Latest / The Trauma Therapist / From the archives: Laura Brown, PhD

Transcript

From the archives: Laura Brown, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Today we even another episode from the archives with one
0:03
Speaker 1: of my incredible guests.
0:05
Speaker 2: Enjoy.
0:09
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists Podcast, a show about the
0:12
Speaker 1: incredible people dedicated to helping those of experienced trauma. My
0:16
Speaker 1: name is Gy Macpherson, and my mission is to raise
0:19
Speaker 1: awareness of trauma and to inspire each of us to
0:22
Speaker 1: help those around us.
0:25
Speaker 2: All right, Welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My
0:28
Speaker 2: name is Gay Macpherson, and this is the podcast where
0:31
Speaker 2: we are talking with master trauma therapists and really game
0:35
Speaker 2: changers in the field of trauma therapy. Today, I am
0:39
Speaker 2: so excited to introduce my guest, Lara Brown. Laura, are
0:43
Speaker 2: you ready to go?
0:44
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm ready to go, all right.
0:46
Speaker 2: So. Laura Brown is a feminist trauma psychologist who practices
0:49
Speaker 2: psychotherapy and forensic psychology in Seattle. She's published extensively on
0:54
Speaker 2: topics related to trauma treatment, feminist practice, cultural competence, ethics,
0:59
Speaker 2: and LGBT concerns. She's the founder and director of the
1:03
Speaker 2: Fremont Community Therapy Project, a training clinic serving low income individuals.
1:08
Speaker 2: Her first popular press book is Your Turn for Care,
1:11
Speaker 2: Surviving the Aging and Death of the Adults who harmed you.
1:15
Speaker 2: She is a late in life student of aikido. I
1:19
Speaker 2: want to talk about that, Ari Lara, just a little
1:21
Speaker 2: bit about you. Take a moment share with us, you
1:25
Speaker 2: know something personal. What is like up there in Seattle?
1:28
Speaker 2: If that's where you are calling from.
1:30
Speaker 3: And then I am in Seattle and it is definitely
1:34
Speaker 3: not snowing here A native of northeastern Ohio. Every winter
1:39
Speaker 3: I look to the skies and think, I'm not showing you.
1:42
Speaker 3: So I like our gray, I like our glue.
1:46
Speaker 2: How long have you up there in Seattle?
1:48
Speaker 3: I came here from my internship at the VA in
1:49
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six and have it looked back nice?
1:53
Speaker 2: All right? So this podcast, it really is about getting
1:59
Speaker 2: to know you with goals inspiring other trauma clinicians. We
2:02
Speaker 2: start out with a quote a mantra, share with us, Lars,
2:07
Speaker 2: something that's inspired you really just along your journey, whether
2:12
Speaker 2: you know, be that professional or personal.
2:16
Speaker 3: So there's a saying that comes from the Jewish sages
2:21
Speaker 3: that says, to save one life is to save the
2:23
Speaker 3: entire world. And I heard that as a kid a
2:28
Speaker 3: lot of times, and what I realized they fell accidentally
2:32
Speaker 3: into the work of doing trauma because in the late
2:35
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies we didn't have a field called trauma psychology,
2:39
Speaker 3: that what I was doing was being given the honor
2:42
Speaker 3: of saving the world one life at a time, transforming
2:49
Speaker 3: that exhaustion into energy and that coping and surviving into thriving.
2:55
Speaker 3: And my honor has been to be a part of
2:58
Speaker 3: that for such a long time.
3:00
Speaker 2: When did that break it down a little? First, Laura,
3:03
Speaker 2: when did that become resonant for you? To save one
3:07
Speaker 2: life is to save the entire world? So the question
3:12
Speaker 2: is when did that quote really hit home for you?
3:16
Speaker 2: When did it become resonant for you.
3:19
Speaker 3: As a therapist? Probably somewhere in the early nineteen eighties
3:25
Speaker 3: when I knew that I was working with trauma on purpose,
3:29
Speaker 3: because one of the ways that trauma survivors often cope
3:33
Speaker 3: is to imagine that death is an option. So chronic
3:36
Speaker 3: suicidality is a part of trauma's survivorship. And being able
3:43
Speaker 3: to be with people as that no longer needed to
3:45
Speaker 3: be their option in life is what really made that
3:49
Speaker 3: concept resonate strongly for me.
3:53
Speaker 2: Nice And who is that attributed to? Is there a
3:55
Speaker 2: specific person or.
3:58
Speaker 3: From AVOs stages that one? But it is one of
4:07
Speaker 3: those many pippy sayings that I learned when I was
4:11
Speaker 3: growing up going to Hebrew School too many days a week.
4:13
Speaker 2: Nice. I love it. I love it, and I just
4:15
Speaker 2: love the way that it's kind of an overlay or
4:19
Speaker 2: your lens and a sense through through the work you're doing.
4:23
Speaker 2: So let's kind of move on here, you know, again,
4:25
Speaker 2: this is about highlighting your journey. Uh. People get into
4:28
Speaker 2: this field for a variety of different reasons, you know,
4:31
Speaker 2: I often share. One of the impetuses for me really
4:36
Speaker 2: was was my brother, who was a Navy seal, came
4:39
Speaker 2: back from Iraq the Gulf War with PTSD, and I
4:43
Speaker 2: was so excited Laara to find out about his experience,
4:48
Speaker 2: you know, what he what he'd done. And I pestered
4:51
Speaker 2: him and poked him, and he just he wouldn't And
4:55
Speaker 2: I was, what is going on? Why did you want
4:57
Speaker 2: to talk to me about I didn't know anything about
5:01
Speaker 2: really psychology and trauma and the effects of PTSD, and
5:05
Speaker 2: I really blew it, you know, And part of part
5:07
Speaker 2: of my work mission in a sense, is to come
5:10
Speaker 2: back and really change things in the way that that's addressed.
5:15
Speaker 2: But share with us, you know, when, how why did
5:19
Speaker 2: what drew you into this field.
5:21
Speaker 3: Well, there's the manifest content, they of conscious content. I
5:28
Speaker 3: am a FMS psychologist and I have been that since
5:31
Speaker 3: I started graduate school. And so while I was in
5:34
Speaker 3: graduate school, I was involved in the nascent movement to
5:38
Speaker 3: create rape crisis centers and better women's centers. And then
5:42
Speaker 3: I did an internship in the VA and in nineteen
5:45
Speaker 3: seventy six, we couldn't talk about trauma and there was
5:48
Speaker 3: no diagnosis of PTSD, and our Vietnam vets who were
5:52
Speaker 3: the guys with the AQT PTSD we were seeing were
5:56
Speaker 3: thought of a being personnelity disordered, although back then they
5:59
Speaker 3: call it character. So I wasn't being intentional, but I
6:02
Speaker 3: kept sort of accidentally wandering into the field. And then
6:07
Speaker 3: I started my practice after I finished graduate school and
6:11
Speaker 3: discovered that I was hearing stories from people that were
6:14
Speaker 3: about childhood trauma and I kept listening. So that's the
6:19
Speaker 3: official version. Then there's the there there's a version where
6:24
Speaker 3: I am the daughter of a trauma survivor, which was
6:27
Speaker 3: not something that anybody knew because it was never something
6:31
Speaker 3: my mother talked about. But my mom is a survivor
6:35
Speaker 3: was She's been dead for over a year. Now, she
6:37
Speaker 3: was a survivor of violence at the hands of her father.
6:42
Speaker 3: She witnessed abusive her mother, and she was a target
6:45
Speaker 3: of abuse. And that was the big family hidden thing
6:51
Speaker 3: which only came to light when my grandfather began to
6:56
Speaker 3: be physically abusive very late in his life again, and
7:00
Speaker 3: my grandmother began to speak the truth. And my parents
7:05
Speaker 3: as parents were formed and shaped by my mother's specific
7:10
Speaker 3: experience of trauma. And then there's also the reality of
7:14
Speaker 3: the historical trauma of my ancestors, who were Jews who
7:18
Speaker 3: lived in Poland and Russia where it was not a
7:20
Speaker 3: really good place to be a Jew. Was the unconscious
7:25
Speaker 3: determinant that first of all trium me into a therapist
7:28
Speaker 3: and then made me able and interested in working with
7:34
Speaker 3: people who were experiencing the after effects of trauma. So
7:38
Speaker 3: it was a combination of sort of the accidental falling
7:41
Speaker 3: into listening to people and the unconscious movement toward working
7:47
Speaker 3: with the people who resemble my first so called client,
7:50
Speaker 3: my mom.
7:51
Speaker 2: So you begin in grad school, you know this, this
7:56
Speaker 2: this need or urge to create rape centers, crisis centers,
8:01
Speaker 2: And remind me what date was this in that we're.
8:04
Speaker 3: Talking about the early nineteen seventies. I was graduated nineteen
8:07
Speaker 3: seventy three to nineteen seventy seven, and we were just
8:11
Speaker 3: beginning as a culture to talk about these phenomenons. So
8:14
Speaker 3: feminists like myself were organizing to create services for survivors
8:20
Speaker 3: of sexual assault and safe places for women who were
8:24
Speaker 3: being beaten up. And one of the things that was
8:27
Speaker 3: interesting for me is when I got to the VA, thinking,
8:31
Speaker 3: these guys who are Vietnam veterans look an awful lot
8:34
Speaker 3: like the women I've been working with. I wasn't the
8:37
Speaker 3: only person to have that insight. So it was a
8:40
Speaker 3: period of enormous social change in Fermant and I did
8:45
Speaker 3: what feminists were doing in those days, which is try
8:49
Speaker 3: to change the world by creating safe spaces for people
8:53
Speaker 3: who had been violated.
8:55
Speaker 2: And then, as you mentioned, there was a second part
8:59
Speaker 2: to to the the your drive and a sense it's
9:02
Speaker 2: unconscious part, if you will, was being the daughter of
9:06
Speaker 2: a trauma survivor. And I just I really like how
9:09
Speaker 2: you kind of lay this out, is this kind of
9:11
Speaker 2: uh combination of different forces or you know, drives, if
9:17
Speaker 2: you will. And I think it really speaks to how
9:20
Speaker 2: individuals get into this field because it is not always
9:23
Speaker 2: conscious in a sense, let's bring into this whole discussion
9:30
Speaker 2: the LGBT component, you know, where does that play out
9:35
Speaker 2: in your orientation and how you work with individuals, and
9:39
Speaker 2: and kind of as a as an accompanying question there
9:47
Speaker 2: social justice.
9:49
Speaker 3: So in some of my social justice is the big frame.
9:55
Speaker 3: I'm a lesbian. I was the first out lesbian psychologist
9:58
Speaker 3: in Seattle. Although not the first lesbian psychologists. There were
10:01
Speaker 3: people before me. They were simply not out because they
10:04
Speaker 3: were products of their time and their age. Cohort. So
10:08
Speaker 3: I was also one of the first out lesbians in
10:12
Speaker 3: organized psychology. Again, no credit to me other than being
10:17
Speaker 3: at the right place at the right time, being the
10:20
Speaker 3: right age, at a time in the world when it
10:22
Speaker 3: became more possible for people to be out as psychologists.
10:27
Speaker 3: And so I wrote about what I knew and what
10:30
Speaker 3: I was doing because in the nineteen seventies there was
10:33
Speaker 3: no affirmative literature. I'm working with LGBT people, and so
10:38
Speaker 3: I began to write because we needed a literature, and
10:43
Speaker 3: because I could see that the people who were coming
10:46
Speaker 3: to see me had been wounded by previous psychotherapists who
10:50
Speaker 3: treated their homosexuality as evidence of pathology rather than simply
10:54
Speaker 3: an aspect of identity, and had been wounded because they
10:57
Speaker 3: lived in a culture that was stigmatizing, oppressive, and sometimes dangerous.
11:03
Speaker 3: So that's what got me there was mostly my sense
11:07
Speaker 3: of responsibility to my community to help to create a
11:11
Speaker 3: scholarly literature about who we were. That said, being lesbian, gay, bisexual,
11:16
Speaker 3: or transgendered is an aspect of identity that creates opportunities
11:23
Speaker 3: to be a target of discrimination and oppression that therefore
11:26
Speaker 3: increase problems of mental health. And that cycles back to
11:31
Speaker 3: the issue of social justice, because one of the really
11:34
Speaker 3: good things my parents did for me was to raise
11:37
Speaker 3: me to see the pursuit of social justice as the
11:39
Speaker 3: ultimate good, That what we were supposed to be about
11:43
Speaker 3: was making the world a better place. And no matter
11:45
Speaker 3: how much my parents and I disagreed about almost everything,
11:48
Speaker 3: we were all people who pursued social justice in our
11:51
Speaker 3: actions in our lives. And so seeing the work of
11:55
Speaker 3: psychotherapy as a component of doing social justice to them,
12:02
Speaker 3: whether it's trauma at the individual level or systemic discrimination
12:06
Speaker 3: and oppression at the larger level, that what was done
12:09
Speaker 3: to them is the problem of pathology, and that by
12:12
Speaker 3: healing those wounds, we change the world and make it
12:15
Speaker 3: more just, and then as psychotherapists, we need to ask ourselves,
12:19
Speaker 3: how do we also operate on larger systems to create
12:23
Speaker 3: more justice, more equality, more fairness in the world, so
12:26
Speaker 3: that we eventually put ourselves out of business.
12:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I really like the way you're kind
12:33
Speaker 2: of opening up this topic here, and this is exactly
12:35
Speaker 2: what I wanted to do. And one of the reasons
12:39
Speaker 2: why I wanted to have you on because I think
12:41
Speaker 2: that well, first of all, to a certain extent, we
12:44
Speaker 2: really haven't had this discussion specifically regarding the LGBT community
12:51
Speaker 2: and what does that mean with regards to working in
12:55
Speaker 2: the trauma field period? Okay, our question mark.
13:02
Speaker 3: When you say what does it mean with regard to
13:03
Speaker 3: working in the trauma field? Not clear what you mean
13:07
Speaker 3: by that question.
13:08
Speaker 2: Okay, let me let me clarify. So for for listeners
13:11
Speaker 2: who or maybe are just getting into this field, what
13:15
Speaker 2: share with us? Is there a perspective that individuals need
13:19
Speaker 2: to have. I mean, obviously being culturally uh sensitive is key,
13:25
Speaker 2: but what does it mean to be a trauma therapist
13:30
Speaker 2: who perhaps is working with an lgb T client. Help
13:35
Speaker 2: us understand that or offer something there.
13:40
Speaker 3: So all of us as therapists need to be culturally
13:43
Speaker 3: competent and all the work we do with every client
13:45
Speaker 3: we see and cultural competence is about humility, it's about
13:49
Speaker 3: self awareness, and it's about realizing that there is no
13:53
Speaker 3: one size fits all. So if you read a handbook
13:55
Speaker 3: of psychotherapy with LGBT clients, you're ignorant. Only begins because
14:02
Speaker 3: each person who comes into the office weaves their sexual orientation,
14:07
Speaker 3: whether they're queer or not queer, they weave that orientation
14:11
Speaker 3: into all the other strands of their identity. And so
14:14
Speaker 3: to be a sixty two year old upper middle class
14:17
Speaker 3: Jewish lesbian is really different than to be a twenty
14:20
Speaker 3: year old working class Latina lesbian. All those other strands
14:25
Speaker 3: of identity make a difference, and so knowing that for
14:28
Speaker 3: starters is important. So cultural competence is for me a
14:32
Speaker 3: bottom line of all psychotherapy practice. And it's not only
14:35
Speaker 3: about working with quote unquote diverse clients. It's about everybody,
14:38
Speaker 3: because everyone has all these aspects of identity, whether they're
14:42
Speaker 3: examined or not. I think working with LGBT clients, therapists
14:47
Speaker 3: need to be aware that most LGBT people are subject
14:52
Speaker 3: to a hail storm of microaggressions daily. And microaggressions are
14:58
Speaker 3: those experience that look small but actually are like little
15:03
Speaker 3: drops of acid on the psyche. And they can take
15:06
Speaker 3: the form of jokes where LGBT people are the target, or,
15:13
Speaker 3: as the research tells us, the political discourse against marriage
15:17
Speaker 3: equality or against other forms of ending to discrimination. Colleague
15:22
Speaker 3: of Mind Glenda Russell has done some brilliant research looking
15:25
Speaker 3: at what is the effect on LGBT people when there
15:28
Speaker 3: are ballad initiatives or when there's public discussions in which
15:33
Speaker 3: someone is saying these people should not have an equal right.
15:36
Speaker 3: And it turns out that these public discussions where there's
15:39
Speaker 3: someone saying you shouldn't have equal rights are microaggressions. They
15:43
Speaker 3: have a problematic effect on the mental health of some
15:46
Speaker 3: LGBT people. So ironically, for example, as the tidal wave
15:51
Speaker 3: of marriage equality sweeps across the country, every state that
15:56
Speaker 3: comes into the fold is accompanied by the backlash noise
16:01
Speaker 3: by people saying really negative things. Well, those negative things
16:05
Speaker 3: are microaggressions and they affect some LGBT people. And we
16:09
Speaker 3: know from the research on microaggressions that microaggressions have mental
16:13
Speaker 3: health consequences. So the big picture is that LGBT people,
16:17
Speaker 3: as is true for people in many target groups, have
16:22
Speaker 3: an experience of exposure to microaggression. Then there may be
16:25
Speaker 3: specific kinds of things. People may have encountered, specific experiences
16:29
Speaker 3: of discrimination or harassment, or they may have been targeted
16:32
Speaker 3: for a hate crime. Because even here in lovely progressive Seattle,
16:37
Speaker 3: where we have all the rights of any other American citizen,
16:42
Speaker 3: LGBT people are still targeted for hate crimes by members
16:46
Speaker 3: of our society who haven't evolved in the notion that
16:50
Speaker 3: you don't use violence. And when we hear about those
16:53
Speaker 3: hate crimes, that also serves as a potential microaggression. So,
16:58
Speaker 3: knowing that this exists, lives of LGBT people, no matter
17:01
Speaker 3: how otherwise powerful and protected by law, we are people
17:10
Speaker 3: carry around internalized depression, eternalized homophobia, and heterosexism. So if
17:16
Speaker 3: a person is both the survivor of other trauma and LGBT,
17:21
Speaker 3: the therapist also wants to ask the question, are there
17:24
Speaker 3: ways in which the identity as an LGBT person has
17:28
Speaker 3: been specifically informed by that experience of trauma. We know,
17:33
Speaker 3: for instance, that men who are the targets of sexual
17:36
Speaker 3: assault are more likely to be gay or bisexual, and
17:40
Speaker 3: that boys who are sexually abused often struggle with questions
17:45
Speaker 3: of their sexual identity. And so gay men who have
17:47
Speaker 3: been sexually abused as boys may wonder if that sexual
17:51
Speaker 3: abuse was a cause of their homosexuality. Well, the research
17:55
Speaker 3: says no, but that piece is really there sexual orientation.
18:02
Speaker 3: So this is the sexualation. Yeah, sexual orientation is something
18:08
Speaker 3: that we don't know what causes it. And that's why,
18:11
Speaker 3: for for example, lesbian and gay survivors of childhood sexual trauma,
18:17
Speaker 3: because there's been the stigmatizing of non heterosexual orientations, the
18:23
Speaker 3: added to the burden of recovering from childhood sexual abuse
18:27
Speaker 3: is well, is this why I'm gay or lesbian or bisexual?
18:30
Speaker 3: Is this the cause? And the answer is an unequivocal no.
18:34
Speaker 3: And for LGBT people there is that added burden. Oh,
18:40
Speaker 3: therapists have to take that into account. I think the
18:42
Speaker 3: thing you missed, and this is kind of important, is
18:45
Speaker 3: that sometimes experiences of other trauma are worsened by discrimination
18:50
Speaker 3: that LGBT people face. So being denied the right to
18:54
Speaker 3: see your partner when they're in the hospital dying because
18:58
Speaker 3: you live in a state that doesn't recognize your relationship.
19:01
Speaker 3: For example, something that's happened more times than any of
19:05
Speaker 3: us care to count. When your partner of many years
19:08
Speaker 3: dies and you're dealing with grief, you are then dealing
19:11
Speaker 3: with what we used to call the gay tax, which
19:14
Speaker 3: is that because you weren't considered married by the federal
19:17
Speaker 3: government until two years ago June, you had to pay
19:20
Speaker 3: huge taxes on your shared a state in ways that
19:23
Speaker 3: heterosxually married couples didn't. Now that piece is changing. Many
19:28
Speaker 3: of these pieces are changing because marriage equality is becoming
19:32
Speaker 3: more and more of the law, because the federal government
19:35
Speaker 3: now recognizes our marriages. And yet at when LGBT couples travel,
19:44
Speaker 3: we travel with lots of documents to make sure that
19:46
Speaker 3: we don't run into those kinds of trauma. So therapists
19:49
Speaker 3: need to take those things into account. That there is
19:54
Speaker 3: an added flavor to certain kinds of trauma created by
19:58
Speaker 3: the stigma associate with homosexuality and the active discrimination that
20:04
Speaker 3: LGBT people face every day in their lives.
20:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for that, and thank you for really
20:11
Speaker 2: kind of elucidating and laid it out there. I mean,
20:14
Speaker 2: I kind of feel that like this was a mini
20:15
Speaker 2: workshop on Seriously, I thought you did an amazing job. Yep,
20:21
Speaker 2: so and let's let's move on here. You know, we
20:25
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about your journey, what got you
20:27
Speaker 2: into this field, Laura, share with us a story about
20:31
Speaker 2: an early clinical error you made, and really how that
20:35
Speaker 2: has informed the work you do your practice.
20:39
Speaker 3: Nobody who supervised me knew anything about Mama, and no
20:44
Speaker 3: one taught me anything about trauma, and no one taught
20:47
Speaker 3: me that self inflicted violence was something that many trauma
20:50
Speaker 3: survivors did as a strategy for coping with intolerable feelings.
20:56
Speaker 3: So client got assigned to me in practice who used
21:02
Speaker 3: self inflicted violence what many other therapists call self harm.
21:07
Speaker 3: But I used that term because it comes from the
21:09
Speaker 3: community of people who do this stuff to themselves. And
21:12
Speaker 3: she was doing a form of self inflicted violence. And
21:16
Speaker 3: I did not know or think that this had anything
21:21
Speaker 3: to do with anything at all. All I knew was
21:25
Speaker 3: that this was a behavior that was very disturbing to me,
21:30
Speaker 3: and it was distressing to her friends and family. And
21:34
Speaker 3: so she came into therapy with the mandate to stop
21:37
Speaker 3: self inflicted violence. And I couldn't have been more clumsy
21:41
Speaker 3: or obtuse, nothing to create relationship, did nothing to create safety,
21:49
Speaker 3: and this person, I think maybe came three times and
21:52
Speaker 3: then disappeared. I had no idea what I had done.
22:00
Speaker 3: My supervisor's message to me was, well, this person really
22:03
Speaker 3: wasn't ready to be in therapy. You know. Forty years on,
22:08
Speaker 3: what I can say is I wasn't ready this person's therapist.
22:12
Speaker 3: I didn't know to think about what is self inflicted
22:17
Speaker 3: violence about. It took me another decade and a client
22:23
Speaker 3: about whom I've written, a Vietnam woman, Vietnam veteran, who
22:28
Speaker 3: was using self inflicted violence to cope with what I
22:30
Speaker 3: then knew was PTSD for me to start thinking about
22:34
Speaker 3: this phenomenon in the context of trauma, recovery and survivorship
22:40
Speaker 3: and to realize that the issue wasn't stop the behavior.
22:44
Speaker 3: The issue was how do we offer people ways to
22:49
Speaker 3: cope with the almost intolerable emotional and physical experience of trauma.
22:55
Speaker 3: So it was that oh my gosh, of thinking back
23:01
Speaker 3: to that client, thinking well, here's where I screwed up,
23:04
Speaker 3: and here's how I screwed up. I didn't form a relationship,
23:07
Speaker 3: I didn't think about trauma, and what I know is
23:11
Speaker 3: that that error gets replicated continuously because we still don't
23:17
Speaker 3: often train new therapists about thinking through the lens of trauma.
23:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, you've just dropped so many nuggets of
23:28
Speaker 2: gold there, and I love what you said about you know,
23:30
Speaker 2: the issue isn't to stop the behavior, but to help
23:35
Speaker 2: our clients manage and work through the trauma. Talk to
23:39
Speaker 2: that more, because I think that is something that really
23:43
Speaker 2: comes up again and again, and it's something that one
23:45
Speaker 2: of my other recent interviewees really spoke to when he said,
23:50
Speaker 2: you know, stop treating the symptoms in a sense and
23:54
Speaker 2: really understanding what's behind that and driving that. Talk a
23:58
Speaker 2: little bit more about that large cause I think you
24:00
Speaker 2: said it beautifully.
24:02
Speaker 3: So I think what trauma therapy is about, it's about
24:05
Speaker 3: reducing suffering, and it's about giving people a sense that
24:12
Speaker 3: what happened to them did not destroy who they were,
24:15
Speaker 3: the meaning of their life, and that the first thing
24:18
Speaker 3: you have to do is form relationship, which means that
24:22
Speaker 3: you sit with someone and really seriously and listen very
24:27
Speaker 3: carefully to what their experience has been, and you become
24:33
Speaker 3: their witness. And you know, when you talk about what
24:36
Speaker 3: you did with your brother who came back from Iraq
24:39
Speaker 3: and how you poked it him and pestered him. And
24:43
Speaker 3: a lot of therapists ask intrusive questions rather than saying,
24:49
Speaker 3: tell me your story in the way you need to
24:52
Speaker 3: tell it, at the pace you need to tell it,
24:55
Speaker 3: and then together we will collaborate on how do we
25:00
Speaker 3: want to approach reducing your suffering. There's a lot of techniques.
25:04
Speaker 3: I mean, I use emdr I use mindfulness, I bring
25:09
Speaker 3: in things for my Ikido practice. I do all kinds
25:13
Speaker 3: of things that are collaborating with the client with the
25:17
Speaker 3: goal of reducing their suffering. And what I know is
25:22
Speaker 3: that for each person that collaboration is going to be different.
25:27
Speaker 3: Therapy for trauma survivors has to be an experience of
25:30
Speaker 3: their empowerment where we support them to set the pace,
25:36
Speaker 3: where we support them to say when something is too much,
25:40
Speaker 3: when it's not the right time, where we invite them
25:44
Speaker 3: to stretch, but we don't shame them into doing that,
25:48
Speaker 3: and where we don't apply our favorite theory or a
25:51
Speaker 3: favorite intervention just because that's the thing we know how
25:54
Speaker 3: to do if it's not a good fit with them. So,
25:59
Speaker 3: you know, the research on evidence based relationships in psychotherapy
26:03
Speaker 3: informs trauma practice, and that research says that the therapeutic
26:08
Speaker 3: alliance and relationship contributes to a larger percentage of the
26:12
Speaker 3: variance of the outcome of therapy than any specific technique,
26:17
Speaker 3: sometimes three times more than the best evidence based intervention.
26:22
Speaker 3: And this is certainly true where trauma is concerned. So
26:26
Speaker 3: the first, second, third, and tenth thing you're doing as
26:29
Speaker 3: a therapist speaking with trauma survivor is the development of
26:32
Speaker 3: relationship and the empowerment of that person. And then you
26:37
Speaker 3: talk about what of these very many things in my
26:39
Speaker 3: toolkit might reduce your suffering, because the reduction of suffering
26:44
Speaker 3: is an important goal of trauma treatment. Having nightmares and
26:47
Speaker 3: flashbacks is not how anybody wants. What is the meaning
26:52
Speaker 3: of my life? Is there a God? Is their justice?
26:56
Speaker 3: Am I forever stigmatized as a human being? And without
27:02
Speaker 3: looking at the picture of the human. With PTSD, we're
27:06
Speaker 3: working with the human. We're not treating a disease. We
27:09
Speaker 3: are working with a healing human. There was billiped the
27:13
Speaker 3: New York Times maybe a month ago by a man
27:17
Speaker 3: who was a journalist, was embedded in a rockhead. PTSD
27:23
Speaker 3: was basically told, here's this thing that works for a
27:26
Speaker 3: lot of people, and you're going to do it well.
27:28
Speaker 3: It's a thing that works for a lot of people.
27:29
Speaker 3: Prolonged exposure therapy is one of the evens based interventions,
27:33
Speaker 3: and that therapists didn't stop to work with the human being,
27:39
Speaker 3: and so that human beings symptoms worsened and their sense
27:43
Speaker 3: of hopelessness and helplessness deepened. That's a really good example
27:47
Speaker 3: of what not to do. Doing prolonged exposure in some instances,
27:52
Speaker 3: for some people is absolutely the right thing. I've worked
27:55
Speaker 3: with people who've had great benefit from prolonged exposure, and
28:00
Speaker 3: I've worked with people for whom it is disorganizing and terrorizing.
28:04
Speaker 3: So the first thing is you're working with the person.
28:08
Speaker 3: You're not treating an illness, and you're working to reduce
28:13
Speaker 3: suffering in a way that works for this person and
28:16
Speaker 3: they're suffering.
28:19
Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, I mean I'm getting a little some goosebumps
28:23
Speaker 2: here listening to your talks here say, I mean, I
28:25
Speaker 2: just love, just love the way you're kind of dropping
28:29
Speaker 2: down and just condensing so much of this work we do.
28:35
Speaker 2: And I think it couldn't have been better said when
28:39
Speaker 2: you said it. You know, we're working with a human
28:41
Speaker 2: we're not treating a disease. I mean that is very powerful,
28:44
Speaker 2: and I think, Laura simple Sometimes we think it's simple,
28:51
Speaker 2: you know, we think it's simple to develop a relationship.
28:54
Speaker 2: And you know when you talked about the power of
28:56
Speaker 2: sitting there and listening and witnessing, and yet it's not
29:01
Speaker 2: simple and people don't do it often enough. You know,
29:05
Speaker 2: as you talked about utilizing their favorite intervention at something
29:10
Speaker 2: that many people turn to.
29:13
Speaker 3: Why because therapists feel in competition, overwhelmed and terrified and
29:22
Speaker 3: want to do something to soothe their own distress. It
29:26
Speaker 3: is not simple to listen as if your life depended.
29:30
Speaker 2: On Well, all right, let's move on here. You know
29:36
Speaker 2: we talked about an early mistake and what got you
29:39
Speaker 2: into this field? Laura, you know this this next question,
29:44
Speaker 2: I love it because it just really inspires me and
29:47
Speaker 2: I feel it drives us. And that is why what's
29:51
Speaker 2: driving you in this field? Why do you continue to
29:55
Speaker 2: do this work?
29:57
Speaker 3: Why I do this is I can't imagine doing any
30:00
Speaker 3: anything else. I got really burned out at fifteen years ago.
30:06
Speaker 3: I took a year off and tried to decide if
30:09
Speaker 3: I wanted to do this, could I do this? And
30:11
Speaker 3: what I came back with was I couldn't do anything else,
30:15
Speaker 3: that I had to take better care of myself to persist,
30:20
Speaker 3: and that I love this work. This work allows me
30:23
Speaker 3: to do something that is meaning making every day of
30:26
Speaker 3: my life. I mean, how good is that? And I
30:29
Speaker 3: also had this commitment to training the next generation of
30:31
Speaker 3: therapists so that no trauma survivor runs into someone like
30:38
Speaker 3: clueless me the way I was before I knew about trauma.
30:43
Speaker 3: And so in the clinic that I run, where I've
30:46
Speaker 3: trained sixty people over the last nine years, in the
30:49
Speaker 3: teaching and training and writing that I do, training people
30:53
Speaker 3: so that they can think through the lens of trauma,
30:55
Speaker 3: so that they are able to have this huge honor
31:00
Speaker 3: of being the witness and being the person who accompanies
31:05
Speaker 3: the trauma survivor in their transformation and healing. That's what
31:08
Speaker 3: keeps me in it. Well, it gives me a sensor.
31:11
Speaker 2: Shows I mean, it's coming through Laura and all right.
31:15
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, to ask this next question, it
31:18
Speaker 2: almost seems redundant, but many, many of our listeners get
31:21
Speaker 2: into this field for a variety of reasons, and people
31:24
Speaker 2: listening to this podcast are at different stages. I mean,
31:27
Speaker 2: some individuals have more experience, some are just beginning to
31:31
Speaker 2: to you know, get into trauma informed education. What advice
31:36
Speaker 2: would you have for those those individuals. For new trauma therapists.
31:42
Speaker 3: Get specific training and supervision. Uh, get training in some
31:47
Speaker 3: of the evidence space practice. So learn to do e MDR.
31:51
Speaker 3: Learn prolonged exposure, learn a mindfulness BACE practice. Learn about
31:58
Speaker 3: the body informed there so understand that trauma is a biopsychosocial, spiritual,
32:05
Speaker 3: existential phenomenon. Get really good supervision from somebody who has
32:12
Speaker 3: worked a lot with trauma. Learn about dissociation, because if
32:16
Speaker 3: you work with trauma, dissociation is going to walk into
32:19
Speaker 3: your office. So rather than going, oh my god, there's
32:23
Speaker 3: someone in my practice who I think has di id eke,
32:26
Speaker 3: be prepared for that to happen. So read the classics
32:30
Speaker 3: and that does happen? You say, ah, I've read about
32:33
Speaker 3: this kind of know what to do and who to
32:35
Speaker 3: call up for supervision. Read Read Trauma and the Therapist,
32:41
Speaker 3: which for me is the best book about what it's
32:43
Speaker 3: like to be a therapist working with trauma. Read Counter
32:47
Speaker 3: Transference in the Treatment of Trauma. Read Trauma and Recovery.
32:53
Speaker 3: Learn how to think about trauma by reading what the
32:57
Speaker 3: masters have written. If you're interested in doing more culturally
33:01
Speaker 3: competent work, read my book on cultural Competence and Trauma treatment,
33:05
Speaker 3: because that's just sort of the book on that topic.
33:10
Speaker 3: So all of those things, But get ongoing consultation and supervision,
33:17
Speaker 3: because you know, I've been a therapist a really long
33:20
Speaker 3: time and single parenting. This not a good idea.
33:25
Speaker 2: How about to go to books besides ju Determin's Trauma
33:30
Speaker 2: and Recovery which have influenced you, and they could be
33:33
Speaker 2: trauma related or not. And then I know, realize you
33:36
Speaker 2: just named three great ones.
33:39
Speaker 3: Right, well, those are three great great ones in the
33:41
Speaker 3: field of trauma. Those are books that I require my
33:44
Speaker 3: trainees to read. You know, interestingly, what probably influences me
33:51
Speaker 3: as much as the literature in our field is the
33:55
Speaker 3: poetry and lyrics of Leonard Cohen. And as you know
34:00
Speaker 3: from getting an email from me, I have a Cohen
34:02
Speaker 3: quote in my signature file. And this man really understands
34:09
Speaker 3: trauma and the human broken heart. And some days when
34:13
Speaker 3: I'm having a particularly challenging day, or when i know
34:18
Speaker 3: I'm about to see someone who is struggling with whether
34:22
Speaker 3: to be alive or not. I call up some particular
34:26
Speaker 3: Leonard Cohen songs on my device and I listened to
34:31
Speaker 3: them as a way of being reminded of the extraordinary
34:35
Speaker 3: humanity of the experience of trauma. So the work of
34:40
Speaker 3: Leonard Cohen ironically has been part of what has helped
34:45
Speaker 3: me before I knew that I was understanding trauma when
34:49
Speaker 3: I was a kid in the sixties. Listening to his music,
34:54
Speaker 3: thinking there's something about this that helps me understand humans better,
35:00
Speaker 3: that really has moved me and inspired me, has really
35:04
Speaker 3: informst way that I.
35:05
Speaker 2: Do to get in touch with you, Laura.
35:09
Speaker 3: The best way is they can go to my website,
35:12
Speaker 3: which is doctor Laura Brown dot com. There's contact information there.
35:18
Speaker 3: I don't want to put my email out on the podcast,
35:20
Speaker 3: so but my website has a way to contact me
35:23
Speaker 3: by email, has my phone number.
35:26
Speaker 2: The book again, is Your Turn for Care, Surviving the
35:28
Speaker 2: aging and depth of the adults who harmed you. We
35:33
Speaker 2: didn't get to talk about your keto because I did
35:38
Speaker 2: study a keto in school, and it's just a phenomenal
35:42
Speaker 2: kind of adjunct. If you will to to the work
35:46
Speaker 2: we're doing. You know, I just want to say again,
35:48
Speaker 2: I mean, you have just been I think amazing at uh,
35:54
Speaker 2: just distilling the essence of this work and the passion
35:58
Speaker 2: of this work, and I just a love of the
36:00
Speaker 2: way this theme arose, of just the way you're championing
36:06
Speaker 2: the humanity in this work and how we need to
36:10
Speaker 2: lead with that, right rather than our interventions per se,
36:16
Speaker 2: to lead with.
36:16
Speaker 3: That, rather than our inventions or our prurient curiosity about
36:21
Speaker 3: the terrible thing that happened to someone that never happened
36:23
Speaker 3: to us. That trauma is the legacy of being human,
36:28
Speaker 3: that our distant ancestors survived earthquakes and saber tooth tigers
36:33
Speaker 3: and terrible things, and our whole stress response system, our
36:37
Speaker 3: whole biology is about learning to survive in the world
36:41
Speaker 3: full of danger, and our whole biology is also about
36:45
Speaker 3: attachment and connection. Are disrupted, we become unsafe, and healing
36:52
Speaker 3: from trauma is about how do we create good attachment
36:56
Speaker 3: and connection and what a trauma therapist's job is to
36:59
Speaker 3: show up and connect and be available create relationship.
37:04
Speaker 2: Laura, thank you so much and we will definitely talk again.
37:09
Speaker 3: All Right, You're very welcome. Thanks for thinking of me. Guy,
37:12
Speaker 3: all right, byee bye bye.