel/express anger paired with violence towards themself or others. Or perhaps the anger will be severed and pop up in some psychosomatic way. Because anger is an important part of the emotional spectrum, it’s important to learn to experience it with all of its colors, not only the stunted expression.
Can you talk about your work around images, dreams and sensory experiences?
I work with folk’s dreams and images and sensory experiences because those images and sensory feelings seem to hold units of psychic content, made by the particular mind. It’s like I could talk about anger with a client all day, where they’ve seen it before in their family and all that. But if we’re not getting to the particular mind’s images and specific containers of anger, it’s still gonna be pretty superficial work. In this way, my clinical mind is pretty Jungian. I use other methods and borrow modalities but I can’t un-see the archetypal stuff.
Tell us about how you as a counselor experience someone’s “felt” presence.
A “felt sense” of folks is important here too. How they sit, how they present, what it feels like to be with them gives me a referential point to start that work. The images and feelings that get transferred to me can have enormous psychic content for my client, and we are learning together what it means to tend to them.
Do you have a theory of change?
Change looks like learning to be a companion to oneself. That contains all the buzzword-concepts like containment, self-soothing, self care, mindfulness and all that but I see those things as for the sake of the psychic content having a place to live and be welcomed in order to work itself out. Like, complexes can’t be eradicated…but they can be given some space to breathe, and to open/loosen some of those associations, so a person has some creativity, they aren’t at the mercy of the associated compulsions any longer.
Are there any resources you would like to share with our audience?
Audre Lorde – she’s rooted in identifying cultural containers of psychic content (particularly in regard to racism and sexism) and teasing out those complex-hubs. I’m so grateful for her work. Check out “Sister Outsider.”
I also return to Bell Hooks a lot. I like memoir as a genre because it’s like I’m watching someone working poetically with their experience, using that inner companion. It’s helpful to me clinically. Check out “Teaching to Transgress.”
Julie DeBoer is a NWFL affiliate therapist who specializes in trauma, abuse, and food and body issues. She has a background in eating disorder treatment, and she is passionate about helping clients develop new ways of relating to themselves and their bodies.
Tell us about the work you do with clients around food and body issues.
Most of my clients have strained relationships with their bodies and struggle to varying degrees to accept, love, and nourish their bodies. They experience their bodies as places of pain and shame rather than safety and comfort, and many have learned to fight against their bodies rather than allying with them. For the population I work with, this often involves disordered eating and exercise patterns. Many of my clients have become both fixated on their bodies and simultaneously highly estranged from them. They have learned to resist or override their physical needs and cues rather than listening and attending to them. My desire is to help my clients restore a sense of belonging in their own bodies. In that way, I really see my work as a therapist as the slow and gentle process of bringing people back home to themselves.
Can you speak to the idea of the body as home?
From the time we are born until we die, our bodies carry us through the world, and they are really our only constant. Our other physical houses are temporary and transient, but we never leave our bodies. Our bodies contain us–physically, spiritually, and emotionally–and are meant to be places of safety and comfort. If “home” is a place where we are known and loved and cared for and free to be ourselves, I believe that our own bodies are meant to be the place we experience that most fully.
So what happens when that home (the body) is unsafe?
All too often, our bodies endure harm and violence, and for survivors of these experiences, the body can feel extremely unsafe. For a survivor of trauma, the body is a place of immense vulnerability and betrayal, and many have the experience of feeling trapped in their bodies rather than being at home there. To live in the body is terrifying, and yet, there is no way to escape. So people who have suffered harm often develop ways of psychologically leaving their bodies by disconnecting and dissociating, because staying feels unbearable.I believe that so often, patterns of addiction and disordered eating and self-harm are ways that people struggle with the reality of living in a body that feels unsafe.
Talk about helping people identify and understand patterns that have been informed by trauma
In my experience, helping people identify the links between trauma and current behavioral patterns is often so essential to the healing process. When people can begin to understand why their body has responded in the ways that it has and how it has been wired to protect them, they can begin to develop a sense of empathy, gratitude, and ultimately trust for their bodies.
How might trauma affect a person’s experience with their own body
Trauma is, by definition, an experience that overwhelms our system and exceeds our capacity to process it in the moment. Our bodies have an ingenious way of helping us survive these experiences by creating a split between our mind and body and essentially allow our minds to leave while our bodies endure the traumatic experience. For many, this split continues long after the traumatic event is over and leads survivors to fundamentally distrust their bodies. They experienced their body as powerless during the traumatic event and may feel that their body has betrayed them. Many trauma survivors hold conscious or unconscious resentment toward their body for responding as it did. It’s also important to recognize that when we feel powerless, we often respond by doubling down on controlling behaviors to try to increase a sense of power, and this frequently plays out in body-based processes such as eating disorders.
When you combine all of these factors, the unfortunate reality is that trauma sets survivors up in an almost uncanny way to have highly contentious relationships with their bodies.
How might feeling anger be terrifying for a trauma survivor?
To be connected with anger is to be connected with a sense of power. I believe that most trauma survivors experience immense ambivalence regarding their own power. For some, anger can become a means of trying to protect themselves and compensate for the experience of powerlessness. For others, feeling anger may increase their experience of feeling out of control, and they put their anger on lockdown. Particularly for survivors of abuse or domestic violence, anger can feel quite dangerous and actually expose them to greater harm, so they learn to bury it at all costs. Even long after the threat has passed, anger can feel terrifying and difficult to access. I think learning to engage anger and connect with power can be an immensely important component of the healing process for survivors of trauma, but it is often a long and very difficult process.
Talk about befriending or reconciling with your body
Our bodies are created for survival. They are wired in all kinds of intricate and incredible ways to keep us alive, and when we can begin to understand how our bodies have been working our entire lives to keep us safe, we can start to trust them and ally with them rather than fighting against them.
Tell us about the mindfulness part of your work
I use mindfulness and body awareness practices frequently in my work, especially with clients seeking help with food and body issues. Our bodies are constantly giving us data about ourselves and the world around us, and every time we pause and choose to listen to these physical sensations and cues, it is a way of telling our bodies, “I trust you.” When we practice mindfulness, we are returning home to our bodies, even if only for a moment. Mindfulness does not magically take away the fear or anxiety that we hold in our bodies, but through repetition it slowly increases our capacity to feel safe there.
For many of your clients, there is also a faith component to trauma work. What does someone do with the question, “If God is good and loves me, how did this happen,” or “Where was God when…?
Part of the crisis of trauma is meaninglessness. Trauma is suffering with no explanation or purpose, and for many survivors, this raises questions about God. Part of the healing work of trauma is meaning-making and finding ways to integrate the traumatic experience into their belief system. Many of my clients of faith have found meaning in experiencing God as a co-sufferer. Elie Weisel is a Holocaust survivor who writes about the horrific experience of watching the execution of a Jewish child. He writes, “Behind me, I heard a man asking, ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where [God] is? This is where–hanging here from this gallows.’” For many of my clients, this sense of God suffering with them has brought a profound sense of comfort and meaning.
Do you have any resources you would like to share with us?
Food Psych podcast by Christy Harrison
“I’m Taking My Body Back” TED Talk by Rupi Kaur
Night, by Elie Weisel
The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van der Kolk
To get in touch with Julie please call 206-880-3430 or email jdeboer@nwfamilylife.org
Yvette is a NWFL affiliate therapist specializing in trauma and abuse. Her clients often include women who are recovering from psychological, emotional, sexual, spiritual, and physical abuse.
One of the areas you specialize in is recovery from narcissistic abuse. Can you tell us what that means?
Narcissistic abuse is a particular form of psychological abuse committed by someone who has high narcissistic traits. Those who have suffered narcissistic abuse often struggle to feel they own their own mind from the cycles of manipulation, gas-lighting, and interpersonal exploitation that have conditioned them to focus on the needs of their abuser instead of their own. This often makes survivors feel crazy, when in reality, they are far from it. My work with survivors is to provide them a safe space to begin to feel and untangle all that has been manipulated in their relationship with a narcissistic person so they can begin to trust their gut, which has often been denied in the cycle of abuse.
How might one’s intuition become injured?
This is where gas-lighting comes into play. Gas-lighting is when an abuser intentionally makes you distrust your perception of reality and question your sanity. And there are many subtle ways this happens. Over time, as this continues, victims lose a sense of grounding and dismiss what their gut is telling them. In this, their intuition becomes stifled, or injured. It doesn’t register danger, threat, or violence the same way as those who have not experienced abuse. What is important to point out, is that while our intuition can be injured, it can also be healed. Learning to listen to our gut, trust what it is telling us, and then act on it, are ways we feed and strengthen our intuition.
Talk to us about those ruminating thoughts that survivors of abuse often suffer from.
There is much to say about the dynamic of rumination. On one level, rumination is a distraction from the terror and grief of facing the reality that the person who is supposed to cherish and love us the most is not. Worse yet, they are actually harming us. When a survivor ruminates, they are trying to make meaning, and usually land in a place of self-blame or self-annihilation. This is a conditioned response to abuse and what keeps a victim stuck in the cycle of abuse. What needs to be said, is that at some point in life (likely childhood), it served as a means of survival. To blame ourselves and work harder is often easier than facing the wrath and terror of calling the abuser out. And in childhood, calling out abuse is often not an option. In my experience, what is usually under rumination is a sense of fear, panic, or dread. And it can be so hard-wired in us that rumination is often well underway before we are even aware it is occurring. But this too, can heal over time. Once we feel safe, we can learn to observe rumination in ourselves, be curious about what it serves, extend compassion, and then begin to imagine new ways to direct that energy.
Can you speak to the chemical addiction in the brain that happens with abuse?
When abuse occurs, there is a heightened sense of arousal, meaning our bodies are very alert. This requires certain neurochemicals to dump in our body. These chemicals are a cocktail of stress chemicals, as well as bonding chemicals, and the rise and fall of these chemicals leave us in a state that needs soothing. They are very powerful and cause intense cravings to reconnect with the abuser. This is why it is often hard for victims to leave. Getting out of an abusive relationship is like giving up a drug. Initially, everything in the survivor’s body and brain will feel compelled to go back to the abuser. That’s why it is important for survivors to understand how their biology is affecting their cycle of abuse. The antidote for this addiction is sustained healthy connection, which is why safe friends, support groups, and therapy are important for survivors to heal. To understand more about the neurochemical process, read this article.
Do you find that women in abusive situations are usually very competent?
Absolutely. Especially when it comes to narcissistic abuse. By definition, a narcissistic lacks a sense of self, so they prey on competent partners to help fill the void they cannot acknowledge in themselves. Women in abusive relationships are often insightful, empathetic, attuned, intelligent, self-reflective, and hard-working. In the beginning of abusive relationships, abusers will praise their victims for these strengths, but over time, they begin to envy and resent them, and that is when the psychological abuse begins.
Tell us about your theory of change.
Gregory Bateson said, “Things are what they are because of the way they relate to other things.” This is true not only for nature, but for humans. We are what we are because of the people, places, cultures, and ideologies we have related to. To me, this speaks of Trinitarian theology and a model for relationship. We are meant to be connected, yet individuated, and the field of neuroscience has confirmed this: we are open loop systems designed for attachment. To change, we need a safe and healthy relationship where we can explore all that has contributed to shape us as people. As a trauma and abuse therapist who uses interpersonal and narrative therapy, I believe the stories of our lives are held in the body. If you think about it, the only “thing” that has been with us in every moment of our life is our body. In order to change, we have to listen and engage how stories are held in it. When we do this with safe others, we are given opportunities for reparative experiences that heal and move us along in our healing journeys.
Can you talk about how survivors often learn to live in their brain because it’s not safe in their body?
When our primary attachment figure who is supposed to love us, harms us instead, it feels too scary to live in the body. This is a coping mechanism. Like rumination, it protects us from feeling the terror of abuse and neglect. Often, it was learned first in childhood. In therapy one of the main goals is to create safety so we can begin to be curious and feel what our bodies hold. This is also how we begin to repair and nourish our intuition.
What does internalized trauma look like?
To me, internalized trauma is more of a sound than a look. Meaning, there are scripts we say over and over again to ourselves that are accusatory, dismissive, harsh, unloving, dogmatic, etc. They are the sentences that are usually behind the sentences we first hear ourselves say internally. When we listen closely, we realize these scripts serve the narratives of those who benefitted from our abuse. And, in my opinion, that’s the worst part of trauma: we learn to become complicit in abuse against ourselves. It’s what evil wants. As a therapist, that’s what I get to disrupt, and I can’t think of a higher calling.
Talk to us about what you call survival mode vs. creation mode when it comes to abuse survivors.
It may sound obvious, but survivors know how to survive. It’s what they do. When in an abusive relationship, survivors are living in survival mode. When confronted with choice, it is an easy decision: go with whatever helps you survive and mitigate further harm. But when a survivor has moved out of an abusive relationship and threat is no longer present, choice is no longer based on survival, but on creation. There is freedom to choose and create. And to many survivors, that can be terrifying. It can be hard to trust it is possible to move forward freely, and without abusive relational consequences. Plus, it can expose ways we never got to develop certain abilities or capacities. And that can bring up grief. Survivors need a lot of support and celebration in this phase. It is a time of individuating and deepening in our sense of self. It also feeds and strengthens our intuition. It can be both exhilarating and scary at first, and that is completely normal.
Would you give us that quote you love by Dorothy Allison?
“Throughout my life somebody has always tried to set the boundaries of who and what I will be allowed to be. What is common to these boundary lines is that their most destructive power lies in what I can be persuaded to do to myself – the walls of fear, shame, and guilt I can be encouraged to build in my own mind.”
Yvette recommends Healing From Hidden Abuse, by Shannon Thomas, LCSW as a straightforward and easy read for those dealing with psychological abuse.
Yvette has offices in Seattle and Kirkland. To get in touch with her, please visit www.WhisperingTreeTheapy.com, or call (239) 410-7084.
Bethany is a NWFL affiliate therapist who often works around areas of relational anxieties, grief work and coming of age exploration. Her clients include adults desiring to understand more of their internal fabric and encounter their narratives in a larger way. She speaks to us here about hope for change.
Do you have a theory of change?
Change is quiet and slow. We have been taught and shown how to survive in the world and how to receive what we need. When we notice we want to change something about ourselves, it may mean we are at odds or have dis-ease with part(s) of ourselves. Often this can lead to shame or guilt, and the idea of change can immediately relieve the shame experience. I believe that shame is very helpful in offering a place to notice where we both want more and where were not given enough. This starting place begins the process of small shifts as we begin to explore the stories where shame was experienced.
Talk to us about trauma somatic work.
The body holds and stores our experiences of trauma. Our bodies are deeply wise and intuitive, and cannot hide the truth of our traumas. For my clients, somatic work includes noticing, listening and creating space for our bodies to be heard and felt. It means paying attention to when the stomach hurts, when the headache shows up, where the body freezes or wants to run, etc. Specifically, it means noticing where trauma hijacked the client’s ability to process the event/experience and so the body absorbs the traumatic moment(s). By exploring both the somatic and narrative experiences of trauma, there can be integration and deep care for the mind/body/soul.
How might someone get to change a story they’ve been told about themselves?
The process of unpacking someone’s story requires witness. We can retell the same story over and over, but we need an advocate to pause the story and offer space to explore more. Through kindness and the allowance for grit, fight and grief, stories can be untangled and our truths can be known.
Can you speak to the beauty in exploration and coming of age moments?
Discovering parts of oneself on the brink of newness is stunning work. When we are on the edge of changes or shifts, many emotions and past experiences can flood to the surface making it difficult to trust our needs, wants and hopes for ourselves. By having space to create and wonder and grieve, one can experience their story and desired stories differently.
Talk to us about wanting truth for ourselves and our stories.
I believe in finding our truth. Many of us have childhoods and adulthoods where our experiences were not validated and accepted. Or, we had to abandon ourselves to receive what we needed. This leaves us unable to recognize reality and claim our truth. When we can grieve our relational disruptions and severing, we get closer to seeing our truth and honoring the impact we feel today. When we find our inner integrity, we get choice in our stories and we can begin to craft our ever shifting ground into something sturdy to stand on.
Talk about how once you become sensitive to issues of domestic violence you can see it in places where it isn’t overt.
DV and abuse can be very quiet and/or loud. The quietness of harm is a piece of the work I do with clients through exploring and offering a place to name the violence they encountered that had been normalized.
You’ve mentioned that after a season of intense secondary trauma, you looked to boredom/stillness as a form of healing and self care. Can you tell us more about this and how you practice self care now?
In my experience, trauma speeds things up. It creates chaos and at times a manic response to match the traumatic experience(s). After a long season of encountering both a trauma and secondary traumas, my body craved stillness and my mind needed boredom. To honor these needs, I created a lifestyle that reflected this. I worked a monotonous, predictable job, lived by a body of water, and tended towards much solo time. After about 8 months, it felt like my mind was ready to create and risk again, and my body was calibrating. Currently, my self-care comes through careful sensory input and intentional rhythms. Grounding and predictability are important to me, so currently I have a Palo Santo I burn each morning, coffee to grind and some Nils Fram to listen to. These shift across seasons, but my intentionality around my senses and rhythms are deeply important to me for healing and care.
In this time of pandemic, where are you finding comfort and hope?
Hope, for me, has always been an escape of the present pain and discomfort. A fantasy, if you will, that has protected the fullness of the present grief. This has changed its flavor. I am encountering hope in the daily experience of being human. I find hope in the wrestling of grief and anger, rather then what I need or want the future to offer. In our current climate, I feel hope in the growing spaces for voices to be heard and pain to be known. I am currently reading On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. This is a stunning text that offers poetic language around the making sense of pain and grief.
You can connect with Bethany here
Lesley Joy Ritchie is an affiliate therapist of Northwest Family Life and works as an attachment informed trauma therapist. Lesley centers her work on the understanding that what is broken in relationship is healed in relationship. Her specialties include working with families who are either in the process of fostering/adopting or who have adopted a child with developmental trauma, as well as trauma-informed individual counseling (children and adults), general family therapy and working with clients healing from domestic violence. We spoke with her about parenting and attachment.
Tell us about the PATCh program.
PATCh stands for Parenting Adopted and Traumatized Children. This program is designed to help build a foundation of attachment and attunement for foster/adoptive families as they navigate the very difficult and chaotic process of rebuilding after significant trauma. Our program provides parents with the necessary framework for understanding the impact of trauma on the developing brain as well as how to parent a child with significant trauma. We walk parents through Trauma 101, parenting strategies for kids who are easily triggered into fight, flight, freeze reactions, self-attunement skills for parents and self-regulation skills for parents, and attunement building between parent and child through play and a variety of connective experiences.
You’ve said that trauma creates a superhighway in the brain. Talk about changing the trauma cycle to one of attachment.
This is where we get to see the magic of connection and when we get to watch the tragic brokenness of past relationships become restored by safe and secure present relationships. Whether a child or adult, the reactive impulse is a cry for help. The healing begins to occur when we can replace the maladaptive self-soothing or reactive parenting response with an attuned and connective response of affirming feelings and meeting needs. The more we respond to self or others with this attunement and care, the easier it will become. This is because the superhighway of fear and rage becomes increasingly calmer and less frantic as the hurt is being nurtured in a bond of trust vs. rejected or threatened in a bond of abuse and neglect.
What is Filial Play?
Filial play is the open and free place space for parent and child to build this connective, healing bond in a therapeutic setting. In a few words, the child gets to be in charge and to feel full agency in a safe play space where the parent does not direct or correct. The goal for the play is to see the world through the child’s eyes and to find ways to mirror delight and synchronicity. The parent does a lot of mirroring with body position, facial affect and verbally. It is a beautiful space for healing.
Talk to us about kids expressing their needs in prickly ways.
We all express our needs in prickly ways when we are in some degree of distress. If the distress has reached the level of severe abuse and neglect, the prickles will look like a child being the tiny dictator that is running the household (lots of need for control, because they have lost all control to unsafe adults in the past). Another prickle I see often is long and drawn out rages that send a child into a state of hyperarousal with a racing heart rate, difficulty breathing, etc. What is being expressed here is a need for an infantile kind of steady soothing and presence that is not shaming or corrective- often the child’s emotional age is much younger than their physical age.
Can you share about creating a high nurture, high structure environment?
I think this differs depending on who the parent is and who the child is. The language I use with parents for structure is setting limits and creating a daily rhythm. So much of this process of attachment is not easy to define. It seems evident that all humans seem to thrive with a healthy mixture of freedom, creativity, routine and rhythm. I encourage parents to get to know the child and to look closely at what times of the day the child is more emotionally resilient and which parts of the day they are more emotionally reactive. The child will need a lot more nurture in those stressful parts of the day and some of the schedule will need to become more flexible, but overall life needs to be predictable and consistent- especially the emotional response of the parent(s).
Talk to us about parenting methods that affect real behavioral change but that are damaging to the child/parent relationship, such as yelling.
Every parent knows that yelling at a child is not the ideal way of correcting misguided behavior. Every parent does it at one time or another and often parents tell me that it is hard not to yell because it is the only thing that “works”. When we as parents say this it is important to look at what we mean by the word “works”. What we usually mean here is that the child submits to us and follows our direction. What we want is real change in the child, not a fear-based appeasement of the parent. Yelling works in the short-term but makes more “work” for the parent in the long term as the nervous system just becomes more dysregulated and the trauma reactions become more ingrained.
How could the parent / child power differential overlap with themes of domestic violence?
When humans are distressed we seek to self-soothe. When children are constantly powerless in an abusive/neglectful dynamic with adults, they learn to either submit to the scary adult or fight for power and control in a variety of maladaptive ways. The deep seated belief becomes, “I’ll just disappear until the scary person goes away,” or “I will never let anyone push me around again. I am in control from now on,” etc. Thus, the trauma reaction is the same as in adults and we can find ourselves in an abusive relationship where we are the one in need of all power and control or we may be the one who disappears to make it stop.
Often the trauma that is locked inside a foster kid’s body can get transferred to the foster parent. Talk to us about the importance of foster parents caring for their own mind and body, and how they might do that.
You can call this vicarious trauma or secondary trauma. It is a real phenomenon and it often looks like depression in how it manifests in the body. We are interconnected as humans, and especially as family members living in the same home. If a child is screaming for over an hour, everyone in the house is on edge. If this happens regularly for weeks and months, then everyone is exhausted, irritated and often burnt out. This is most often the reason for disruption of foster placements. If a family can get the support and care they need early on when a terrified child is placed with them, then the home environment can be preserved for all members living together. If foster parents are healthy (self-attuned) and not reactive and if they know the child’s triggers, many of these huge stress reactions can be largely decreased in frequency and duration and in many cases, eventually eliminated completely.
Talk about how one’s relationship with self can be a healing thing.
What is broken in relationship is healed in relationship… this includes our relationship to ourselves. When we are abused by another person we often blame ourselves, especially as children. When shame and self-loathing take over, the cycle of abuse continues. The focus on soul care and self attunement is THE MOST IMPORTANT ACT for those who have endured severe trauma. Moving from self-hatred to self-acceptance and refusing to abandon and retraumatize the most fragile parts of our soul/spirit/body/mind is the only hope for healing.
What is a 30 second burst of attention and when might parents use it?
Imagine yourself in the kitchen at home, dinner is cooking and you are tired after a long day. Imagine your 7 year old running into the kitchen screaming that her brother keeps locking her out of his room and won’t play with her. She is getting increasingly upset and dysregulated, demanding that you get her into the bedroom. You have the choice to:
A. Tell your daughter that you are cooking and that she needs to find something else to do until dinner is ready and ignore her screaming and kicking you while cooking.
B. You turn down the stove burner, move toward your daughter and down to her level and listen to her story about how mean brother is, show her that her feelings are important to you and focus on meeting a need in the moment (ex. can I pour you a glass of juice and can you help me finish dinner and we will solve this later, I promise). Then end the burst of attention with a silly face competition or a short staring contest.
It takes intention to meet needs and the burst of attention is an intentional but quick way to de-escalate a child’s stress reaction and to help them regulate through connection and attunement.
What are some books you would recommend to parents? How about children’s storybooks?
I love to say that the best book for a parent to read is a book that they want to read. If you don’t like to read books then listen to music, get fresh air, watch a favorite comedian, listen to a podcast that connects to your passion etc. Books are great but there is so much more than books that will get the wind back in your sales. I do love to learn, so here are a few of my favorite books, youtube videos and podcasts that have helped me and those I know on the journey of healing:
Kids books (beneficial for both kids and adults, and everyone between): Not Quite Narwhal by Jessie Sima, The Invisible String by Patrice Karst, I love you Through and Through by Caroline Jayne Church
Adult books: The Connected Child by Karen Purvis, Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach, Changes that Heal by Henry Cloud, Conscious Living by Gay Hendricks, The Healing Path by Dan Allender
Favorite podcasts:
The Post Institute- Bryan Post’s Daily Dose on Facebook: or on Youtube:
Tapestry Podcasts
Flourishing Foster Parenting Podcasts
A podcast I was interviewed for on trauma-informed parenting- Trauma-Informed Parenting: A FFP Coaching Call with Lesley Joy Richie
Favorite educational videos with therapist Kati Morton
You can connect with Lesley here or check out the Northwest Trauma Counseling website for more info on the PATCh Program.
Barbara Trantrum is the NWFL Director of Foster Care and Adoption. She is one of the founders of Northwest Trauma Counseling and has been a NWFL affiliate therapist for the last 6 years. She works with both children and adults, often around issues of foster care, adoption and attachment.
You have 7 kids, tell us about the makeup of your family.
Our kids range in age from 9 to 23 and include 2 bio kids and 5 non-traditional kids. Of our non-traditional kids, we have one sibling group of three and two non-related kids. We have children from DR Congo, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. We received one child through a private agreement with her family whom we are friends with. We foster international refugee children through a UN program. Most of our kids have been with us for either 10 or 12 years, but we have one newer one of less than a year. We are about to adopt our 18-year-old.
How can identifying emotions be difficult for kids with trauma?
Emotional identification is something that often has to be taught, even for typical kids, but for kids with trauma it is much more difficult. Kids with trauma are more easily triggered – making access to those emotions more difficult. For children with trauma, emotional expression can often feel unsafe – for many kids the only thing they can express is anger. Other emotions feel too vulnerable, so any strong emotion that they feel ends up coming out as anger.
How/why do you incorporate art and music into therapy?
Music and art access emotions and feelings in ways that talk alone cannot do. I try to use music and art in fun ways in therapy like playing musical chairs, drumming, playing emotions pictionary, and painting together. I have created books with clients with their art, and done countless art and craft projects.
Tell us about how attachment is formed through mirroring.
We try to help attachment form in many of the ways that attachment forms organically with an infant and child. The attachment cycle of an infant expressing a need and the need being met and that cycle happening a million times over is the basis for healthy attachment.
Mirroring is a normal part of attachment with a baby and a parent during the early stages of development – a mom sticks out her tongue and the baby follows suit. This is the activation of the mirror neurons in the baby’s brain and the beginning of empathy. For children that come from abuse and neglect where there has been an interruption in attachment, it can often really help to activate these mirror neurons. This works best for younger kids, but we encourage parents to do mirroring activities with kids of all ages – things like having kids and parents repeat a pattern on a drum that one person makes, singing songs together, playing games that involve mirroring, etc.
Tell us about working with kids and parents as a unit.
For kids with attachment challenges, they often get into a pattern of what we call “parent shopping,” which is when they aren’t sure of the security of their placement and are always scouting out the next place to go. A sympathetic therapist can make a very tempting target, and that can cause a lot of very tricky dynamics. I want the child to attach to the parent, not to me.
Also, kids often come into therapy thinking that they’re the problem, and the kids are never just the problem – any solution involves the whole family. So I work almost exclusively with kids and parents together. The model of dropping a child off to talk with a therapist for an hour with little contact with the parents just doesn’t work to solve attachment problems for those in foster care and adoption and reinforces that the kid is the problem.
You’ve said that when you parent a kid with trauma, it really brings up your own trauma. Can you expand on why and how to navigate this?
A soldier with childhood trauma is far more likely to get PTSD on the battlefield, and the same is true for a parent. If you have childhood trauma, when your child dysregulates and has a PTSD reaction that could very well set off your own PTSD reaction. Often I work with parents who mostly know what they need to do in parenting, but being able to keep control of their own reactions is tough. For parents with childhood trauma, I recommend that they be in therapy to help them. In my own life when I have sought therapy when my secondary trauma reactions were more than I could handle, and it was enormously helpful. In the interest of the whole family, I also talk a lot about self-care and emotional regulation for everyone in the family.
Talk to us about interracial and international adoption.
International adoption is on a decline currently, as overseas orphan care is shifting to building up foster care and adoption programs in the countries of origin. There still is international adoption happening, especially for special needs children, and for situations like refugees and such.
Interracial adoption is becoming the new norm. In 1996 the federal government legally mandated that race cannot be a factor in adoptive placements, and currently about 40% of adoptions are transracial. Although we often think of transracial adoption as being white parents adopting children of color, I work with parents and children of all combinations.
The most important thing with transracial foster care and adoption is respect and conversation – you never want to adopt from a people group that you don’t respect and enjoy. When you adopt from another ethnic group your family becomes multiethnic, and how your family functions needs to reflect that reality.
The other key is to talk about racial issues, don’t just pretend the child is the same race as the parents and go with that. Studies show that children raised in transracial adoptions do basically the same as same-race adoptions if the parents talk to them about racial issues.
Can you talk about the places where domestic violence and foster care intersect?
It is rare to have a child adopted from foster care at an older age that hasn’t experienced domestic violence. Domestic violence is one of the main reasons that kids are in foster care and need new families. Many of the dynamics of domestic violence continue in the dynamics of sibling relationships when parents adopt sibling groups, and we have to talk a lot about power dynamics and control issues. For a child, witnessing domestic violence is just as traumatic as experiencing it done to them.
WA State is experiencing a massive shortage of foster parents, with 1,000 less foster homes available now than 10 years ago, and more kids than ever in the system. What are some ways people might help?
Treehouse is a great place to donate or help, it’s a local organization that helps foster kids in King County. You can also become a CASA voulunteer, or help at the many churches that support foster care ministry. If you are considering foster care and are not quite ready to take the full plunge, you can do something called respite care, which is having foster kids short term to give their regular foster parents a break.
If you are ready to take the plunge, I recommend working with a private foster care agency rather than just with the state, and there are several great ones. Some organizations in the Seattle area that I recommend are Amara, Bethany Christian Services, Olive Crest, and Antioch. If you are interested in fostering refugee foster children, check out Lutheran Community Services. Before committing to an agency, make sure you talk to some people who have used that agency before and ask them about their experiences.
What are some recommendations or resources you have for people who are interested in become foster parents?
Talk to some current foster parents and look into what is involved. But don’t get too intimidated, you don’t have to be a superhero to be a foster parent – just be open to learning and growing.
Find a support group – either through your agency or through your church or community. The time to do this is when you are getting licensed – you will need support when kids hit your house.
The Refresh Conference is a fantastic conference put on every year by Overlake Christian Church, and it is a wealth of information. You can go even if you’re just checking it out! There are also a lot of different agencies there so it can be a great way to get a feel for different agencies all at once.
The movie Instant Family is also a pretty accurate representation of what it’s like to become a foster parent.
Barbara has a book called: The Adoptive Parents’ Handbook: A Guide to
Healing Trauma and Thriving with Your Foster or Adopted Child,
coming out in September 2020. You can connect with her via
email.
Lydia Peckover is a Northwest Family Life affiliate therapist working with children, teens, parents, individuals and couples. Her specialties include trauma and PTSD, behavioral issues, and life transitions. She often works with art / play therapy, EMDR and DBT skills.
Research shows encouraging results around art / play therapy, especially when compared with talk therapy. Can you talk about this?
Dr. Karyn Purvis states, “Scientists have recently determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain -unless it is done with play therapy, in which case it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions!” To put this in perspective talk therapy requires about 400 instances of talking about the new habit before the brain creates a new connection to exhibit a new behavior with more ease. That is more than a year of weekly sessions! Play therapy would take about 10 to 20 sessions before the brain would create a connection to do the new behavior. Why? Because the brain is more active when we use a sand tray, play, art, music, movement, and/or creativity. This research encourages people to be more open to using play therapeutic techniques in therapy, such as a sand tray.
About half of your work is with children. Can you tell us what happens in sand play?
A sand tray is an Expressive Arts and Play therapeutic technique. The goal is to express your thoughts in the sand. The person (of any age) creates a story in the sand using miniature characters, objects, etc. This form of play therapy is a way to see our thoughts (or the story) as objects in the sand, and it helps to organize our thoughts to help us feel better. A sand tray helps all ages and can be used with dry sand (trauma sensitive) or wet sand, using warm water.
You also use expressive arts therapy with adults. How is using art to access different parts of the brain effective?
Expressive Arts is a way of communicating without necessarily using words. Brain scans have shown more activity in the brain when using creativity, art, music, and movement than when a person is using speech alone. I use somatic experiencing therapeutic techniques, expressive arts, and even “sessions while walking” in therapy because I have seen that when people use more areas of the brain in therapy it speeds up the healing process. Our brain naturally wants to help us heal, we might as well allow more areas of the brain to participate in therapy!
You do a lot of work using dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). Can you tell us about the skills that DBT teaches?
The four types of DBT skills includeMindfulness (being present to experience what’s happening now as a way to take a break from worrying about the past and future), Distress Tolerance (Dr. Marsha Linehan describes it as “how to survive the crisis without making it worse” and skills to “accept”), Emotional Regulation (understanding emotions and using skills to maintain a balance), and Interpersonal Effectiveness (people skills). Many people I work with tell me they like to learn DBT Skills because each skill is described simply and it’s like having an instruction book on how to live a better life.
Who can benefit from utilizing DBT skills?
Everyone, young or more mature, can benefit from using DBT Skills. This is a behavior therapy that helps us change behaviors to “live a life worth living” and to “reduce pain and suffering.” (quotes by Dr. Marsha Linehan, founder of DBT.) I use DBT Skills with children, teens, adults, parents and mature adults. Parents find helpful skills to parent more gently and effectively. DBT is an evidenced based practice for suicidal ideation, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety, and trauma/PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress). DBT is well researched and proven effective with addictive behaviors as well as preventing nightmares, sleep disorders, grief, schizophrenia, and many other mental health disorders. People who are suicidal come in for DBT Skills therapy because of the pain of living. I have seen many begin to use DBT Skills and begin to participate fully in life.
Tell us about your work with EMDR trauma therapy and how it can heal trauma wounds.
EMDR therapy, founded by Dr. Francine Shapiro, uses the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) theory; it is our body’s natural tendency to heal itself. For example, with a bacterial infection, our body automatically works to heal the infection. Using the AIP theory, EMDR therapy’s goal is to activate the brain using bilateral stimulation (left and right sides of the body) with either eye movements, sound or touch (like tapping) so the brain can be fully on board to reprocess stressful/trauma memories.
These memories are stored improperly in the brain and cause a trauma response. After EMDR therapy people have found results such as lack of distressing thoughts, emotions, and body sensations. Here is an example of healing traumatic body memories: A survivor of domestic violence has discomfort in a new relationship because they cannot be touched without being triggered by a body memory from past abuse. After using EMDR therapy, this person has reprocessed the body sensations and has no body triggers. This person can be touched and feel the natural feelings of safety and healthy attachment in the new relationship.
EMDR therapy is an evidence-based practice for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). It has been shown to effectively relieve anxiety, depression, chronic pain, migraines, addictive behavior, grief, insomnia, and more. Some therapists listen for negative beliefs in therapy as an indicator of who can be helped by EMDR therapy, because they believe the anxiety, depression, pain, etc. were likely caused by the negative beliefs about themselves.
Negative beliefs such as, “It’s all my fault,” “I have no control,” or “I’m not safe” are formed at the same time as a stressful situation or traumatic event. The goal in EMDR therapy is to create positive beliefs. Holding positive beliefs about one’s self can reduce trauma responses such as depression, anxiety, unexplainable pain or sickness, overreacting or feeling numb, feeling triggered, memory absences, avoidance, nightmares, etc.
Many people have said EMDR therapy has fast results, especially in children and teens. EMDR therapy can be used with other therapeutic techniques such as Attachment Focused therapies, Expressive Arts, Somatic Experiencing (body work) and Play therapy. There is a need for assessment and preparing people for EMDR therapy. DBT Skills help prepare people to stabilize behaviors so they are ready for trauma therapy such as EMDR therapy.
Talk to us about “Installing a future template.”
EMDR therapy provides many therapeutic techniques that help therapists become more effective and efficient. EMDR therapy works on the past, present, and future. Installing Future Templates is an EMDR therapeutic technique that helps therapists see how the person would handle stress in the future. Installing a Future Template also identifies any developmental gaps. For example, if a person experienced a medical trauma, child abuse or substance abuse (such as drug use) in their teen years, this traumatic event could stop or delay development. The adult may need skills to be able to understand their own identity or have difficulty solving problems on their own because they were unable to learn these vital developmental skills as a teen. So we would work on those skills in therapy. Installing Future Templates is a quick check-in and helps a person assess ability just by asking a few questions.
You also work with couples. Tell us about using Gottman skills and DBT skills in this work.
Many times couples ask for the Gottman therapeutic techniques in therapy because of it’s great results. I have found many couples need steps before jumping into using Gottman’s techniques. DBT Skills can be used as steps to help couples understand how to communicate better in a relationship. For example, DBT skills such as the GIVE skill (be gentle with yourself and others, act interested, validate the valid, use an easy manner) can be used to build healthy relationships or the FAST skill to keep your self-respect in relationships. These Interpersonal Effectiveness DBT Skills may be used with Gottman’s “Four Horses of the Apocalypse,” the predictors for divorce (Defensive, Criticism, Contempt, Stonewalling). Also, sometimes therapies can cause a trauma response in those who are trauma sensitive. This is why treatment plans in therapy are unique and tailored to the individual and/or couple’s needs. Some find DBT Skills as a more trauma sensitive approach for couples, yet there is such an effective framework provided by the Gottman Institute. For couples, I like to use both Gottman techniques and DBT Skills.
In your work with families, you’ve said that a big part of it is teaching parents how to calm down. If the parent can self regulate, what can follow?
When the child’s environment is calm the child can work on issues causing distress and engage in trauma work. As the child or teen does their therapy, I continue to work with parents toward healthy attachment with their child and what is developmentally appropriate.
How can trauma affect developmental stages?
Trauma responses include fight, flight or freeze modes. Reliving the traumatic event can mean living in one of these states, in other words, a pretty intense survival mode. These high levels of distress cause our brain to focus on surviving the danger and development is put on hold. An example is a child who experienced early childhood trauma and has speech delays. Later on, the child needs support to develop speech.
Another example is if a person experienced a medical trauma or substance abuse (such as drug use) in their teen years. This traumatic event could have caused their development to stop during the time of danger and could cause a gap in their development. As an adult, they may need support to be able to understand their own identity or have difficulty solving problems on their own because they were unable to learn these vital developmental skills as a teen. So we would work on those developmental skills in therapy.
You can connect with Lydia via her website, https://arisewellcounselingservices.com
Bethany Hendrickson is a mental health therapist practicing in Seattle, WA. Among her clients are people who have survived abuse and trauma. She is a counseling affiliate of Northwest Family Life, and also leads State Certified groups for perpetrators of domestic violence.
Could you talk with us about the intersection between survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence?
The cycle of domestic violence continues until it is broken, and for many people it begins in childhood – witnessing violence between their parents, being targeted for abuse within the family, or even just experiencing an environment of control and disrespect. We learn how to treat others, and how to treat ourselves, first from our parents and families. We see our parents experience emotions and then we see them choose to act, either violently in anger, or respectfully in love. People who grow up seeing and experiencing violence are far more likely to either choose a partner who abuses them, or to abuse their own loved ones.
What are unbearable emotions?
In our domestic violence groups at NWFL we talk a lot about unbearable emotions. What we mean by “unbearable” is simply an emotion that you *hate* to feel. We all have a top few unbearable emotions; emotions that hit us right in the gut and cut through our defenses. It might be loneliness, helplessness, feeling unheard, dismissed, or disregarded – whatever negative emotion just sends you over the edge – that is one of your unbearable emotions.
How can a person deal with unbearable emotions without letting them escalate to explosion?
The key is to take a break from any situation in which you notice tension building (red face, raised voice, heart palpitating, ruminating thoughts, etc.) In our groups people learn to tune in to their body and emotional selves to notice early on when they are feeling upset. This gives them time to calmly take a break, and come back to the situation/conversation/interaction after they have had the chance to calm their mind and body.
What are some de-escalation tools?
Anything that helps calm you down! Non-aggressive physical activity like walking, biking, or yoga, music, art, reading, praying, talking to a friend (probably about something other than what you are upset about). It’s not time to go over and over the event and figure out how to convince the other person that you are right, it is a time to disconnect from anger and reconnect with your inner desires, and your most raw feelings and needs.
How can a person shift their unconscious responses and interrupt the cycle of abuse?
The most important factor is a desire to change. Anyone can learn how to take a break, calm down, speak more respectfully, but it’s hard work to shift abusive responses. It’s hard work to feel our true feelings (the feelings underneath all of that anger and rage). It’s takes courage to face ourselves, and bravery to be vulnerable and to admit wrongdoing. In order to change you have to be willing to release old patterns that you’ve been relying on, and make space for new patterns that will feel odd and uncomfortable at first.
How might someone use their body as a guiding and important signpost?
Our bodies are where our emotions live. When we feel anxious our heart pounds, when we feel sad we have a pit in our stomach. Our bodies experience tension and it shows up in our drumming fingers, bouncing knees, red face, throbbing veins, rising voice. Tension in your body is a sign to tune in to your emotions and take care of yourself by calming down.
What does a “Time Out Contract” look like?
Think through your own triggers/red flags, unbearable emotions that come up, and what you need in order to calm down when you experience these things. It should be a detailed plan that you share with trusted loved ones, so that you can all be on the same page and agree to give each other time to calm down when needed. Taking a “time out” isn’t an excuse to storm away and abandon your partner – it’s a premeditated, structured break.
Could you talk about developing a personalized crisis plan?
A crisis plan is a great document to have, both for people who are experiencing /or have experienced abuse, and for people who are attempting to become safe and change their abusive patterns. A crisis plan should have an “A” plan and a “B” plan (for when plan A doesn’t work out). Think through likely crisis situations that might come up: where are your exits? What will you need? Who will need to come with you? Who will you call? Where will you go? How much money will you need and will you have access to that money? Ask the question: what will keep me, and the people around me, safe in this situation?
You say that survivors struggle to ‘be’ in the world as they want to ‘be.’ How can people become more self-actualized?
The real answer to this question is that it’s a journey. When the world has been an unsafe place it can be difficult to establish safe habits, safe relationships, and the expectation that you will be treated with respect. Survivors can often benefit from similar de-escalation skills as perpetrators – the difference being that the goal for the survivor is to exit the unsafe situation, whereas the goal for a perpetrator is to take responsibility for one’s own actions and create safe space for others. Anyone can get caught in a fight/flight/freeze amygdala response. Creating a self-care/time-out plan to notice early on that your needs aren’t being met can help point the way toward healing and helpful interventions.
How do victims of abuse get stuck in absorbing blame, and how might they shift that?
Like I said, the goal for perpetrators is to take full responsibility for their own emotions and actions. One thing that perpetrators do really well is blame others. People who have experienced abuse are often very familiar with what it feels like to be blamed, and sometimes they even believe that they are to blame for the other person’s actions. Healing for survivors is often a process of sorting through events and taking responsibility only for their own actions, their own emotions – and refusing to take responsibility for what the other person did or said. If each person is in charge of the sidewalk on their side of the street, we need to only be sweeping our own sidewalk. We cannot sweep the other person’s sidewalk – that is their job.
Who has a say as to what can change in a person’s life?
We are all only in control of ourselves! We can only change what we do. We have no control over what anyone else says or does or thinks.
How can people care for their own emotions?
Think holistically: body, mind, spirit. Our bodies need good sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Our minds need a balance of stimulation and rest. Our spirits need connection, community, and a sense of purpose. Once you can tune in to what your body is telling you about your own emotions, you can begin the process of thinking through what that means for you.
Bethany has a book in the works, with positive, accessible info specifically written for perpetrators of domestic violence. We look forward to sharing it with you when it’s released. You can connect with her here.
