Latest / The Trauma Therapist / From the archives: Fran Waters, MSW, DCSW, LMFT
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Are Today we even another episode from the archives with
- 0:02Speaker 1: one of my incredible guests.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Enjoy.
- 0:09Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Thepists podcast, a show about the
- 0:12Speaker 1: incredible people dedicated to helping those of experienced trauma. My
- 0:16Speaker 1: name is got macpherson, and my mission is to raise
- 0:19Speaker 1: awareness of trauma and to inspire each of us to
- 0:22Speaker 1: help those around us.
- 0:25Speaker 2: All right, Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast.
- 0:28Speaker 1: My name is Goy McPherson, and this is the podcast
- 0:32Speaker 1: now being listened to in forty four countries where we
- 0:35Speaker 1: interview master trauma therapists from all over the world to
- 0:38Speaker 1: learn about what inspires them and the steps they've taken
- 0:42Speaker 1: to become masters in their field. If you're a trauma therapists,
- 0:46Speaker 1: if you're interested in trauma therapy, or if you're simply
- 0:49Speaker 1: passionate about helping other people, this is it today. I
- 0:53Speaker 1: am so excited to introduce my guests. Fran Waters. Fran
- 0:56Speaker 1: are ready to go?
- 0:58Speaker 3: I think I am, and I'm excited all right.
- 1:00Speaker 1: So. Fran is a licensed clinical social worker and marriage
- 1:03Speaker 1: and family therapist in private practice in Marquette, Michigan. She
- 1:07Speaker 1: specializes in sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and association in
- 1:11Speaker 1: children and adults. Fran is past president of the International
- 1:15Speaker 1: Society for the Study of Trauma and Association and internationally
- 1:20Speaker 1: recognized trainer and consultant in the field of childhood trauma,
- 1:23Speaker 1: and has conducted extensive training programs both nationally and internationally.
- 1:28Speaker 1: All right, Fran, So just a little bit about you.
- 1:30Speaker 1: Take a moment, if you will share with us something
- 1:34Speaker 1: personal about yourself.
- 1:35Speaker 2: What's it like there.
- 1:36Speaker 1: Where you're living, and then we'll dive in.
- 1:39Speaker 3: All right, Well, I live and we're all part of
- 1:43Speaker 3: Michigan called the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is a wonderful, magnificent,
- 1:49Speaker 3: bright sunny day of seventy three degrees, which is unusual
- 1:52Speaker 3: for here. All as encroaching on us rather quickly. The
- 1:56Speaker 3: colors are quite coming out, quite brightly with reds and yellows.
- 2:01Speaker 3: And I practiced in a rural community and I have
- 2:06Speaker 3: a solo private practice. I've been in this community since
- 2:10Speaker 3: nineteen eighty and it's a wintery kind of place to
- 2:16Speaker 3: live in the winter, but it's also quite beautiful.
- 2:20Speaker 2: All right.
- 2:21Speaker 1: So let's kind of transition to our first topic here,
- 2:24Speaker 1: which is a quote. This podcast really is about getting
- 2:29Speaker 1: to know you master trauma. Therapists with the goal of
- 2:32Speaker 1: inspiring other clinicians. In order to do that, we want
- 2:37Speaker 1: to know kind of what's inspired you on this journey.
- 2:40Speaker 1: Share with us, if you will, quote a mantra, whatever
- 2:43Speaker 1: it is that's helped you kind of along your path.
- 2:49Speaker 3: Okay, well, let me first speak a little bit about
- 2:51Speaker 3: what inspired me, and then I'll get to the quote,
- 2:54Speaker 3: because it's it's really rather hard to explain what inspired
- 2:59Speaker 3: me to work in this field other than I felt
- 3:03Speaker 3: like I was gravitated toward it, that there was this
- 3:05Speaker 3: sort of gravitational force. And I'm sure my upbringing had
- 3:10Speaker 3: a lot to do with it. My mother regrettably wasn't
- 3:14Speaker 3: able to accept her four year scholarship and social work
- 3:18Speaker 3: at Case Western Reserve and Ohio because of the Depression,
- 3:21Speaker 3: and her father needed her to help her help him
- 3:24Speaker 3: in the department store. And I came from a family
- 3:27Speaker 3: of helping those in need. And I love children. I
- 3:33Speaker 3: love working with children. I loved to see the transformation
- 3:36Speaker 3: that takes place. So I kind of had no other
- 3:42Speaker 3: way of being, I guess, other than being in this field.
- 3:46Speaker 3: I'm sure there was some unconscious stuff going on myself.
- 3:51Speaker 3: To relate it to my mother's fulfilled wish, but we
- 3:56Speaker 3: never really talked about it. We never talked about what
- 3:59Speaker 3: I was going to become when I started undergraduate school.
- 4:03Speaker 3: So I felt like this was just something that I
- 4:07Speaker 3: was meant to be, and I wanted just to state
- 4:11Speaker 3: that because it's I think this work requires a certain
- 4:14Speaker 3: amount of passion and something greater than can be explained
- 4:20Speaker 3: in a drive that makes us want to work in
- 4:24Speaker 3: this field. And then I'll get to the quote because
- 4:28Speaker 3: I think the quote has a lot of relevance to
- 4:31Speaker 3: particularly the work that I'm doing in dissociation. I like
- 4:36Speaker 3: Albert Einstein's quote. The quote goes like this, no problem
- 4:41Speaker 3: can be solved from the same level of consciousness that
- 4:45Speaker 3: created it. I think that's really powerful. And this quote
- 4:51Speaker 3: has relevance to me on two levels, one the child
- 4:55Speaker 3: and myself secondly as a clinician. So let's look at
- 4:59Speaker 3: the child first. How does this quote pertain to children
- 5:03Speaker 3: in this sense of consciousness. Well, the chronically traumatized children
- 5:10Speaker 3: used association to escape, of course, the horrors of what
- 5:13Speaker 3: they experience. It's their best way of surviving what at
- 5:20Speaker 3: the moment is difficult to even imagine. So dissociation is
- 5:26Speaker 3: the opposite of consciousness. So the child, in order to recover,
- 5:31Speaker 3: must begin to erode the dissociative barriers and to attain
- 5:37Speaker 3: a sense of consciousness about herself or himself. The child
- 5:43Speaker 3: needs to be mindful of the present, to stop using
- 5:47Speaker 3: dissociative defenses to cope after the trauma is over with,
- 5:53Speaker 3: which is very difficult because these children become so habitually trained,
- 5:57Speaker 3: at even minor stress to go somewhere in their mind
- 6:01Speaker 3: to dissociate. So to become conscious means not using those
- 6:06Speaker 3: defenses and facing the trauma and processing the trauma across
- 6:12Speaker 3: all sensory domains as a way of becoming conscious again
- 6:17Speaker 3: to the self, to the others, to the environment. So
- 6:21Speaker 3: back to Einstein, you can solve the problem of trauma
- 6:27Speaker 3: unless you resolve the dissociation and unless you become develop
- 6:32Speaker 3: a level of consciousness, which is the opposite of course
- 6:36Speaker 3: of dissociation. So the second part of that really pertains
- 6:41Speaker 3: to me as a clinician. I needed to readjust my
- 6:46Speaker 3: old paradigm of seeing these traumatized children as whole children
- 6:52Speaker 3: with symptoms and just working and approaching them as if
- 6:58Speaker 3: they are a unified child, as if there was one
- 7:01Speaker 3: child there that was traumatized and that that was going
- 7:05Speaker 3: to help them. Hell now I got as I began
- 7:10Speaker 3: to specialize more and more, and I worked for many,
- 7:13Speaker 3: many years in Marquette, and even before then, in my
- 7:15Speaker 3: undergraduate years, I was fortunate to work as a therapist
- 7:19Speaker 3: and a community mental health center. In my postgraduate years,
- 7:24Speaker 3: I worked for twelve years at our local mental health
- 7:27Speaker 3: center here in Marquette, and I was developing especially and
- 7:33Speaker 3: severely traumatized children and became more and more steeped and
- 7:38Speaker 3: understanding about sexual abuse, and got a lot of training,
- 7:43Speaker 3: and I recognized more and more that as I worked
- 7:49Speaker 3: with these children that I wasn't working with a whole,
- 7:54Speaker 3: unified self. I was working with a child that was fragmented,
- 7:58Speaker 3: That there were different states of the child, different levels
- 8:02Speaker 3: of consciousness, or I should say levels of unconsciousness within
- 8:08Speaker 3: the child. That there was this inner life that was
- 8:12Speaker 3: so incongruent with what was going on in the external
- 8:16Speaker 3: life of the child, and that in order for me
- 8:19Speaker 3: to treat them successfully, I had to change my bear paradigm.
- 8:24Speaker 3: I had to become more conscious of what was going
- 8:28Speaker 3: on in the unconscious life of the child, what was
- 8:32Speaker 3: driving that behavior, The different changes in their mood and
- 8:36Speaker 3: behavior and memory problems. So that started me to begin
- 8:43Speaker 3: to recognize dissociation and children. And that's kind of an
- 8:49Speaker 3: interesting story about how that first came about. And I
- 8:52Speaker 3: don't know if that's something you would like me to
- 8:56Speaker 3: elaborate on later, but I can if you give you with.
- 8:59Speaker 1: A life Let's stop there for a second, because you
- 9:02Speaker 1: just blew that question out of the water.
- 9:04Speaker 2: I mean, we could, we could hit the hit.
- 9:07Speaker 1: The stop button right there, and I think that would
- 9:09Speaker 1: be an amazing interview. Fran You just you just hit
- 9:14Speaker 1: hit it on so many levels here, and I think
- 9:19Speaker 1: really just gave me and I think our listeners a
- 9:22Speaker 1: lot of insight not only into what's driven you, but
- 9:26Speaker 1: really into UH ways or perspectives of how to approach
- 9:31Speaker 1: you know, UH individuals have been traumatized. A couple of
- 9:35Speaker 1: things that really struck me is I love the way
- 9:38Speaker 1: you started this out by by kind of framing what
- 9:41Speaker 1: you were going to say by saying there was like
- 9:45Speaker 1: some gravitational pull or force. I believe the word that
- 9:49Speaker 1: you used that has really driven you to this work.
- 9:51Speaker 1: You know, you talked about your mom and her unfulfilled
- 9:53Speaker 1: wish as well and then of course that quote by Einstein,
- 9:58Speaker 1: and I love how you or how that's kind of
- 10:02Speaker 1: set the foundation for your paradigm shift. That's really really
- 10:08Speaker 1: effective and and to me, I just got a lot
- 10:11Speaker 1: out of you kind of juxtaposing uh, you know, the
- 10:15Speaker 1: two concepts of dissociation and consciousness and how that's playing
- 10:19Speaker 1: out in.
- 10:20Speaker 2: Your work with kids.
- 10:21Speaker 1: I mean, just really really insightful and helpful, I think too.
- 10:26Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
- 10:28Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just we can hear that, definitely hear the
- 10:31Speaker 1: passion in your voice. So let's let's kind of, uh
- 10:38Speaker 1: maybe go a little step further here and you know,
- 10:41Speaker 1: talk about uh, I'll talk about a little more into
- 10:45Speaker 1: what led you into this field.
- 10:46Speaker 2: I know you certainly touched on it.
- 10:49Speaker 1: You know, for me, everybody obviously gets into this field
- 10:53Speaker 1: for different reasons, and it really resonated with me what
- 10:57Speaker 1: you said about you know, there needs to be this passion,
- 11:01Speaker 1: and for me, definitely there was. I mean I've often
- 11:04Speaker 1: talked about my brother who's really inspired me. He came
- 11:08Speaker 1: back from Iraq and the Special Forces with PTSD and
- 11:11Speaker 1: I was I just screwed it up, you know.
- 11:15Speaker 2: I was so excited to.
- 11:17Speaker 1: Find out what his experiences were what he was doing,
- 11:20Speaker 1: and he just did not want to talk about it,
- 11:23Speaker 1: couldn't talk about it.
- 11:24Speaker 2: And I didn't know why, and I just.
- 11:27Speaker 1: Kept pushing him and pushing him. And now obviously I
- 11:30Speaker 1: could understand that. So break it down for us. What
- 11:35Speaker 1: led you into this field?
- 11:37Speaker 3: Well, I don't know, maybe serendipitous circumstances. I graduated undergraduate
- 11:46Speaker 3: in social work University, Ohio University, and then I had
- 11:52Speaker 3: job opportunities back in sixty nine. There were many job
- 11:56Speaker 3: opportunities then, and I gravitated to a work and protective services.
- 12:01Speaker 3: I was a predicted service caseworker in Columbus, Ohio, but
- 12:07Speaker 3: I knew I wanted to do therapy. There was a
- 12:10Speaker 3: kid and there was something driving me to do therapy
- 12:14Speaker 3: and lo and behold. At Case Western University, which is
- 12:18Speaker 3: in northern Ohio, there was a week long program on
- 12:22Speaker 3: family therapy play therapy and I was protect a service
- 12:25Speaker 3: worker caseworker at that time and I was able to
- 12:28Speaker 3: take this training. So I took this training and I
- 12:33Speaker 3: began to do therapy with the kids that I was
- 12:36Speaker 3: working with as a caseworker, and I pulled in some
- 12:41Speaker 3: master levels social workers and psychologists to help me from
- 12:44Speaker 3: the local Metal House center so that I can learn
- 12:48Speaker 3: to do something I knew. I knew I needed to
- 12:52Speaker 3: not just direct people. I wanted to inspire these high
- 12:58Speaker 3: risk families. I wanted to inspire these children to heal.
- 13:02Speaker 3: There was again, there was something in me that was
- 13:04Speaker 3: driving me, and I'm not sure what it was exactly,
- 13:07Speaker 3: but it was there and that led me. Then after
- 13:12Speaker 3: four years at doing casework and protective service work, and
- 13:17Speaker 3: I look back at that and I say, well, I
- 13:20Speaker 3: did my duty for my country.
- 13:23Speaker 1: You know.
- 13:24Speaker 3: I felt like I served in the armed services because
- 13:27Speaker 3: you know, I was hit overhead in court by a
- 13:29Speaker 3: psychotic woman when I had to go in front of
- 13:32Speaker 3: the judge to help commit her, and I was followed
- 13:36Speaker 3: by people. They weren't very friendly toward me in my
- 13:39Speaker 3: position as a protective service worker. So I then, because
- 13:44Speaker 3: of my experience in working with therapy with these kids,
- 13:48Speaker 3: I then got a job at the local mental health
- 13:50Speaker 3: center and then continue to work with children in the
- 13:55Speaker 3: inpatient unit at the Columbus Date Hospital, which was part
- 13:58Speaker 3: of that assignment. I was in the clinic, and then
- 14:03Speaker 3: I went on to get my master's degree from University
- 14:07Speaker 3: of Iowa and my husband son and I relocated then
- 14:11Speaker 3: in Marquette in the Upper Peninsula here and then it
- 14:16Speaker 3: was the natural thing to do then was to work
- 14:18Speaker 3: at the Mental House Center in the child atolescent units.
- 14:20Speaker 3: So you know, this was my many million years of experience.
- 14:24Speaker 3: Prior to graduate school and postgraduate I worked at the
- 14:28Speaker 3: mental health center. My first case was a seven year
- 14:33Speaker 3: old girl, clearly remember what she looked like, a cute
- 14:37Speaker 3: little girl who told me her brother sexually abused her.
- 14:42Speaker 3: This was in nineteen eighty That's when I started to
- 14:45Speaker 3: work at the mental health center. At that time, the
- 14:50Speaker 3: Phil Donna Whoe Show was on and I really liked it.
- 14:53Speaker 3: It's not on now, and so I'm really dating myself
- 14:55Speaker 3: by stating the Phil Donna who Show was on. Then
- 15:00Speaker 3: there was a program on about sexual abusive children, and
- 15:03Speaker 3: they were showing these anatomically correct dolls, and I asked
- 15:07Speaker 3: the clinic to order them, and they agree, and I
- 15:09Speaker 3: began to use them and helping children express what happened
- 15:12Speaker 3: to them. I went to every sort of national conference
- 15:16Speaker 3: available on sexual abusive children, became a specialist in that field.
- 15:20Speaker 3: I did forensic vows and treatment of children who were abused,
- 15:24Speaker 3: and I began to then get more and more referrals
- 15:27Speaker 3: of severely abused children and they were adopted. So I
- 15:34Speaker 3: worked there for twelve years, and during that time I
- 15:37Speaker 3: ran and developed I developed and ran a sexual abuse
- 15:40Speaker 3: treatment team, and I had a well developed treatment protocol.
- 15:45Speaker 3: I was a bit sort of smug in my young years.
- 15:48Speaker 3: I thought, I've got this down. I know how to
- 15:51Speaker 3: treat these kids. In a year and a half, these
- 15:53Speaker 3: kids were recovered. But suddenly I had a kid in
- 15:59Speaker 3: my MIDI in the mid eighties, like five years later
- 16:02Speaker 3: that wasn't recovering. And that was a turning point in
- 16:06Speaker 3: my career. That's when I expanded my understanding of what
- 16:10Speaker 3: dissociation in children look like. And I'll tell you a
- 16:16Speaker 3: little bit about that. How that happened. I had this
- 16:22Speaker 3: little girl who was horribly abused. She was eight years old,
- 16:29Speaker 3: had just been placed in her adoptive home, and wonderful
- 16:37Speaker 3: adopted parents. They both were skilled and working with children,
- 16:42Speaker 3: you know, they were they were you know, had careers
- 16:45Speaker 3: and working with children. This little girl was the oldest
- 16:49Speaker 3: of five siblings. I'll call her Lucy. She was severely
- 16:54Speaker 3: sexually abused by both of her parents and their party friends,
- 16:59Speaker 3: and she was forced to engage in sexualized behaviors with
- 17:02Speaker 3: her younger siblings. She was physically abused, with knife wounds
- 17:07Speaker 3: and cigarette burns, and her frill thin body. She was
- 17:12Speaker 3: the oldest that she tried to look after her siblings
- 17:15Speaker 3: and we go through garbage cans looking for food. They
- 17:18Speaker 3: were all failure to thrive. I think you get the picture.
- 17:22Speaker 3: You know. I could go on, but I don't want
- 17:24Speaker 3: to shock the listeners hearing more and morbid stories about
- 17:27Speaker 3: her life. So again, after about a year and a half,
- 17:32Speaker 3: Lucy came into my office. She'd been seeing me for
- 17:35Speaker 3: a year and a half. She wasn't getting better, which
- 17:38Speaker 3: was a bit surprising. So she wasn't in my office
- 17:42Speaker 3: as if it was the first time, and I was
- 17:46Speaker 3: actually her first time to walk into my office, so
- 17:50Speaker 3: to speak. This little part of Lucy looked around my
- 17:53Speaker 3: office and was asking things like, oh, what's that? And
- 17:57Speaker 3: she was looking at my child on my wall, and
- 18:01Speaker 3: she was looking at some of the toys. Oh what's that?
- 18:05Speaker 3: Now I was stunned. I thought, wow. But let me
- 18:10Speaker 3: backtrack just a little bit to tell you a little
- 18:12Speaker 3: bit more about the journey that led me to really
- 18:17Speaker 3: recognize dissociative children. I was very fortunate. At that mental
- 18:24Speaker 3: house center there was a psychiatrist, doctor lou Kunhoff, never
- 18:28Speaker 3: forget her name, had just given a two hour in
- 18:32Speaker 3: service on multiple personality disorder, and that's what they called
- 18:37Speaker 3: it back then, as you well know, it's now the
- 18:39Speaker 3: sociative identity disorder. I think she had just come back
- 18:43Speaker 3: from the International Conference on the Study of Multiple Personality
- 18:48Speaker 3: and Dissocial Disorders. So I was curious, you know, I
- 18:51Speaker 3: knew that abuse had something to do with MPD. I thought, well,
- 18:56Speaker 3: I think I'll go to this. I doubted if I
- 18:58Speaker 3: would ever see a child with MPD. You know, I
- 19:01Speaker 3: was sort of, you know, a bit naive at that point.
- 19:06Speaker 3: So anyway, I went, and doctor Kunhoff began to describe
- 19:12Speaker 3: symptoms of dissociation, including auditory and visual hallucinations, extreme mood
- 19:19Speaker 3: and behavior switches, and memory problems amnesia. So back to Lucy.
- 19:24Speaker 3: So Lucy's in my office, and I have now some
- 19:29Speaker 3: tools or some understanding of what I think might be
- 19:33Speaker 3: going on, but I was totally dumbfounded and a bit
- 19:37Speaker 3: frightened myself as to what I was going to do.
- 19:40Speaker 3: So I said to Lucy Lucy, do you hear voices
- 19:45Speaker 3: in your head? And she said yes. Well, then I
- 19:50Speaker 3: took a deep breath and I thought, now what do
- 19:53Speaker 3: I do? Oh? Well, I would oftentimes ask her to
- 19:59Speaker 3: drop pictures, So I said, would you like to draw
- 20:02Speaker 3: a picture what that voice looks like? And she said yes,
- 20:05Speaker 3: and she did and she called this little girl Samantha.
- 20:09Speaker 3: And then I panicked. I thought, what am I going
- 20:12Speaker 3: to do next? I don't know what to do next.
- 20:15Speaker 3: This was in the mid eighties. So I called around
- 20:19Speaker 3: and at that point doctor Richard Clough was unable to
- 20:22Speaker 3: assist me. At that point he was in Pennsylvania. But
- 20:26Speaker 3: I was fortunate to find two specialists, doctor Roger McKinley
- 20:30Speaker 3: and his associate Anne Bailey, who practiced in Madison, Wisconsin,
- 20:36Speaker 3: just six hours from Marquette, who worked with adult multiples,
- 20:41Speaker 3: and they agreed to see Lucy and her family. So
- 20:44Speaker 3: we all trapes the six hours from Marquette to Madison
- 20:49Speaker 3: for Lucy to be evaluated. So after two days, parents
- 20:55Speaker 3: and I were sitting on the couch and doctor McKinley
- 20:58Speaker 3: was looking at me from a chair where he was
- 21:01Speaker 3: sitting and announced that Lucy was a multiple and years later,
- 21:07Speaker 3: he would tease me and said the look on my
- 21:10Speaker 3: face was as white as a sheep, and I was
- 21:16Speaker 3: I was like, my goodness, what do I do next?
- 21:19Speaker 3: So he and Anne Bailey graciously provided consultation with me,
- 21:24Speaker 3: and we forged a wonderful working relationship. They knew about
- 21:28Speaker 3: did multiple person I disorder, I knew about child development
- 21:32Speaker 3: and trauma and children, did not know about dissociation that
- 21:36Speaker 3: deeper level. But we combined our skills and from that
- 21:39Speaker 3: point on I began to quote recognize dissociation and children,
- 21:47Speaker 3: and you know, I've become an international trainer and consultant
- 21:50Speaker 3: since then. I say recognized because I look back and
- 21:53Speaker 3: I think there were probably many that I missed, But
- 21:57Speaker 3: that's sort of how things got started with me.
- 22:00Speaker 2: Wow. So what an amazing storyteller you are.
- 22:03Speaker 1: I mean that image of you know, from you starting
- 22:07Speaker 1: out again. You know, you talked about this force that
- 22:10Speaker 1: was driving you to do therapy that you really didn't
- 22:13Speaker 1: know or don't know what it was. And then you know,
- 22:17Speaker 1: through the different kind of levels of your experience ending
- 22:20Speaker 1: up with this young girl, what was there a sense
- 22:26Speaker 1: that this was what you needed to do at that point?
- 22:32Speaker 1: Was it was it because you're you're you know, you've
- 22:36Speaker 1: during this interview, you've kind of made a distinction in
- 22:38Speaker 1: the sense where it seems that the spotlight is more
- 22:41Speaker 1: on the association for you.
- 22:43Speaker 2: Was is that where you've been pulled more? Would you
- 22:45Speaker 2: say yes?
- 22:47Speaker 3: Yes, although you know I do work with children, then
- 22:50Speaker 3: are not associative and I have trauma. But the more
- 22:53Speaker 3: I learn about the neurobiology of trauma, the more I
- 22:57Speaker 3: learn about the degrees of just so that you do
- 23:01Speaker 3: not have to have distinct states that take control of
- 23:04Speaker 3: the body, but you can have aspects of the mind
- 23:07Speaker 3: that hold different different components of the trauma, the feelings,
- 23:13Speaker 3: the emotions, and the behaviors of the traumatic event, the memories,
- 23:17Speaker 3: the physical sensations, the body sensations. The more I realize
- 23:23Speaker 3: about the degree is the trauma, the more I realize
- 23:27Speaker 3: that there usually is some sense of some degree of dissociation.
- 23:31Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be the extreme, you know, where
- 23:33Speaker 3: there are separate personalities that take control of the body.
- 23:37Speaker 3: But I think that we all have, you know, different
- 23:42Speaker 3: aspects of ourselfs. I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm
- 23:47Speaker 3: a therapist, I'm a friend. You know, I'm a gardener.
- 23:52Speaker 3: You know, and we all some different rules. I think
- 23:57Speaker 3: what with dissociation and trauma that is so severe is
- 24:01Speaker 3: that there's not the mind has segmented off these different rules,
- 24:08Speaker 3: different parts of the south to survive and it was
- 24:12Speaker 3: all part of the original traumatic experiences and how they
- 24:20Speaker 3: had to cope with it. And so they have these
- 24:23Speaker 3: segmented parts of the mind that are not connecting with
- 24:26Speaker 3: one another. And I think that the most important work
- 24:31Speaker 3: that we can do is to begin to help the
- 24:34Speaker 3: child again to become conscious of those different feeling states,
- 24:39Speaker 3: of those different behavioral changes that they exhibit, and to
- 24:46Speaker 3: recognize how that is an expression of the unresolved trauma.
- 24:53Speaker 3: And that is part of the integrative process, is to
- 24:57Speaker 3: having the child own up to all that aspects the
- 25:00Speaker 3: different unique nuances within the child. That helps that child
- 25:06Speaker 3: to feel more unified, to feel unified. So I don't know,
- 25:13Speaker 3: I hope I didn't get off track.
- 25:15Speaker 1: No, No, I think I think that's a that's a
- 25:17Speaker 1: really great summary of what's going on. Let's let's move
- 25:22Speaker 1: on here. You know, we've talked a little bit about
- 25:24Speaker 1: your journey into the specialization of the field. Now friend,
- 25:28Speaker 1: let's kind of focus on an early clinical error. Tell
- 25:31Speaker 1: us a story about an early clinical error you made,
- 25:36Speaker 1: and really kind of what you learned from that, how
- 25:39Speaker 1: that maybe has since influenced you as clinician.
- 25:42Speaker 3: Okay, if if you have time, I would I have
- 25:46Speaker 3: two and I could not decide on which one, so
- 25:49Speaker 3: I'll tell both and you can kind of decide how
- 25:53Speaker 3: do you want to go with that. But I've learned
- 25:55Speaker 3: two important things from my mistakes, and I actually I
- 25:59Speaker 3: have to continually remind myself of these mistakes because I
- 26:02Speaker 3: have a tendency to want to rush in and help
- 26:06Speaker 3: these children and rather than slow down, is actually the
- 26:10Speaker 3: faster rate of helping these kids. But one of them
- 26:14Speaker 3: goes back to Lucy, the very first child that I
- 26:17Speaker 3: just described to you, that came in in the eighties
- 26:20Speaker 3: and I didn't know what I was doing really with her,
- 26:23Speaker 3: and I was anxious to help her. She was highly dysregulated,
- 26:28Speaker 3: as you can imagine with her history. She would switch
- 26:31Speaker 3: rapidly from one state to another, particularly at bedtime. She
- 26:36Speaker 3: would become hyper aroused, giddy, angry, raging, crying, sobbing, oh,
- 26:42Speaker 3: within a short period of time. Bedtime was really difficult.
- 26:47Speaker 3: I'm sure it was a huge trigger for her when
- 26:51Speaker 3: a lot of the trauma, the sexual abuse and physco
- 26:53Speaker 3: abuse probably occurred. Her mother was wonderful, tried everything she
- 27:01Speaker 3: could to help calm her down with dresser and the
- 27:05Speaker 3: dead of winter at nighttime with boots and overcoats and
- 27:09Speaker 3: walk her up and down the snowy driveway to get
- 27:12Speaker 3: her to calm down. And she finally fall asleep at nighttime,
- 27:17Speaker 3: and she was so highly sensitized and minor triggers. Just
- 27:23Speaker 3: talking about what happened was set her off. She was
- 27:26Speaker 3: so unable to soothe herself. So what I learned from
- 27:31Speaker 3: MAD is the importance of stabilization with these dissociative children,
- 27:38Speaker 3: and particularly helping them with affect regulation and also regulation
- 27:45Speaker 3: of their behavior. But affect regulation, I think is so critical.
- 27:50Speaker 3: I think the most delitious impact of trauma on children
- 27:55Speaker 3: is the dysregulation of the affect. If they are constantly
- 27:59Speaker 3: in a hyper arouser or numbing, the brain isn't functioning well.
- 28:04Speaker 3: It's not able to think clearly. So I have since
- 28:09Speaker 3: then developed many many strategies to help calm the stress
- 28:14Speaker 3: response system to get the higher part of their brain working.
- 28:19Speaker 3: I've developed some hypnotic techniques with children to help them
- 28:26Speaker 3: safely discharge a lot of their anger. For example, a
- 28:29Speaker 3: lot of these children, of course, have rage, and they
- 28:32Speaker 3: have a lot of self destructive and aggressive tendencies. And
- 28:36Speaker 3: one of the things that I developed that I found
- 28:39Speaker 3: to be extremely extremely helpful, and the kids really seem
- 28:45Speaker 3: to like it and they get it right away, is
- 28:47Speaker 3: they have such an internal life within their mind. They
- 28:52Speaker 3: have a life internally that is so different than the
- 28:57Speaker 3: external life. They create whatever they need to create to
- 29:00Speaker 3: help them survive and to keep going. So it's very
- 29:05Speaker 3: easy without any formal hypnotic inductions. You could suggest to
- 29:10Speaker 3: chonin things and what I what I suggested, And this
- 29:15Speaker 3: started with one little girl. Oh my goodness, was like
- 29:19Speaker 3: five o'clock at night. I had seen this little girl
- 29:22Speaker 3: at various times of her childhood and she was physically
- 29:25Speaker 3: abused by her father and his rights were terminated, and
- 29:29Speaker 3: she started stealing things from the locker room at school.
- 29:34Speaker 3: She was thirteen. She started doing a lot of odd
- 29:37Speaker 3: behaviors and she was referred to me again and I
- 29:42Speaker 3: asked her she heard voices in her head and she said, yes,
- 29:45Speaker 3: I do. It's an inner voice of her biological father,
- 29:49Speaker 3: which was the bad voice. And the internal voice of
- 29:52Speaker 3: her mom, which was the good voice. Anyway, Harry was
- 29:56Speaker 3: sitting in this room, and this bad voice of hers
- 29:59Speaker 3: as she called that, the dad voice, was not at
- 30:02Speaker 3: all going to agree to stop letting her, stop getting
- 30:07Speaker 3: her to steal things. And she was on probation for stealing,
- 30:12Speaker 3: and she wasn't able to go to school at that
- 30:15Speaker 3: point because she had stolen from the locker rooms. So
- 30:18Speaker 3: I'm sitting there and I'm really getting tired. And he
- 30:21Speaker 3: wasn't going to buy this part. Wasn't going to buy anything,
- 30:24Speaker 3: I said, And he didn't want to give her any
- 30:27Speaker 3: control at all. And I was trying to use a
- 30:29Speaker 3: little bit of cognitive therapy with him, you know, and
- 30:33Speaker 3: trying to rationalize with him about, well, this is going
- 30:36Speaker 3: to get her in a lot of trouble, and he
- 30:38Speaker 3: didn't care. And it went on and on, and finally,
- 30:43Speaker 3: I don't know where this idea came from, but finally,
- 30:47Speaker 3: I said, and she was talking for him. She wasn't switching,
- 30:51Speaker 3: but she was talking for him. And it occurred to me,
- 30:55Speaker 3: this guy carries all the anger. And I said, you know,
- 31:00Speaker 3: I think this part of you has done you a favor.
- 31:02Speaker 3: He's really carried a lot of anger for what happened
- 31:07Speaker 3: to you, but every turn he's also taken control over
- 31:11Speaker 3: your behavior. I wonder if he would be willing to
- 31:15Speaker 3: take that anger and express it in a different way.
- 31:22Speaker 3: For example, I wonder if he would be willing to
- 31:25Speaker 3: have an internal anger room where he could have what
- 31:29Speaker 3: he needs, like a punching bag and art supplies and
- 31:33Speaker 3: things like that that would help him get that anger out.
- 31:38Speaker 3: And all of a sudden she let up and he said, yeah,
- 31:41Speaker 3: he's willing to do that. I had such a sense
- 31:44Speaker 3: of relief because I didn't know what I was going
- 31:46Speaker 3: to do. And so he developed this elaborate into a
- 31:51Speaker 3: room and then I said he could have anything in
- 31:55Speaker 3: there he once, and of course he wanted jeck food.
- 31:58Speaker 3: Uh huh, I thought interesting. And he wanted a swimming
- 32:03Speaker 3: pool with a slide. I thought, this is not an
- 32:08Speaker 3: internalized bad guy dad, This is a kid. And this
- 32:12Speaker 3: kid probably took a lot of the physical and emotional
- 32:16Speaker 3: abuse from her father, and he was willing to do
- 32:19Speaker 3: all that. And I said, go ahead and do that,
- 32:22Speaker 3: and he did and she I said how's he doing?
- 32:27Speaker 3: And she said, he's doing fine. He wants to go
- 32:30Speaker 3: there now to get away from all of this. Oh,
- 32:35Speaker 3: I thought that was kind of funny, get away from
- 32:37Speaker 3: having to talk anymore. And it was so interesting. Now
- 32:41Speaker 3: at the end, he thanked me for providing this opportunity
- 32:46Speaker 3: for him, and I asked if he would be willing
- 32:50Speaker 3: to let us know what he was going to work
- 32:53Speaker 3: the anger, What was he going to work on, what
- 32:57Speaker 3: was he going to release regarding the anger? What happened
- 33:00Speaker 3: you take for her? And he said no, I'm just
- 33:04Speaker 3: work it out on my own. He didn't want to
- 33:06Speaker 3: tell her. So really this one was a protector part
- 33:09Speaker 3: of her. So that was such a great, great experience,
- 33:14Speaker 3: and again, I'm just really fortunate that that came to me.
- 33:18Speaker 3: I have no idea. Again, I think it was that
- 33:20Speaker 3: divine intervention that it came to me. But I have
- 33:24Speaker 3: used that technique over and over with the most highly aggressive,
- 33:30Speaker 3: you know, teenagers that were into a lot of serious
- 33:34Speaker 3: behaviors and involved in the court system, and it has
- 33:38Speaker 3: worked with these dissociative kids. I adapted it to also
- 33:44Speaker 3: include a comfort room adjoining the anger room, where they
- 33:51Speaker 3: could go in and relax and have whatever they want
- 33:55Speaker 3: in there for comfort, junk food, you know, they oftentimes
- 33:58Speaker 3: want food, pillow, funny movies, books to read, art supplies,
- 34:04Speaker 3: whatever they want. One young man developed a whole dance
- 34:08Speaker 3: studio because he liked music, and I found that to
- 34:13Speaker 3: be very helpful. And I found that to be rather
- 34:15Speaker 3: integrative because you're combining that rage with calmness and relaxation
- 34:23Speaker 3: and fun. And these parts did not know what I
- 34:27Speaker 3: meant by relaxation and fun. It took them a little
- 34:29Speaker 3: while to kind of get into that. After they worked
- 34:34Speaker 3: on the anger in the anger room, they were willing
- 34:36Speaker 3: to go in and see what this was like. And
- 34:39Speaker 3: that was very integrative because I was helping them blend
- 34:42Speaker 3: their emotional states. So what I learned from this, and
- 34:48Speaker 3: that was the first thing, was that we need to
- 34:51Speaker 3: calm down this stress response system before we can really
- 34:54Speaker 3: begin to do therapy with these kids, not do therapy
- 34:58Speaker 3: before we can process their trauma. They have to calm down,
- 35:02Speaker 3: and they also have to work with the different parts
- 35:04Speaker 3: of themselves in collaboration. But the affect dysregulation was a
- 35:09Speaker 3: real empairment to getting the higher part of the brain working.
- 35:14Speaker 3: So that is the first lesson. Now i'd like to
- 35:16Speaker 3: tell you the second mistake that I made that I
- 35:19Speaker 3: think is very important, if I.
- 35:21Speaker 2: May sure Sure.
- 35:23Speaker 3: The second one has to do with the importance of
- 35:27Speaker 3: attachment figures in a child's life. I have learned that
- 35:33Speaker 3: in order for us to do this kind of work,
- 35:36Speaker 3: these children have to have a secure attachment or at
- 35:40Speaker 3: least someone in their life that is supporting them and
- 35:44Speaker 3: rooting for them that inspires them to face the tough
- 35:49Speaker 3: work that they have to do. So I see the
- 35:53Speaker 3: attachment as providing the anchor for the children to do
- 35:57Speaker 3: this work. It's the anchor keeps them kind of stable.
- 36:02Speaker 3: So I have learned that it's really important to focus
- 36:08Speaker 3: on developing that relationship between the child and the parents,
- 36:13Speaker 3: whether it's biological parents oftentimes they're adoptive or foster parents.
- 36:19Speaker 3: To teach these parents how to be empathic to the child,
- 36:23Speaker 3: to be attuned to what's going on internally with them,
- 36:27Speaker 3: and just not see the behavior as that's the kid
- 36:31Speaker 3: and define the kid by the behavior. So that is
- 36:34Speaker 3: one part of the attachment. But the other part that
- 36:37Speaker 3: I found in working with parents is very important. That
- 36:41Speaker 3: is easy to miss because when you work with dissocial children,
- 36:47Speaker 3: you're so focused on their trauma, their horrendous past, histories
- 36:52Speaker 3: that you don't always recognize what's going on in the
- 36:54Speaker 3: current environment. That also causes them to rely on association.
- 37:00Speaker 3: So I have found that I've made this mistake that
- 37:04Speaker 3: I haven't gotten really good histories on the parents. A
- 37:07Speaker 3: lot of these parents they're good people, but they also
- 37:11Speaker 3: have trauma histories and that they're easily triggered by these children.
- 37:16Speaker 3: These children are extremely provocative, you know, they they're used
- 37:22Speaker 3: to getting negative, negative responses. There are oftentimes have unresolved
- 37:29Speaker 3: grief and loss issues about their own biological parents, and
- 37:34Speaker 3: so they come with a plethora of lots of issues
- 37:39Speaker 3: related in relationships, related to parents, and related to people
- 37:44Speaker 3: that they don't trust. So I remember working with particularly
- 37:51Speaker 3: with these two little kids that were adopted from Eastern Europe.
- 37:57Speaker 3: They resided in the orphanage prior to their Then there
- 38:01Speaker 3: was Sarah and Rudy. Sarah was three years old and
- 38:04Speaker 3: Riddy was eighteen months old at the time they were adopted.
- 38:09Speaker 3: They were like fairal children. They had to be taught
- 38:13Speaker 3: to eat, speak, you know, how do you properly speak?
- 38:17Speaker 3: They were highly hyper aroused and spent a lot of
- 38:20Speaker 3: time spinning around and you know, agitating each other. They
- 38:24Speaker 3: were quite aggressive, particularly Rudy, the younger one, was very aggressive,
- 38:29Speaker 3: and he actually revealed to me that he had an inside,
- 38:32Speaker 3: an invisible team inside that told him to choke his
- 38:36Speaker 3: sister because they thought that they could eat humans, and
- 38:41Speaker 3: they were hungry, and you know, they did not understand
- 38:46Speaker 3: that there was food in the family. They had their
- 38:48Speaker 3: own little misconception about reality, and so they were attacked
- 38:57Speaker 3: the sister and I choked her to be pulled off.
- 39:00Speaker 3: Of course, So and so these kids came with so
- 39:05Speaker 3: much that I did not recognize maybe other things that
- 39:11Speaker 3: also were contributing to Rudy's association. I didn't do an
- 39:16Speaker 3: evaluation of the parent's history because they came in as
- 39:20Speaker 3: a crisis, you know, and I wanted to get in there,
- 39:23Speaker 3: and I wanted to help reduce Rudy's aggression, and the
- 39:27Speaker 3: parents were pretty worn out. So it wasn't until later
- 39:33Speaker 3: that Rudy in a session and we were talking about
- 39:36Speaker 3: things that made him scared. He told me he was
- 39:38Speaker 3: afraid of his mom because she yelled and spanked him
- 39:42Speaker 3: when he was younger. Now, his mother wasn't doing that
- 39:45Speaker 3: when I was seeing Rudy, and Rudy by that time actually,
- 39:48Speaker 3: Rudy was seven when I started to see him, so
- 39:51Speaker 3: she had, like you know, five and a half years
- 39:56Speaker 3: of dealing with Rudy without any help, and so I
- 40:00Speaker 3: did not get a history on her. And I went
- 40:03Speaker 3: and I spoke to her alone and found out that
- 40:05Speaker 3: she had quite a history of exposure to domestic violence.
- 40:11Speaker 3: Her brother was severely being by her father many times,
- 40:14Speaker 3: she herself was hit and verbally abused as well. There
- 40:19Speaker 3: was alcoholism in the family, and so in her heightened stress,
- 40:26Speaker 3: she reverted to what she saw in her family that
- 40:29Speaker 3: was hitting and screaming, and she was very tearful, tearful
- 40:36Speaker 3: when she admitted that to me. She was very tearful,
- 40:38Speaker 3: very sad. So we had many family therapy sessions, including
- 40:43Speaker 3: her husband, and she apologized to Rudy and his sister Sarah.
- 40:51Speaker 3: And that was a real turning point with Rudy, because
- 40:56Speaker 3: while I worked with him on the early trauma of
- 40:58Speaker 3: his being h in the orphanage, being neglected, he still
- 41:04Speaker 3: relied on some dissociation and I think part of that
- 41:08Speaker 3: was that early fear about his mom hurting him, his
- 41:13Speaker 3: adoptive mom, And that was really a turning point for Rudy.
- 41:20Speaker 3: He did not need to use dissociation or think about
- 41:24Speaker 3: using or being afraid of his mother, and she was
- 41:28Speaker 3: employing really appropriate child management techniques with my assistance. So
- 41:34Speaker 3: the word of caution is, while we have these kids
- 41:38Speaker 3: coming in and the parents are in a state of crises,
- 41:41Speaker 3: there oftentimes that families got ready to kick the kid out,
- 41:45Speaker 3: pus in the hospital or somewhere else. We need to
- 41:49Speaker 3: slow down and we need to really get a good
- 41:52Speaker 3: history on the parents as well. Slow approach in the
- 41:56Speaker 3: long run as a faster approach. So those are my
- 41:59Speaker 3: words of it. Wisdom.
- 42:00Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful, I mean, Frand what you're doing here is
- 42:06Speaker 1: not an interview, this is a mini workshop. Really No,
- 42:11Speaker 1: you're just giving us so much incredible information. I just
- 42:15Speaker 1: briefly want to touch upon a couple of things. Really,
- 42:18Speaker 1: like you said, you gave us kind of two You
- 42:20Speaker 1: shared with us two kind of early mistakes. One first
- 42:24Speaker 1: one was with the young girl you referred to before
- 42:27Speaker 1: as loosely and really you know, being cautious not to
- 42:30Speaker 1: rush in. And you're talking about the importance of affect
- 42:34Speaker 1: regulation and stabilization there and what one of the things
- 42:39Speaker 1: that I really want to highlight, and I love what
- 42:42Speaker 1: you did, and what you talked about was where you
- 42:45Speaker 1: expressed this really gentle curiosity in the way you pose
- 42:51Speaker 1: the question of h you know, creating this comfort room
- 42:54Speaker 1: or this anger room, that technique in order to help
- 42:59Speaker 1: these you know, these young kids kind of managed that
- 43:02Speaker 1: arousal that that curiosity right almost being there with with
- 43:07Speaker 1: the client as really an ally, not as opposed to
- 43:11Speaker 1: coming from the perspective of you know, you know what's right,
- 43:15Speaker 1: here's what to do.
- 43:16Speaker 2: And that is such a great perspective. I love that.
- 43:20Speaker 1: And the second thing you shared was you know the
- 43:24Speaker 1: importance of the attachment figure and really taking a careful history. Awesome. Again,
- 43:31Speaker 1: this is just an incredible information. So let's get to
- 43:37Speaker 1: one of my favorite questions. You know, we've talked a
- 43:38Speaker 1: little bit about what got you here, some of the challenges.
- 43:42Speaker 1: I also believe and important that we know why we're
- 43:46Speaker 1: doing this on a day to day basis, what's your why?
- 43:49Speaker 2: Friend? You know, why you've been in this field for
- 43:51Speaker 2: a long time?
- 43:52Speaker 1: Why are you continuing to do this day to day?
- 43:57Speaker 3: You know, your questions are so good that really are
- 44:00Speaker 3: very thought provoking, and I really had to spend a
- 44:04Speaker 3: long time sort of figuring that out. I'm not sure
- 44:06Speaker 3: I get it all figured out. But again, there's something
- 44:10Speaker 3: deep within my gut about helping children. I believe that
- 44:14Speaker 3: if you are helping children, you are changing the world.
- 44:18Speaker 3: That sounds a bit cliche, but I really believe that
- 44:21Speaker 3: there's something very deep within me that drives me to
- 44:23Speaker 3: do this. First of all, I'm very fond of children,
- 44:27Speaker 3: and to help a traumatize child recover I think is
- 44:30Speaker 3: the most gratifying work that I can think of doing.
- 44:33Speaker 3: These children come to me so depleted of spirit. They
- 44:38Speaker 3: have bags under their eyes due to a lack of
- 44:41Speaker 3: sleep and constant nightmares, and the weight of the world
- 44:45Speaker 3: on their small, droopy shoulders. Their minds are really fractured
- 44:50Speaker 3: from their trauma, and they're in a state of confusion.
- 44:54Speaker 3: They don't know where the world begins, where their body
- 44:58Speaker 3: ends and the world begins. Their dissociated mind misses so
- 45:03Speaker 3: much of the world, and they have been oftentime, oftentimes
- 45:09Speaker 3: demoralized by missed diagnoses, by treatment regiments that have been
- 45:17Speaker 3: in effective, including a lot of medications with side effects.
- 45:22Speaker 1: They have.
- 45:24Speaker 3: You know, even their PCSDS is often um recognized, even
- 45:27Speaker 3: though it's maybe fairly recent so as I work with
- 45:32Speaker 3: these kids, They'll say to me. As I begin to
- 45:37Speaker 3: really work on not their behavior, but what's going on
- 45:40Speaker 3: inside of them at the time of the behavior, they'll say,
- 45:44Speaker 3: you're different, you really understand me. One girl very fond
- 45:50Speaker 3: of her as she's an adult with a family now.
- 45:53Speaker 3: We communicate occasionally. She was sixteen years old and she
- 45:57Speaker 3: had the social of identities. She would probably meet the
- 46:03Speaker 3: criteria about every diagnosis in the dism los of chromobility. Well,
- 46:09Speaker 3: she fired me a couple times, but she kept returning
- 46:12Speaker 3: to me. I asked her why, and she said, You're
- 46:17Speaker 3: the only one who knows what's inside of me. And
- 46:22Speaker 3: I think those sort of words that like, I'm resonating something.
- 46:27Speaker 3: I'm resonating with them and they're being understood. I'm seeing
- 46:33Speaker 3: the different parts of themselves and I'm accepting them, and
- 46:36Speaker 3: I'm accepting the parts as a complete whole of them.
- 46:39Speaker 3: It's not that I'm seeing them as different personalities, different,
- 46:43Speaker 3: but I see them as a whole, as a composite
- 46:47Speaker 3: of the whole self. And that gives the most sense
- 46:50Speaker 3: of hope. So to understand them and help them to
- 46:55Speaker 3: tell about their inner world, their trauma, and to see
- 46:59Speaker 3: this relief in them. It's very gratifying. I've seen children
- 47:04Speaker 3: make amazing transitions in their physical appearance of being, Like
- 47:09Speaker 3: I said, don trod and Droopy's shoulders to very upright
- 47:14Speaker 3: posture with a light gate in their eyes, in their walk,
- 47:17Speaker 3: and they go from pale faces with bags under their eyes,
- 47:21Speaker 3: they have very terrible sleep problems to sleeping well with
- 47:26Speaker 3: bright faces with bright eyes, and that is just absolutely
- 47:31Speaker 3: rewarding for me. And they have a chance then to
- 47:37Speaker 3: utilize their potential. These kids are amazing in their abilities.
- 47:42Speaker 3: I'm amazed at they're what they had to do to survive.
- 47:45Speaker 3: And when they can clear their mind, when they can
- 47:47Speaker 3: feel unified, and they can then begin to shine and
- 47:51Speaker 3: do the things that bring them happiness and rewards, that
- 47:57Speaker 3: is just a gift they get gift to me as well,
- 48:02Speaker 3: and I think that really moves me to continue to
- 48:08Speaker 3: continue this work. My sons keep saying, when are you
- 48:10Speaker 3: going to retire? Mom? And I said, to retire? What
- 48:13Speaker 3: are you talking about? So that's what's motivating me over
- 48:17Speaker 3: the years.
- 48:18Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Fran it's just amazing.
- 48:20Speaker 1: I mean I listening to you talk and really honestly
- 48:25Speaker 1: just thinking how lucky this field is to have someone
- 48:29Speaker 1: like you, and how lucky your clients are to have
- 48:31Speaker 1: someone like you because your passion and sincerity and obviously
- 48:35Speaker 1: your knowledge is just amazing.
- 48:38Speaker 2: So welcome. Yeah.
- 48:40Speaker 1: So, you know, many of our listeners just getting into
- 48:43Speaker 1: this field. Some have more experience. You know, again, you've
- 48:46Speaker 1: been doing this for a while. What advice would you
- 48:52Speaker 1: have for those of us, maybe again, who are just
- 48:56Speaker 1: getting into this field, who are scared to get into
- 48:58Speaker 1: this field?
- 49:00Speaker 2: What would you say?
- 49:02Speaker 3: I would say, first, learn all that you can about
- 49:05Speaker 3: trauma and association, go to conferences. Don't give up on
- 49:11Speaker 3: these kids. There's an answer. Their behavior has some meaning.
- 49:15Speaker 3: It's up to us to figure out what the meaning
- 49:17Speaker 3: is to help guide them. So learn all you can,
- 49:21Speaker 3: and then I suggest that they see consultation on a
- 49:25Speaker 3: regular basis with a seasoned specialist in dissociation who can
- 49:29Speaker 3: provide support, education, and guidance to them. It's tough work.
- 49:36Speaker 3: It is very tough work, and you can kind of
- 49:39Speaker 3: get into this work and lose sort of a perspective
- 49:43Speaker 3: and it's hard to get it to figure out what
- 49:46Speaker 3: you're doing because it's so complex. You're treating children on
- 49:50Speaker 3: a child a dissociative child's mind on so many different levels.
- 49:54Speaker 3: So it's good to see consultation on a regular basis,
- 49:58Speaker 3: and then suggest that they engage in caregivers, engage the
- 50:03Speaker 3: caregivers and helping them to help their children. That this
- 50:08Speaker 3: is not just treating the child, as treating the caregivers
- 50:12Speaker 3: as an important component of the treatment of the child
- 50:16Speaker 3: by building that attachment. And then of course taking good
- 50:21Speaker 3: care of oneself and having fun doing things that you
- 50:25Speaker 3: enjoy doing. And that is really important to have that
- 50:29Speaker 3: balance in your life.
- 50:31Speaker 1: So okay, well said, So learn all you can about
- 50:36Speaker 1: trauma's association. You know, you talked about not giving up
- 50:39Speaker 1: on these kids and really about the challenge of this field,
- 50:42Speaker 1: I think, which is so true. Seek regular consultation, you know,
- 50:48Speaker 1: And also I really liked you mentioned, you know, engage
- 50:52Speaker 1: those caregivers for a number of reasons, so that they
- 50:55Speaker 1: can help the kids and also as a kind of
- 50:58Speaker 1: foundation for attachment or self care. Frand what two books
- 51:04Speaker 1: can you share? They don't have to be trauma related,
- 51:06Speaker 1: but things are books that maybe you have had a
- 51:08Speaker 1: major impact on who you are or even the work
- 51:11Speaker 1: you've done.
- 51:12Speaker 3: Well, there are two current books and then there's a
- 51:14Speaker 3: third that hopefully will be mine coming out next year.
- 51:18Speaker 3: But the two current books.
- 51:20Speaker 2: One is.
- 51:22Speaker 3: Sander Whalen has edited a book called Dissociation and Traumatized
- 51:27Speaker 3: Children and ALESNS Theory and Clinical Interventions. Sander and I
- 51:32Speaker 3: were co chairs of the CHAT Adolescent Committee of the
- 51:36Speaker 3: International Society for the Study of Trauma Association and many
- 51:40Speaker 3: of our committee members contributed chapter to this book. This
- 51:44Speaker 3: is a book that describes one case in really deep details,
- 51:50Speaker 3: so a clinician can really see the process of treatment
- 51:54Speaker 3: and recovery. The other book is by Joyce Selberg, and
- 51:58Speaker 3: it's a wonderful book. It's called The Child Survivor, Healing
- 52:03Speaker 3: Developmental Trauma and Dissociation, and she writes like poetry. She's
- 52:10Speaker 3: got an amazing ability to enter into the child's life.
- 52:13Speaker 3: Joy and I have consulted and collaborated and shared a
- 52:17Speaker 3: lot of trainings together, and she's really quite a giant
- 52:21Speaker 3: and a kindred spirit in the field with me. And
- 52:25Speaker 3: then next year I will have a book out called
- 52:29Speaker 3: Healing the Fractured Child, Assessing and Treating dissocial children are
- 52:33Speaker 3: dissocitive youth, I should say.
- 52:36Speaker 2: So, all right, So three books so.
- 52:40Speaker 1: Adrianna Silberg's Child Survivor and then Sandra Wellen's book. Will
- 52:45Speaker 1: have both of those on the show notes page at
- 52:49Speaker 1: West Coast Trauma Project dot com. Hit on the podcast
- 52:53Speaker 1: tab and friends page will come right up. And of
- 52:57Speaker 1: course your book, we're looking forward to that. Do you
- 53:00Speaker 1: have a link for that? Is there or that's just
- 53:03Speaker 1: completely just not out.
- 53:04Speaker 3: Yet not out yet? Yeah, sometime later in twenty fifteen.
- 53:10Speaker 3: It's in the last last stages of the writing.
- 53:13Speaker 1: Awesome, So, Fran, what's the best way to get in
- 53:17Speaker 1: contact with you? If anyone wants to touch base with you?
- 53:19Speaker 3: Well, I have an email Fran Waters USA at gmail
- 53:26Speaker 3: dot com. They can look on my website if they like,
- 53:29Speaker 3: and link with me through my website. That's Waters Counseling
- 53:34Speaker 3: and Training dot com.
- 53:37Speaker 1: Okay, so that's email friend Waters USA at Gmail and
- 53:41Speaker 1: the website again.
- 53:42Speaker 2: We'll have links for that. Fran.
- 53:44Speaker 1: You. I mean, I said it again, really just so inspiring.
- 53:50Speaker 1: I mean, this is why I'm doing this. It's just amazing,
- 53:53Speaker 1: you know. For me, it's so inspiring. I wanted to
- 53:56Speaker 1: help out the clinicians, but I'm just sitting over here going,
- 53:59Speaker 1: oh my gosh. Again, this really was a mini workshop
- 54:04Speaker 1: in trauma and association.
- 54:07Speaker 2: I want to thank you so much for taking the
- 54:09Speaker 2: time to do this.
- 54:10Speaker 3: Thank you guys, it was really a pleasure. I really
- 54:13Speaker 3: thought provoking questions that made me sit and reflect, which
- 54:16Speaker 3: I oftentimes don't do. So thank you so much.
- 54:20Speaker 2: Oh, you're welcome. All right, we will talk soon, Okay.
- 54:22Speaker 3: Thanks you A Bucke