Latest / The Trauma Therapist / From the archives: Jen Warner, LCSW. Holistic Health & Social Advocacy in The Treatment of Trauma

Transcript

From the archives: Jen Warner, LCSW. Holistic Health & Social Advocacy in The Treatment of Trauma · 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, enjoy Welcome to the Trauma Epests podcast,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: who experienced trauma. My name is got macpherson and my
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: mission is to raise the awareness of trauma and to
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: inspire each of us to help those around us. Our guys,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: welcome back to the Trauma Epess podcast.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: I'm very excited to have my guest today, Jen Warner.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Jen, welcome, Thank you all right, glat to be here.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Awesome. So.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Jen Warner is a Washington, Oregon and New York State
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapists with advanced training and
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: certification in trauma informed care and the treatment of trauma,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: as well as holistic health and nutrition. She currently specializes
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in working with individuals living with traumatic stress related to acute,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: chronic and terminal illness and pain conditions, and its committed
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to growing understanding of chronic illness as a trauma and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the need for implementing trauma informed care within organizations that
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: serve this population and their caregivers. A lot awesome, Oh,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: once again welcome share with the listeners before we get
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: go in here where you're from originally, and then where
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: you are currently, and then.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: We'll dive in.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm actually from New York City originally, and I'm
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: now living in Seattle after living in Portland, Oregon for
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: a couple of years. So we're really it's it's really
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: a bit hard because Seattle, of course is ground zero
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: for coronavirus, or it was, and now New York City
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: is dramatically impacted. So definitely in my heart and mind
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: right now.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: How are you? How are you doing personally?
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: Okay, I mean it's interesting having this as my specialty
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: because it's certainly I'm seeing trauma and traumaization on really
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: a global scale, certainly in my practice. I mean, my
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: client and have their own trauma histories, and then all
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: of them are living with some form of UH. The
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: majority of them are living with acute and chronic and
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: of this terminal illness, and so having a pandemic is
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: you can imagine triggering it best and traumatizing worse.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Right right, Well, all right, so let's let's kind of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: start here. You know, I'm just constantly amazed by people
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: like yourself who do this work, who get in How
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: do you get into this work, and that's really what
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: this podcast is about. So let's let's start with that.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: How did you get into this field?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: That's a really great question.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: I was actually a documentary documentary television producer for ten years,
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: and the focal point of my work was I, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: I was really interested in and did a lot of
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: work on documentaries on violent crime. My father was a
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: district attorney in the Bronx for thirty plus years, so
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: that was already sort of in my blood.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: He worked on some really high profile cases.
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: And when I got into that work, making documentaries on
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: that and working for some television networks, I really found
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: that I was most interested in working and hearing the
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: stories of both the families, the survivors, the perpetrators. I mean,
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: I had the opportunity to speak to so many different people.
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: But the problem with media and the problem with television
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: is that there's always an agenda. And I realized that
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: I really wanted to hear the stories, do the work,
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: be with the people, but I didn't want to have
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: to subscribe to the agenda that network TV requires.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: When you say there was always an agenda, what do
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: you mean?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Do you mean that the TVs, for example, always create
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: an agenda or there's an underlying agenda.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: There has to be what do you mean.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: There's a story that needs to be told. We have
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: to keep viewers interested. And so how do we tell
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: a story, even if it's about a high profile crime,
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: that's going to keep people interested. And at the time
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: that I was doing that work, it was in the
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: nineties and the very early two thousands, we had a
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: very very different understanding about trauma. Actually, we were poorly
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: or unbelievably ill informed about trauma, and so that the
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: way that we were telling stories was just not well,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, not trauma informed at all, let's put it
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: that way. And I think that the deciding moment for me,
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, I had a couple of deciding moments about
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: the fact that I knew I wanted to go into
• 4:44
  Speaker 4: social work anyway, but it took me a number of
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: years to finally do that. And you know, I worked
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: on a very very high profile case on domestic violence
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: and with a woman who was well with head and Usbaum.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: I know, that was a high profile case in New
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: York City. It was the first case that really got
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: media attention on white collar domestic violence. And I worked
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: closely with Hetta and closely with her lawyer, and they
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: shared photos and stories.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: With me that they hadn't told anybody else.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: And then we made the show and the network wanted
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: it presented in a certain way, and that was not.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: It was just not a.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: It was not a trauma informed way, and it was
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: not the way that I wanted to tell the story.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: And that happened a couple of times and the show broadcast,
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: and I got this letter from Heada and her lawyer saying,
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: you know, we were really disappointed in how the story
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: was told, and it broke my heart.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: It really broke my heart because I knew they were right.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: They were absolutely right.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: And so I had a couple of situations like that
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: happened over the years working in television.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: And I just decided, this is not for me, This
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: is not how I want to do the work.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: And you know, I am still very closely connected, very
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: close friends. My spouse is still involved in television and media.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: But I just couldn't do it.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: I knew my heart was in something else, and that
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: was actually doing direct service work.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: When you said initially that you know your dad was
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: a DA in the Bronx for thirty years, and you
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: found yourself, you know, kind of into violent crime in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a sense. What was it about that and what was
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: about you that you felt allowed you to do that?
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: Such a great question, and I'm not even sure I
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: have a great answer. I you know, my father was
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: so so committed to the work that he was doing,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: and he never gave us the details, but I could
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: see how much it impacted him, and he really believed
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: in what he was doing, and he believed in the.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: People that he was advocating for.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: And I remember hearing that and seeing that and thanking God.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: I want to do that.
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: I don't want to be a lawyer, but I know
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: that there's got to be something, some way for me
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: to do this. And when I shipped out of television,
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: you know, I had also when I left television in
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: two thousand and five, At the end of two thousand
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: and five, I actually became chronically ill myself. It was
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: about a year of dealing with some pretty serious health issues,
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: and in that time I committed to going into social work,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: and just almost immediately upon launching into social work, I
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: was like, I've arrived. This is really where I belong
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: and I was introduced to, you know, obviously trauma on
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: a large scale. And I you know, during my work,
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: I had some cabulous opportunities to work with some exceptional
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: people in hospice and also the Coalition for the Homeless
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: in New York City.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: And soon after, I.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: You know, after graduation, I said, you know, I want
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: to work with survivors of violent crime. That's that's where
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: I want to work. And that's actually how I started working.
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: Had the opportunity to work an incredible clinic in New
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: York City and learned from truly the best of the
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: best on trauma informed care and committed myself.
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: To doing that.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: And you know, so that's how I found myself there.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: But what's what's the calling? What's the need of it?
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: I don't, I mean, I think you you either you
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: either have a passion for you you don't. You know,
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: it's it is the hardest, hardest work I've ever done.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: But I've never felt more like I belong in something
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: than I do in that.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: So I think I first learned about you on Twitter.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Oh and you have a presence there, and you have
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a really strong presence there in the sense that you know,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I was I was becoming.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Aware of your your your work.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: There if you will, and you can tell that you
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: feel passionately about helping individuals, and that is what drew me.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: To you in a sense.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So you get into social work, you have this great experience.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: How do things evolve such that you're doing this work on.
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: This sal h Well, you know again, I had right
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: before starting social work school, I had been diagnosed with
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: some chronic health conditions, some one of the couple which
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: were quite serious, and so I was having to manage
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: my own health and be in this in this world.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: And so working I worked with Safe Horizon and the
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: Safe Horison Counseling Center in New York City, and that's
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: where I really learned how.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: To do the work.
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: But you know, the the evolution of that, the clients
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: I had the tremendous privilege of working with, I mean, god,
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: it was funny because it was during that time that
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: I realized how much trauma impacts the body, impacts health
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: and wellness, and and in working with the clients there,
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: I became acutely aware of my own body, my own health,
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: what was happening in my own body, and also what
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: was happening for them too. And so that you know,
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: as we talk more. I mean, that's how I it
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: later evolved into the work that I am currently doing.
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: But you know, after working with safe Rise and or
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: while working at safe Ries and I also started working.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: I was the crime victim social worker at Lincoln Hospital
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: in the Bronx, which was the largest public hospital in
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: New York City. So it was myself and an incredible
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: supervisor and we were doing the crime victim work.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: So we worked for the Office of Victim.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: Services, and uh well my supervisor was also one of
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: the hospital social workers there. But you know, I have
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: to say, I mean, and you can tell me how
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: many specifics you want, but I mean, it was just
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: my head is full of stories, you know. I mean,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: I I am a storyteller by a heart and by nature.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: But I mean it's almost like where to begin. The
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: people that I met, the things that I saw, the
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: experiences that I had in that work, and it just
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: grew the passion because what I learned more than anything
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: was you have to listen. You really have to actively listen.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: You need to shut your mouth and listen to what
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: people have to say and also be with them in
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: their embodied experience and that means being attuned to all
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: sorts of cues, not just what they say, but also
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: what's happening for their bodies, in their body language, how
• 11:38
  Speaker 4: they're communicating things to you. I mean again, I can
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: tell you plenty of stories, but.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, let's you know, I mean not to sensationalize this,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: but this is what this is about. So if you
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: would share a story that you know you would would
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: maybe illustrate what it means to what what do you
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: mean by saying to listen more than what they have
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: to say, and to you know, watch people's bodies and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: so forth.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I think the story that comes to
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: mind is it was when I was working in the
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Bronx at Lincoln, I was sent up there. I used
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: to have to go downstairs at the emergency room or
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: up to the various medical floors to the ICU anywhere
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: there was a crime victim, and you know, I'd be
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: sent I'd get the call and I'd be like, okay, Jen,
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: you know you got to go up there and see
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: what's going on, you know, And here I am. I'm
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: a nice middle aged white lady. I mean, I look
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: the way that I do.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: Right, And I and I you know, I'm very aware
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: And I walk in this room and it's a young
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: African American man and the nurses as I was walking
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: and they'd said, you know, this guy's been here for
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: six months, and I said, I've only gotten the call now,
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: and they were like, well, he didn't want services, and
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: you know, he's really aggressive and he throws things at
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: us and he doesn't want to talk to anybod good luck,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: good luck. And there was all this signage all over
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: his door and a police officer sitting standing outside the door,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and it was just like, man, this is not this
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: is not how we do, you know? And so I
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: walk in and I introduced myself and he I mean,
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: I probably can't curse i'm here, but he told me
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: where to go, you know what I mean where.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: He was like, get out of here, just you know,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: what are you doing here?
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: And you know, I could tell that he was curious
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: that I was there, and I didn't shirk.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I said, I absolutely hear you.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: If you'd like me to leave, I will, but I
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: just want the opportunity to talk to you, and also,
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: you know, you know, maybe help you get what you're
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: entitled to as a crime victim, you know what I mean.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: And so he actually he let me in and he
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: allowed me to pull up a chair, and he told
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: me some stuff and then he's like, okay, I want
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: you to go now, and so you know, I said absolutely,
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: I left, and I said, you know, here's my number,
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: call me if you need me again.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: And he ended up calling me and I would go
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: up to it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: I was the only when he allowed in the room.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, nurses and doctors like he didn't
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: want to deal with them, but he allowed me into
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: the room. He allowed me into the space, and mostly
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: I got to listen and I had the privilege of
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: listening and hearing his story. And you know, as when
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: I first arrived, his arms were crossed and he you know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: pushed his tray away from me. And then the more
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: we visited and when he actually was eventually discharged, it
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: took quite a long time because he was he had
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: experienced some horrible violence. And when he was finally discharged,
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: he would come see me in my office and we
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: developed a rapport and he actually he went from crossed
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: arms and leaning back to sitting forward and telling me
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: to pull a chair up a little bit closer and
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: showing me things that he had made and drawings that
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: he had made, and we visited and you know, he
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: was he had some other health issues as well, and
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: I got to meet his mom.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: He brought mom to meet me one day.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: To me, these are just like, it's just like if
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: my heart feels like it's going to blow up, you know.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So let me ask you something. How much experience
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: had you had when you met that guy? All right, guys,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: just quickly, I want to thank Centro Motor Psychotherapy Institute
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: for being a sponsor on this podcast. Do you struggle
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to help numb, disconnected clients who can't feel emotion or
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: explore inner experience? Learn a comprehensive approach to conceptualize your
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: client's concerns. You know, as someone who's gone through the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Level one and Level two trainings of Censor Motor Psychotherapy training,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I can really speak to the power of this training
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: for me, it was a game changer and is so inspiring.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: CenTra Motive Psychotherapy uniquely includes the body and therapy as
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: both a source of information and a target for intervention.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Because words are not enough, go beyond theories and gain
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: practical ways to open a new dimension for effective therapy.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Visit Centro Motor Psychotherapy Institute online today at sensorymotor dot org.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: That's sensorymotor dot org.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: At that point, I had had probably about four five
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: years of experience.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you had some some stuff on your belt,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: but it's just interesting. So when you in your words
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: what happened there, why do you think those people and
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I'm asking this for the benefit for our listeners here,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: why do you think that, uh, you know, you had
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that experience with that man, whereas the nurses or those
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: other women were like, oh, oh, you know those things.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: She doesn't want to listen to da da.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: What was it that you did or didn't do, or
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: the way you held yourself that allowed you to get in.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: Respect number one? Respect deference and recognizing that again, you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: I think the experience of trauma and somebody has lived
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: through a single trauma or multiple traumas, they have seen
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: a side of existence that, if you're lucky, you will
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: never have to see. And I think, and knowing his story,
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: knowing a bit about his story, knowing what he had
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: lived through, I was really in great awe of his
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: ability to survive. Things had been horrible, truly horrible for
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: him since he was born.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: How old was he when you met him?
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: I think he was about twenty five, About twenty five,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: he had experienced numerous gunshot wounds up until that point.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: At this point, at twenty five, he experienced one of
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: the abdomen that had been paralyzed him from the waist down.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: So his entire life was about to change, and you know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: it was going so knowing that he had lived through
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: so much. Again, you know, I recognized. I think it's
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: the ability to recognize that one is in awe of
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: people who survive, how they survived the fact that you
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: can experience horrible things and still be here. You know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: even drugs and alcohol and all of these things that
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: we've pathologized as like you know that always a drug
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: add actor is an alcoholic or whatever.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: People will use a number of things to just survive.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: And the ability to do that is one that I
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: am in absolute awe of. And so going in there
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: recognizing my own privilege as somebody who could walk around
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: because he was not going to be able to walk again, right,
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: but also recognizing that he was a true survivor and
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: giving him that due you know, you know, and just
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: shutting up and listening. So I wasn't putting myself in
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: a position that PHAs like, oh, here, I am the
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: hospital social worker. I'm here to bring you things and
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: tell you how it is now. I'm here because you're
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: allowing me to be here. I am here to assist
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: you if you need assistance, if you want assistance, but
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: I'm also mostly here to hear your story and bear
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: witness to that. And I think that that's something that
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: is that is maybe the foundation of being trauma informed,
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: if you want to use the fancy term, But it's
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: really about human connection, and it's about having respect for
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: anybody around you and for what they've survived. Because you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: in that case, I knew what he had survived. You know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: I had the privilege of looking at his charge. I
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: had the privilege of hearing, and he allowed me to
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: hear a story. But we walk around and we encounter people,
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: we have no.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Idea what they've lived through.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: So I think that you know, again, as a former
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: television producer and storyteller, you know, my nature is to
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: listen to other people's stories. But everybody has a story,
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: and I think to be truly trauma informed again a
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: very overused word. You have to listen, and you have
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: to and it's not just using your ears, it's using
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: your eyes, it's using all five of your senses and
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: being open and receptive to that.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: When you were first starting out as a social worker,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: was that your perspective? Was that your stance? Did you
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: come in as open like that or was was it
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: a little different?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Was it?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm the social worker, and you know I
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: have just been through school and I learned these things,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and I'm here to help you and fix you and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: heal you and change you.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: Uh, No, I mean I think I I you know,
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: I have two parents who taught me well when I
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: grew up in a neighborhood and had friends who taught
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: me well about about listening and showing respect to people.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: That it doesn't really matter what you're uh, you know
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: what your job is. You know, everybody deserves respect and
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: everybody deserves that kind of attention. I think in terms
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: of like thinking I'm bigger than or better than.
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I think you know.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: One thing that you had mentioned in your in your
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: questions was about a clinical error. And I think that
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: one thing that early early social workers or anybody early
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: in the work. Many of us go into this work
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: because we want to help so badly and we want
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: to rescue so badly. And you know, I certainly have
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: my own history, and I certainly have maybe started in
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: the work wanting.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: To to help.
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: I put that in quotes because it's also wanting to rescue.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: I want to get in there and I want to
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: help everybody and save everybody, and overstepping perhaps, you know,
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: and not seeing people's strengths or hearing people's strengths, or
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: allowing them to demonstrate their strength, and that I am
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: not the rescuer. I am not the great hero of
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: the story.
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: They are.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: But you know, I do think I went into it
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: with some good good a good foundation. But I also
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: went into it with my own personal history, which means
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: that I while I didn't go in there thinking I
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: was all powerful and all, you know, I'm the social
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: worker and listen to me, I did go in there,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: I think, initially, very early in the work, thinking I'm the.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Helper and the savior. I'm supposed to save you and
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: rescue you.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: And so it's it's a slight semantic difference, you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: you know, so it was less about the power of
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: it though, and more about the idea of like well though,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: maybe that is power.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: That's probably the Yeah.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Anyway, let me just remind everyone that I'm speaking with
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Jen Warner.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Uh, she's at jenwarnerhealth dot com. That's j E n
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: w A R n e R health dot com.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Actually the website's changed. It's Jen Wellness.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Dot com, Jen Wellness dot com. All right, sorry about that.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I'll have that looked up at the show notes page
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: at the Trauma Tapers podcast dot com.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: So what are you doing now? What? What the heck
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: are you doing?
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: It's a very good question.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Thank you for well, you know, we Uh.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: When I left New York City, I left I had.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: A private practice, but I was also still the crime
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: Victim social worker at Lincoln and I left that. We
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: moved to Portland, Oregon, where I opened a private practice
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: and I was also teaching at the Graduate Social Work
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: School at Portland State on abuse in trauma. And then
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: we moved to Seattle. My spouse took a job in Seattle,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: and so I have a private practice here now, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: my focus has evolved into working with people who are
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: living again, largely with acute and chronic and terminal illness,
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: many of whom also have complex trauma history.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Constellation. I mean, that's it doesn't get more intense than that.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: It's intense.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, it is intense, but it's beautiful work because again,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, there's so much overlap trauma, really deeply,
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: and so much incredible writing reflects this, how much trauma
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: affects the body. And so many of the folks that
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: I see come to me with unbelievable chronic health conditions,
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: you know, and in addition to that, they also have
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: trauma in their background, childhood trauma and maybe some experiences
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: of interpersonal violence.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: But the way that you know, this.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Is a slight shift from what we've been talking about,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: but the way that illness, particularly chronic illness, particularly chronic
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: illness that requires watchful waiting.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Again, I'm going to put that in quotes, watchful waiting,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: which is.
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: A nice medical term that doctors use, or you know,
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: diagnoses with unusual names, the things that people haven't heard
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: of that require almost marathon ultra marathon or strength to
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: deal with on a daily basis, because there's no cure
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: for it, there's no real there's no great treatment for it,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: and so the folks that are living with these conditions
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: must live in constant awareness of something changing in their bodies,
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: or they're living with chronic pain, or they're living with
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: things that are just disruptive enough. You know, postural orthystatic
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: tachy cardio syndromes commonly known as POTS is something that
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: affects your entire autonomic nervous system. So you're always you're
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: at the mercy of your autonomic nervous system. Most people
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: never think of their autonomic nervous system. That's blood pressure
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: and heart rate, pupil dilation, sweating, digestion. The point of
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: an autonomic nervous system is it does its own thing right.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: It's supposed to just keep things in balance.
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: People who are living with POTS or any kind of
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: autonomic failure do not have that regulation. So passing out
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: is a big part, you know, standing up and passing
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: out is a big part of the problem.
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: More, you know, thoroughly disrupted digestion. And so, I mean,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: that's a small one's honest, but it's it's disruptive.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: And I think that a lot of people living with
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: these illnesses are deeply, deeply misunderstood, and it's so much
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: of my work you know, it's balancing their experience of
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: this kind of constant retraumatization of or dealing with the
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: triggers that their body is presenting to them on a
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: daily basis. And we think about trauma treatment, we think
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: about finding safety in the body and finding safety in
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: your own skin and coming home to your body. But
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: when your body doesn't feel safe, how do you do
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: that right?
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: So it's a great puzzle, but it's one that I
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: feel pretty privileged to be able to do.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So as we kind of wind down here, you've had
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: you know, you've been you've been teaching this work.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: What do you say?
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: What would you say to the therapists out there, the
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: newer therapists out there who are just maybe becoming trauma
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: informed if you will, what do you what would you
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: say to them or how would you guide them?
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: For people who are want.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: To do this work maybe don't have the confidence or
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: scared that they're going to, you know, we traumatize someone
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: else or get triggered themselves.
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: That's a that's a great question, and I'd say that
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: you know, listen, actively listen and remember that you're talking
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: to another human being, you know, and ask questions first,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: before you want to deliver tools and give help again
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: and give all this stuff, ask somebody what they need
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: and maybe they don't exactly know what they need, but
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: then it's it's checking in with them and asking them
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: about what their strengths are, what are they good at,
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: really taking yourself out of this us and them role and.
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Relating to people as people, you know, but we all are.
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: And I think that there's you know, right now, in
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: the midst of a pandemic and we're experiencing social distancing
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: and we're not able to connect with people. I think
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: a lot of folks are recognizing how important human connection is.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: So many ways to connect and first and foremost, you know,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: is asking somebody, how are you, how are you?
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: How is your body? How are you feeling today? You know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: how are you doing?
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: And that's I think, if if nothing else, it's it's that,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: It's it's a it's it's humbling yourself before other people's
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: humanity is is it's a gift. So not don't be scared,
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: you know, be human. They are they're being human at
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: the same time.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: So what would you recommend in terms of a go
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to book, whether trauma related or not or.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, uh, trauma, uh, trauma and
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: recovery is uh is a great it's probably the primer,
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: and then trauma on the body. Pat Ogden's Trauma on
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: the body is one of one of my all time favorites.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: So those two definitely awesome.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: We'll have those linked up, all right, Jen. So what's
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: the best way for people to get in contact with you?
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: H Well, it's my website, which is Jenwellness dot com
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: and then email.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, awesome.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Well, it's it's been a pleasure and it's been a while.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: You've been on my radar for a long time, and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: it's been awesome to have you on here.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and thank you for the wonderful work you're doing.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Guys.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: It's really it's tremendous. Your show is great. I love it.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Great Take care, Thank you so much. Okay,