Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Trauma, Somatics and Transference with Dr. Eric Wolterstorff

Transcript

Trauma, Somatics and Transference with Dr. Eric Wolterstorff · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two, and one. All right, folks,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: my guest today, Dr. Eric Waltersdorf. Eric, welcome.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Good to be here, Guy.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: All right. Dr. Waltersdorf is a psychotherapist and developer. of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the Trauma Integration Protocol, with more than three decades of
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: experience studying trauma recovery, memory systems, and group response to threat.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: He began training with Peter Levine in 1993 and has
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: also studied with Pat Ogden, Max Schupach, and Arnold Mindell,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: later earning a doctorate focused on group traumatology. Erk created
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the Foundations and Transference TIP trainings and specializes in cultural
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: psychosocial development, group trauma, and the Collaborative Capacity of Societies
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Responding to Long-Term Threats. He's founder and leader of Sovereign
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Teen First, working internationally across Europe, Asia, the Middle East,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and Africa. Eric, welcome. Before we get going, share with
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: our listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, well, I grew up in El Paso, Texas. Yeah,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: and now I'm living in Boulder, Colorado.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So let's start. How does all this start for you?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Take us back.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I had a midlife crisis or early mid–
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: or whatever. I had one of those crises in my 30s.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Some crisis. That's right.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I'm doing a lot of personal growth. I'm studying rolfing.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: And my rolfing teacher for that particular training was Peter
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Melchior at the Guild for Instructional Integration. And Peter says–
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I think that you should meet with Peter Levine. And
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I was like, yes, sir. So I went off. I
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: knew nothing. No background in psychology, no background in psychotherapy,
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: no thought of it, no ambition for it.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: What were you doing for work at this time?
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: I had been, I got a liberal arts degree and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: I was teaching music, composing music, writing music. And then
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I said, I need a change in my life. And
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I was getting rolfed at the time. And, uh, Wayne,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: my rolfer at the time said, and I said, what
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: should I do? I said, my rolfer lying on the table.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: And he said, let me see your hand. And he
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: picks up my hand and he said, I think you'd
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: be a good rolfer. And I was just so lost
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: at this turning point in my life. I said, well,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: that sounds good. So then I started to train to
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: be accepted into the rolfing school. And, uh, So I'm
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: living on savings at this point. And so I'm training
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: as a rolfer. And that's when my teacher, Peter Melchior,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: suggests that I see Peter Levine. Okay. Wow.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: So you go see Peter Levine. What happens?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's so much fun. My first session, I love
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: telling the story. My first session with Peter is I
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: just get access to things that I wasn't aware of
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: in my psyche. And it's amazing to me. I'm like, wow,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: a door has opened into a new world. And so
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: at the end of the session, I say.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: To him– Wait, wait, wait, wait, Eric. You're going way
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: too fast.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Detail.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I need detail.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: What happens?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: What is he doing?
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it was very– Peter's specialty– he works
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: with many more things, but his specialty is single-event shock
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: traumas and specifically how to access– dissociative traumatic states that
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: tend not to present, right? So his beauty is in
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: finding what's not there and then creating the condition. So
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: these little tiny nibbles grow up into and kind of
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: emerge from the psyche. So he was doing that with
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: me and I ended up having so many sessions with him.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I can't pull it apart in this session, but he
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: had me do something as simple as, aha, do you
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: feel that movement in your neck?
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Well, before it happens, why don't you just sort of
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: pay attention to what happens before it moves and see
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: if you could just not move it. And then I,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: and then, and then I'm flooded with anxiety. Um, a
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: branch cracked outside and I thought it was a gunshot.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: I was in such an altered state. And, um, so anyways,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: it was, it was, you know, it was, it was a,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: it was a nice juicy, um, somatic experiencing session from
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the master of the masters of that. Right.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: So you worked for him for.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: Well, you're right. I was hooked. So, um, so he
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: became my therapist and my teacher and my supervisor for
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: the next three years.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Um, and that, that, sort of led me also into
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: then studying Hikomi body work with Pat Ogden, right? Me,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: which is sensory motor psychotherapy now. And then I got
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: more interested in group dynamics and transference. And that took
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: me to Arnie Mandel and Max Schupbach's world work. Arnie
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: was the developer of process work. We lost Arnie last year. And,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: and then that I'm, I got more and more excited
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: about these group dynamics, but in cultures and, That led
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: me to getting my PhD. One of the people I
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: committed was Jim Grigsby at Works of Memory Systems. I'm
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: working with group transference and how things are transferred across generations,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: mass traumas. The key with that that affected psychotherapy was
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: just transference, transference, transference, and how we when we can
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: be triggered in 50 different ways and according to the trigger,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: our mind just pulls up a set of screens from
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: the past and that's how we begin to interpret the present.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Okay. I want to get there, but just taking a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: step back, when you were working with Peter in those
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: different kind of capacities, at what point did you say,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and how did this come about that you said, This
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: is what I want to do. This is what I
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: want to study.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Well, to go back to my little story there the
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: first time, at the end of the session, I'm sitting
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: there with Peter. He offers me a glass of water.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And he says, do you have any questions? And I said,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: this is amazing. How does this work? And he opens
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: his mouth to answer. And I said, don't. Stop. I'm
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: afraid it's magic. And if you tell me, it won't
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: happen again. And he laughed and he said, it's repeatable.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: It's not a problem. And so I just wanted to
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: learn more. And so then I became one of 16
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: people in the last 30 years to read his dissertation.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And I guess the last 50 years now, it's a
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: bit of a slog. And yeah, went to classes with him,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: did trades, got sessions from him, from people he had trained,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: became a real protege.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: What Talk to us a little about, I mean, I'm
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: assuming there was some rough patches with your personal exploration
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: as things unfolded for you.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I came in with, I came into
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: the field with a lot of interest and excitement. And Yeah, sure.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: When I impact my history more and more, I had,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: it's kind of boring, but I had a lot of
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: high-speed accidents. I had a tonsillectomy when I was early,
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: when I was six. And my mind, it kind of
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: created a trauma structure around that. I was a bit
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: in the oldest child, a bit in the caretaker role.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: So I would take that anxiety plus kind of compulsions
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: to help and That created kind of a particular mix
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: for me. And when I began to realize, it's funny
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: because this is the main kind of theme of this transference,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: countertransference training that this, our next one starts in October.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: My daughter was just a year old at the time.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: And I'm beginning to realize all of these kind of
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: compulsions inside myself. And then what I thought was, I
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: want to see if I can open faster than I
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: shut my daughter down. And I was such a caretaker
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: that I couldn't say, oh, I need this, right? I
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: was like, but I'll do this work for my daughter.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: And I was two or three years into the work
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: before enough of those confrontations kind of opened up. And
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I was like, wow, I could really use some help
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: from me. But the whole time, I knew that my
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: compulsions were affecting all of my relationships, and that really
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: troubled me. So that's probably my entrance into the idea
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: of countertransference, that yes, my clients are going to come
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: in with their transferences, but whatever I bring, I'm affecting
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: every single session with, with every client, and I have
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: more power in the relationships. So arguably the best way
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I could help my clients is by working on what
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: drives my countertransference.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Okay. So I was going to ask, what was the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: impetus for this interest in transference? And remind our audience
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: what transference is. What is countertransference?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: So... So transference, projection, projective identification, there's a whole class
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: of terms that are related to this single phenomenon, which
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: is that, you know, we don't actually see the person
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: in front of us. We don't see the situation in
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: front of us. There's too much data. Our brain couldn't
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: process it. What we do is we take some cues
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: and we bring up an approximation from our past. And
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: then we say, this is my best guess. And so
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: we Take a guess. I say something or I stand
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: in a way or I do something based on my
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: best guess. And then I see how you or the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: environment responds. And then I adjust my thinking and adjust
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: and adjust. And gradually we move toward rapport and we
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: get to know each other as individuals over time. But
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: it begins with, you know, I see you initially and
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I see your glasses and I think, oh, who are
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: the people in my life? And then I guess kind
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: of at their personality, at their vibe. And I'm like, okay,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: I'm going to interact with Gaius. If he has that
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: personality and vibe, I don't know enough about you to
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: know that. But I run with that as a first guess.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: So that's my projection. And we're doing it in little
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: ways like this all the time. And it's just how
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: we first meet people as we get to know them.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: It's normal. But when we've had a lot of trauma
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: or we've had sort of a mismatched childhood that doesn't
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: match where we are, maybe we're from a different culture,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: maybe we've had a lot of trauma, or maybe the
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: life circumstances have changed and we've moved from one place
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to another, there could be any number of reasons. But
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: our projections don't match. And of course, in the case
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: of long-term relational trauma is where we get the greatest
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: distortions around. And then I start to look at you
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: and then are you a person who's safe or a
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: person who's dangerous or can I even tell the difference?
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: And then relating becomes very complicated. Trust becomes complicated. Boundaries
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: become difficult. And relationship becomes much more of a struggle
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: rather than something that we can relax into and take
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: pleasure into and explore the world.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So you're interesting. Interest, is it fair to say, is
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the interaction between the transference and counter-transference and what happens
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: because of that. Now, what you described is a template,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a paradigm. Is it safe to say that different people
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: from different experiences, maybe with different levels of vulnerability and authenticity...
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: experience this differently or operate differently. Oh, yes. In other words, yeah.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Very much so. I'm thinking in your introduction when you
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: say who we are is more important than what we know. Well,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: I think we need both. I think we need good
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: tools and the field is growing and we're gaining tools.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: But I couldn't agree more that it's of prime importance
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: when working with relationship and transference and countertransference who we are.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: And that's kind of what I mean by the term
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: permission space. What do we allow in an interaction? What
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: subjects are off limits? Which ones will I just kind
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: of ignore, steer you away from? Which ones do I
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: want to draw you into? Which ones do I add
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: intensity or some emotional tone to? So I'm completely shaping
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: you all the time, and you're shaping me the whole time.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: And to go back to your thing, when the client
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: does it, we call it transference. When the therapist does it,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: we call it countertransference. That's it. It's the same thing.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So you were– talk to us about this– what is this,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a course, a training? What's it called?
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's called hip transference training. We start with five
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: days in person. And then there's five months where we
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: have two hour meetings every couple of weeks by Zoom
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: to support people and doing trades and getting, you know,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: case modality consultation and practice with each other over the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: next half year. And really in the training, there's three
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: things we do in the training. We've got some, I
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: think they're really fun, exercises that can reveal to us
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: our counter transference. And so we do these exercises where
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: we're working with somebody, but then we say, what if
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: this thing comes up? And then we notice how the
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: therapist is triggered. And they could be triggered by relational dynamics,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: by a particular theme or subject, by a person's kind
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: of attachment style, whatever it is. And we notice how
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: do we react to that? Do we have space where
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: we're calm and we can flow with that? Or if
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: you start acting one way, do I automatically start acting
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: another way that's coming from my unconscious? And I don't
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: even know it. And we're always doing that. It's not
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: like we're going to get rid of it. But if
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: we learn the boundaries of our permission space, then we
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: sort of know what the boundaries of competence are for
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: our unconscious.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Say that again. Divine permission space again.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, so permission space is when we're interacting, what subjects,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: what things can be explored, what emotions, what movements, what
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: can happen in our relationship as we're working together?
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: So you're talking from the therapist's perspective?
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: So, okay, let's pretend I'm the therapist and you're the
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: client and you've got six things you would like to
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: kind of work on and they're connected to other things.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: You've got senses of other things and you start to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: bring those subjects up and you'll name five or 10
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: things when we're sort of doing an exploratory kind of
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: first conversations and I'll respond to some of those and
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I just kind of won't respond to other ones and
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: I'll be drawn to other ones. And that is kind of,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: and to the extent that I have unconscious preferences around that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: It is just setting the bounds of what we can do.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: May I give you a very dramatic example of this?
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, please. This is it. Yeah. Love it.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: A wonderful thing started to happen in the 1980s in
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the United States. We had this explosion of people talking
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: about domestic violence and child abuse, right? It wasn't We
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: don't talk about that, which is kind of what it
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: was up until the 70s. Or we're going to work
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: with it as, you know, metaphor or dreams or, you know,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: it's like, no, no, we've got this problem. And so
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: there was an embrace of look at all of these
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: victims who haven't been seen.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Look at all these survivors who haven't been seen. And
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: how do we empower those people and how can we
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: help them as therapists? And so there we go. which
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: is great, and it's been a wonderful thing for the
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: last 30, 40 years, where we've, I would say, sort
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: of increased the permission space, right, as a field where
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden actual domestic violence, actual child abuse
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: is right more broadly in the society. Things like this are, yes,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: we can, there is space for us to work with
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: this now in the field, right? But in doing that,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: we threw away the lessons that we had learned in
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: 40 years of family therapy, which is that in systems,
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: you've got bystanders and perpetrators as well as victims and saviors.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: And so we're saying we're going to work with two
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: of the four, and we're going to lock those other
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: two roles out of the door. We're going to make
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: this a safe space. My therapy space is for it
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: to help for caretakers and to help you to be
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: strong and for victims to help the victims to heal
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: and become strong and fluid. But we're going to block
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: out the bad. But of course, when we have traumatic memories,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: we don't simply remember the victim or the victim and
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: the perpetrator, I mean, the victim and the savior role.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: We're using empathy at the time of the trauma to
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: try to imagine what is the perpetrator thinking or feeling
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: right now? Because if I knew that, I could predict
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: their behavior. I could figure out maybe what to do.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Why are these other people or this other person not helping?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: So what's happening? So we've got Johnny who's 10 years
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: old and he's in the kitchen and it's a repeated
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: scene and his father's drunk and his father's beating him.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So what is he doing? It's not just that he's
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: being a victim and that's the memory. He is trying
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: to imagine what his father is thinking. What is his
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: father thinking? Why is his father doing this? Because if
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: he knew this, maybe he could interrupt his father's behavior.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: He could just say or do the right thing. He
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: knows mom is in the house. Why isn't mom coming
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: in the room and stopping this? And he's trying to imagine.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: So he's using this theory of mind, this empathetic capacity.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: And it can be completely wrong. It could be that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: his mom has her headphones in, which she always does,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: and she doesn't hear. Or it could be that his
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: mom is standing outside the door, just gnashing her teeth
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: and wanting to go in, but doesn't dare because she's afraid.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Who knows what it is? He's going to imagine something.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: He's going to imagine something. So his imagined inner states
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: of the perpetrator and of the bystander exist as part
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: of his memory. So we remember the scene of the crime.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: We don't remember our role. We remember the scene. So
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: if we're doing therapy and the Savior is allowed and
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: the victim's allowed, and we're going to work with that
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: all the time, we've opened up this place in the psyche.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: We're doing all this healing. But we've got two roles
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: of the bystander and perpetrator, and they're not allowed in therapy.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: And so our unconscious goes out and looks for it now.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: So think about how many times in our life, it's
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: all through our field, somebody has a better and better
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: relationship with their therapist and they become ever more dissatisfied
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: with their spouse. Well, it's because in the permission space
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: of therapy, there's no room for the bystander. There's no,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: the person who does nothing, there's no room for the perpetrator,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: the person who's making the assault. And so the person's
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: unconscious goes out and they try to recruit people. Like
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: they've got people on a play. I need somebody to
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: play this. And who's number one on the list? Your spouse.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Could be your kids, your parents, could be a sibling,
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: could be a friend, could be somebody at work. You know, spouse,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: romantic partner usually gets the role though. And now this
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: person's having a split experience. therapy comes better and better
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: and their whole life gets worse and worse. Yeah, this
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: should be horrifying. Yeah, it's... Pat Ogden said a wonderful
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: thing to me when I was training with her. And
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: she said, you don't judge the effectiveness of therapy by
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: what happens in the session. You judge it by how
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: the person's life changes outside of the sessions. Yeah, that's right.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: So what does that mean for our permission space? If
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: our permission space means I'm good with saviors and victims,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: but not the bad stuff, that's not necessarily bad unless
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: we pretend it's a full permission space. If we just say,
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: you know, in my therapy, I work with victims, I
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: help them get strong so they can become caretakers themselves,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: and I send them out into the world. It's really
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: important to work with the bystanders and the perpetrators, but
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I don't do that. Well, that's great. Nothing the matter
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: with that. But to pretend that the permission space is full,
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: includes the whole event when it doesn't, is really putting
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: the unconscious of the client where there's ever more and
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: more pressure on them to heal the whole piece. But
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: they've got to find the bystanders and perpetrators outside. The
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: other thing to do, of course, is get comfortable holding
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: the bystander role and the perpetrator role as a therapist
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: and to learn how to work with negative transference. Can
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: we hold a container that is connected and co-regulating and
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: safe in which the I as the therapist can be
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: the perpetrator? I can be the bystander and I can
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: accept those projections on me while staying in relationship and
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: giving them space for the client to begin to integrate
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: those parts of their own psyche, which if they don't
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: have a lot of support and a lot of permission,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: they're not going to want to do it. I mean,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: like why? It's bad enough this happened to me, and
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: now I have to integrate this role, the perpetrator that's
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: stuck inside my psyche. I feel like I'm being violated again. Well,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: but it's there. So to actually be free of it
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: is to integrate it.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: So we've got this permission space. And is it fair
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to say that the capacity, the fluidity, the strength of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the permission space is determined by the therapist's level of awareness, development, authenticity, vulnerability,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: willingness to learn? the degree to which they've done the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: inner work.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: So how was, to what degree, so you're working in
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: this course, this program, how does that, how do you
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: address that?
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Great. So there are very particular, very particular exercises. One
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: is we want to make sure that people have strong
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: mindfulness skills. Not mindfulness while they're sitting by themselves in
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: a Vipassana or a Zen retreat. But when they're in
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: active relationship with somebody and being triggered, are they tracking
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: what's happening right now to my body, my emotions, what
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: thoughts are arising, how do I feel? Can we run
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: all that? It's like a lava lamp that's bubbling up
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: inside of us. Can I stay in relationship with you
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: while tracking what's bubbling up in my lava lamp? So mindfulness,
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: that particular application of mindfulness. Then there's co-regulation, which is
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: much more than resourcing. We allow our nervous systems to connect.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Can we go into a dance? And is my dance fluid?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: If I'm a therapist and I always have to be
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: the calming presence, what if the client needs to have
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: the experience of their excited and sympathetic activation and what
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: they kind of need to learn from their childhood is
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: how to drag me out of a calm state or
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: how to drag me to use the polyvagal language. Maybe
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: there was parents who were just kind of really just
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: sort of in dorsal vagal and traumatized or collapsed. And
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: this child grew up just trying to be excited and
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: their parents were just kind of flat. Then can the
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: therapist allow themselves to go into a dorsal vagal place
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: within this larger container while coaching and encouraging the client
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: in dragging the therapist up into a sympathetic activation, for example.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: So there's co-regulation. The next one is to take these
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: very basic family roles from family therapy around caretaker-identified patient
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: and distancer and outcast and set up exercises where some stresses,
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: the person stressed, how do you respond to stress? I
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: was raised as a caretaker. When there's stress, I move
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: toward the stress like a moth to the flame. My
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: robot wants to go straight to the stress to help.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: Identified patients will say, there's stress. Yeah, I have stress too.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: Let's do a stress dance, right? The distancer's like, I
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: think we need some ice. I'm running to the grocery store, right?
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: And the perpetrator's like, you people are pissing me off.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: You want to be stressed? I'll give you stressed. The
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: outcast will, right? So what is our response to this?
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: And when we And this tends to not be dramatic,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: but it's pervasive and low level. If I always need
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: to be the caretaker in working with my clients, then
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: I always need to be one up. And that's creating
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: a dynamic with the client where they can't take care
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: of me or they can't be free of my caretaking, right?
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: So it's subtle, but very powerful. A much more obvious
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: one is if I haven't worked through my relational traumas
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: then I could just be triggered by things, right? My
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: psyche is filled with hot spots and cold spots. It's like,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: you know, boy, we don't deal with surgeries. Oh yeah,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: we focus on assaults. And so does that match what
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: the client wants or needs? So we're shaping what's happening.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: So there's exercises around this. There's exercises around becoming more
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: fluid with the family roles. There's how, and it doesn't
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: matter if you come in and you do, you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: whatever form of exposure therapy you want, there's lots of
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: good ones. And whatever kind of work you're doing, it's
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: going to add something to be able to work with
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: the transference dimension of it. Because that shows up regardless
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: of the kind of work that we do. I'm going
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: to pause because I kind of I kind of got
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: lost in my own thought.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, Eric, this sounds really fascinating to me and
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: not only fascinating and amazing, but so necessary in the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: work of the therapist. When you started just doing an
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: aside here, sidebar, when this became interesting to you or
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: fascinating to you, What started to come up? for you
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: did you find yourself needing to do more x y
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: or z i'm curious about that.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Sure i guess i guess maybe the two main themes
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: that came up um Besides working, well, three things. The
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: first thing is when I began to understand this more,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: I had to go back to my whole trauma history
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: where I had been the victim. And then I went
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: through the entire trauma history again and looked for ones
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: in which I played the role of the Savior. Then
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I went through and did a whole other trauma history
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: of when I was the bystander and I didn't do anything.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: Those were really unpleasant. And then I went through and
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I had to begin this with a colleague who was
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: very good with this, with Raven Welves, who works out
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: in Hawaii, does very good work. And we agreed that
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: we would work with ways that we had been perpetrators
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: because there felt like there was so little permission space
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: in the field. Who can I even talk about this
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: with before I'm going to be seen as like a
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: bad person? And so Raven and I created a permission
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: space between the two of us where we could share
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: when we were the perpetrator, and find a way to
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: connect with another human being and then begin to integrate those.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: So one process is I, I had to go through
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: the other post-traumatic roles. So that was, that was very
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: big for me. That was the first thing. The second thing, um,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: was again, this, this compulsive, uh, low level, whenever stressed
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: going into the caretaker role. Um, I wouldn't want to
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: feel my own anxiety with somebody else, so I would
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: disconnect from it. And I had to learn how to
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: feel my own anxiety and how can I use that
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: in the service of the client, as well as in
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: my life, of course. I had to learn how to
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: distance when anxiety or distress was coming up. I had
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: to learn how to move away from that without kind
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: of being overwhelmed with both guilt and a feeling of
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: loss of control. I had to make friends with the
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: part of myself that would want to attack, would want
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: to hurt a client or another person. And I had,
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: you know, okay, there is this part in me and
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I need to get comfortable with this so I could
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: be fluid with those. That was a big part of
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the work. The other part of the work that began
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: with the work with Arnie Medell in the late 90s
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and with Mox was, The world work was working with
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: social issues. And so, you know, we would do all
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: of these group processes. And here I am, you know, tall, white, heterosexual, male,
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: educated and confident. And it was just like I was
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: a lightning rod in these processes. And you! So I
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: had to learn both. I had to learn to to
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: kind of say, you know, we're all born the way
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: that we're born. What do we do with how we're born?
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: And I know I'm in a movement in society that
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: began very strongly in the 80s and led into the 90s.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It hasn't stopped now in which, you know, white males
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: are a cancer on the human race. And I was
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: in such a place with that after I sort of
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: entered into that feminist literature in the late 80s. And
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: by the time And I was just kind of, well,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I can do with myself. I
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: guess I'll just kind of try to face myself and
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: be of service. And then I started doing this work
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: with Mox and Ernie around earned and unearned privileges. And
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: We tend to be very, very sophisticated and sensitive around
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: our earned privileges. If we didn't have money and we
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: built a company and we made money, we tend to
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: be really kind of sophisticated around money and what it
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: means not to have and what it means to have it.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: But if we were just raised with money, there's a
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: giant gap. blank spot of wait, wait, there's a, there's
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: a basic anxiety or a drive or a drive to
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: work there that, that has to be dealt with people
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: by who are on the labor side of the equation
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: who were, you know, middle-class or lower middle-class or poor. Um,
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: and so, so the, the unearned privilege. So I'm stepping
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: in these places and I'm saying, well, what, what have
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: I earned? Um, Because it's very easy to project on
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: me for the things that were unearned. So the challenge
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: is to come to terms with and appreciate and own
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: and love the parts of us that are unearned privilege
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: and then put them to use for other people. So
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: this was years of work. And again, primarily through the
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: process work and the world work to say, you know,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: like Pai Pai, I am who I am. And what
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: am I going to do with this? What is the
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: vector of my life, not the starting point? So that
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: came out of the transference-countertransference. It fed into that because
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: I could have such naivete as a therapist with my
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: countertransference because I would presume that everybody across from me
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: had the same privileges as myself. And boy, was that
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: a problem, right? So that's a different way that the
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: countertransference would show up.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, Eric, who would
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you say this course is for, this program is for?
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: Well, it's at the intersection of trauma, somatic work, and
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: transference coming out of the psychoanalytic, psychodynamic tradition. So it's
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: really for people who are, as practitioners, who do one
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: or two of those things, and they're curious about the third.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe they're a somatic therapist who does a lot of
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: work with trauma, and they're really curious about transference. But
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: maybe they're coming out of the psychoanalytic field, and they
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: want somebody who has a bridge to that and who
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: understands that, and they want to learn more about working
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: with the body and trauma. So it's really where those
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: three interact. And it doesn't matter if you've worked with trauma, again,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: which of the many different competing– modalities there are right now,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: because we're in a time of variation and experimentation. But
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: there's a real gap around the transference work if you're
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: not in the psychodynamic, psychoanalytic positions.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree. I mean, when you started talking
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: and shared what you wanted to share on this podcast,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: I It was very intriguing to me and exciting to
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: me because not only do I think this topic isn't
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: talked about that much, just as you said, but it
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: just feels to me to be the work and the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: excitement of the therapeutic process.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm really excited about that. sincerely, I'm really
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: excited about this topic and looking forward to, uh, getting
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: this out there. So how do people learn more about
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: you and this program?
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Go to trauma integration protocol. That's a lot of letters.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: That's why we call it tip trauma integration protocol.com. And,
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: and we're building a community and we offer trainings in, uh,
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: both a way to work with, uh, single event traumas.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: And I've got a book there that has protocols. But
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: then the tip transference training, and there's a description of
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: that training. And we've also, of course, got a YouTube channel.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: And if you have any questions or anything, we've got
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: email addresses on there. Just reach out. I'd be happy
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: to have a conversation with anybody, a series of conversations.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Okay. We'll have all that linked up here at the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: show notes page at the traumatherapistpodcast.com. Eric, awesome. Love it.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Really love to have you back because I really appreciate
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: and love what you're doing. Thank you for being here.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Guy.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: All right. Take care.