Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Healing Trauma From the Roots Up with Rachel Aarons, PhD

Transcript

Healing Trauma From the Roots Up with Rachel Aarons, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gan macpherson.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go
0:11
Speaker 1: five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back
0:16
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm very excited to have with my
0:18
Speaker 1: guest today, Doctor Rachel Erins.
0:20
Speaker 2: Rachel welcome, Thank you, glad to be here.
0:23
Speaker 1: Awesome. So, Doctor Rachel Erinds has over forty years of
0:27
Speaker 1: experience as a psychotherapist. Initially trained as a philosopher, she
0:31
Speaker 1: serves as an associate professor at the University of Toronto
0:34
Speaker 1: before transitioning to therapy and earning her master's in Social work.
0:38
Speaker 1: Doctor Aaron's initially specialized in hypnotherapy and bekape. A certified
0:42
Speaker 1: emtr therapists in two thousand and four, her current focus
0:46
Speaker 1: is in the Early Trauma Protocol, the groundbreaking approach to
0:49
Speaker 1: addressing early attachment injuries that shape emotional and relational patterns
0:54
Speaker 1: throughout life. Her mission is now to train therapists, heal clients,
0:58
Speaker 1: and educate the public on how only childhood experiences impact
1:02
Speaker 1: lifelong challenges. Rachel welcome, So, before we get go in
1:06
Speaker 1: here share with the listeners where you're from originally and
1:10
Speaker 1: where you are currently.
1:12
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a Canadian and I was originally from the
1:16
Speaker 2: East Coast, which is Toronto. I moved across country to
1:22
Speaker 2: live in Vancouver for many years, and then I moved
1:27
Speaker 2: from Canada down to California and I practice and live
1:32
Speaker 2: in Santa Barbara right now?
1:34
Speaker 1: Oh nice? So okay, forty years that is no joke,
1:41
Speaker 1: tell me. I mean that is you know, to pull
1:46
Speaker 1: up my glasses for this one. The breadth and scope
1:54
Speaker 1: of experience you must have and do have in this
1:59
Speaker 1: field is amazing. So let's get into this here. How
2:05
Speaker 1: you're welcomed. I'm going to take you back. What was
2:08
Speaker 1: the impetus? What was the inspiration for you to get
2:10
Speaker 1: into this field?
2:11
Speaker 2: Rachel Well, I was a philosophy professor, as you mentioned,
2:16
Speaker 2: and at that time, analytic philosophy was really power popular,
2:20
Speaker 2: but I was not. And I when I could do
2:23
Speaker 2: the work, but it wasn't what I was interested in.
2:25
Speaker 2: And so I did what we're called the fuzzy courses metaphysics,
2:30
Speaker 2: history of modern philosophy, and literature humanist we did. We
2:36
Speaker 2: did a humanity Humanity's course. I did the first one anyway,
2:40
Speaker 2: and I was getting students, I almost said clients. I
2:45
Speaker 2: was getting students coming to me with emotional problems. And
2:50
Speaker 2: I was like, uh uh, I actually don't know what
2:53
Speaker 2: to say to you and your little green men. So
2:57
Speaker 2: I went to a therapist who I had known and said,
3:01
Speaker 2: I don't think I belong in this field, but I
3:03
Speaker 2: don't know what else I would ever do. And he said, well,
3:08
Speaker 2: I think you'd be a good therapist. Have you thought
3:10
Speaker 2: about that?
3:10
Speaker 1: And I said no, wait wit so hold on. So
3:13
Speaker 1: you were you were a professor in philosophy and you
3:17
Speaker 1: went to it that Why did you go to a.
3:19
Speaker 2: Therapist because he knew me and I wanted to get
3:22
Speaker 2: some advice. I was going to give up a ten
3:26
Speaker 2: year track position, which is a sign of insanity and professionals,
3:32
Speaker 2: and I didn't know what other what else I could
3:35
Speaker 2: possibly do?
3:36
Speaker 1: Wow? Interesting, But you were But you were that that
3:40
Speaker 1: one of those people to whom others would come. Well,
3:44
Speaker 1: you were a teacher, of course, you had a position
3:46
Speaker 1: of authorities. People were nevertheless, people were kids were coming
3:50
Speaker 1: to you to share what was going on.
3:52
Speaker 2: Well, at that time, asking about the meaning of life
3:55
Speaker 2: was considered by analytic philosophers kind of foolish. But I
4:00
Speaker 2: didn't think that at all. I thought that was the
4:03
Speaker 2: reason why people studied philosophy to begin with. So I
4:07
Speaker 2: guess I attracted people who were more interested in those
4:11
Speaker 2: in depth questions.
4:14
Speaker 1: All right, So you go to this professor, this therapist,
4:18
Speaker 1: and see.
4:18
Speaker 2: Said have you ever thought about being a therapist? And
4:22
Speaker 2: I said no? And he said, well, I think you'd
4:27
Speaker 2: be a good one, and I'm willing to train you.
4:30
Speaker 2: I mean, what, what an amazing opportunity. I have had
4:34
Speaker 2: the opportunity to thank him, because once I went down
4:37
Speaker 2: that route, I never looked back.
4:40
Speaker 1: So, okay, what does that mean? Train you? How does it?
4:46
Speaker 2: An intern? He was the coordinator of a family therapy
4:51
Speaker 2: institute in Canada, and I became an intern and worked
4:55
Speaker 2: with him and his associate and learned about how to
4:59
Speaker 2: do therapy through him, and then moved on and got
5:04
Speaker 2: more training as well. But he was the starting point
5:07
Speaker 2: for all of that.
5:08
Speaker 1: Wow. Now I'm assuming he had a particular background or
5:14
Speaker 1: bent or specialization within therapy. What was that his You mean?
5:20
Speaker 2: Yes, he was a family therapist, so he worked basically
5:24
Speaker 2: with individuals, couples, and families in it was a small
5:30
Speaker 2: town in Canada, so he got people from the community
5:35
Speaker 2: in all different shapes and sciences. And when I moved on,
5:41
Speaker 2: I decided I needed to have some kind of license
5:46
Speaker 2: to do this work. So I applied first to be
5:51
Speaker 2: an MSW and they offered that I could do it
5:56
Speaker 2: if I would spend extra an extra year because I
5:59
Speaker 2: had all this education that they didn't approve of. In
6:04
Speaker 2: the end, I did get into the MSW program, and
6:07
Speaker 2: I could have taught some of those courses, but it
6:11
Speaker 2: was it was the it was the most short term
6:15
Speaker 2: way I could become licensed.
6:18
Speaker 1: So when you were studying with that that gentleman, what
6:22
Speaker 1: was his name, Mario Mario. When you were studying with Mario,
6:26
Speaker 1: what specifically, what did that look like? Did he have
6:30
Speaker 1: you sit when he was seeing clients? Were you in
6:32
Speaker 1: the room with him?
6:32
Speaker 2: Yes. At the beginning, I was there as a silent witness,
6:36
Speaker 2: learning about and then we would discuss what he was
6:41
Speaker 2: doing and why and what my viewpoint and perspective was.
6:45
Speaker 2: And then I would sit on an in on sessions
6:48
Speaker 2: with his coordinator who was also a therapist doing therapy,
6:53
Speaker 2: and eventually they let me do some on my own
6:56
Speaker 2: and then they would watch, and you know, it just progressed.
6:59
Speaker 1: From there, right, which sounds I mean you were thrown in, right,
7:04
Speaker 1: like you learning how to swim, you throw someone in
7:07
Speaker 1: the pool. But what what was that like for you
7:10
Speaker 1: to sit in and to watch that? Was he an
7:15
Speaker 1: incredible therapist?
7:16
Speaker 2: Yes?
7:17
Speaker 1: So he was. What did you why to you? What
7:21
Speaker 1: were you noticing? What were you feeling in those moments?
7:25
Speaker 2: I guess I saw in action what it was to
7:28
Speaker 2: be truly empathic and be able to feel into people's
7:34
Speaker 2: problems and their issues, but also hold a perspective of
7:40
Speaker 2: distance that allowed you to see where they were stuck.
7:43
Speaker 2: And I suppose that that idea of stuckness is something
7:48
Speaker 2: that I have that has followed me, and I sometimes
7:52
Speaker 2: call myself as an e MDR Therapist, a therapist that
7:56
Speaker 2: helps people where they're stuck. So my conclusion on that
8:03
Speaker 2: was that the way that therapy needed to work was
8:06
Speaker 2: not so much doing conscious mind stuff, but getting to
8:11
Speaker 2: the level of the unconscious. That's where I thought the
8:15
Speaker 2: important work would be done.
8:18
Speaker 1: So how did you pursue that?
8:20
Speaker 2: Well, the first piece of training I got was as
8:26
Speaker 2: a hypnotherapist, because hypnosis is a way of getting access
8:31
Speaker 2: to the unconscious mind, and so I apprenticed as a
8:35
Speaker 2: hypnotherapist and learned how to do that. And I also
8:40
Speaker 2: did gestalt therapy training, which is all about being aware
8:45
Speaker 2: and in touch with feelings. So they were not It
8:49
Speaker 2: was as anti intellectual as a therapy I could find,
8:54
Speaker 2: and so my being a philosopher was not considered a help,
8:58
Speaker 2: it was an impediment. And so I did those both.
9:03
Speaker 2: I did hypnosis and I did training, and I did
9:06
Speaker 2: restault training, and it really helped me develop my approach
9:11
Speaker 2: to therapy.
9:12
Speaker 1: You said the gestat was about being in touch with
9:16
Speaker 1: the feelings. Can you just give us a snapshot of
9:19
Speaker 1: what that would look like when you worked with a client,
9:21
Speaker 1: what it might look like.
9:25
Speaker 2: Well, I did a three year training program and we
9:29
Speaker 2: worked on our own issues the idea, and I still
9:35
Speaker 2: have a very strong bent towards that. My practicum training
9:39
Speaker 2: for the Early Trauma Protocol, the work I'm doing now
9:42
Speaker 2: allows therapists to delve into their own histories and look
9:47
Speaker 2: at their own problems in early childhood. And my belief
9:51
Speaker 2: is that if you have that experiential background, you're going
9:55
Speaker 2: to be more available as a therapist and more helpful
10:01
Speaker 2: it's an important piece of how I work.
10:05
Speaker 1: So okay, I want to get to that, but I
10:07
Speaker 1: want to go back again. So here, how might what
10:09
Speaker 1: would that look like? If you were working within the
10:12
Speaker 1: framework of gestalt therapy with a client you said it
10:16
Speaker 1: was about feeling in getting in touch with the feelings
10:20
Speaker 1: in the moment, what would that look like?
10:21
Speaker 2: What you're doing is what used to be called hot seat,
10:26
Speaker 2: which is you're working with a person who has limited
10:31
Speaker 2: awareness of what is going on with them. And also
10:36
Speaker 2: one of the other aspects is there's usually a polarity.
10:39
Speaker 2: There's a part of them, as we say, that wants
10:42
Speaker 2: this but doesn't maybe another part that doesn't, and so
10:47
Speaker 2: they're working through that conflict out loud with you as
10:55
Speaker 2: the emotions that are pulling them in one direction or
10:58
Speaker 2: the other. That's often the case. So I really want
11:02
Speaker 2: to get out of this marriage, but I really don't
11:04
Speaker 2: want to leave my husband. Sounds contradictory, and it is,
11:08
Speaker 2: but that's how people are. They have views on both sides,
11:14
Speaker 2: and that incongruity helps them figure out where they stand emotionally.
11:21
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
11:22
Speaker 1: It does? It does? What you said kind of after
11:28
Speaker 1: explaining that you were talking about the need almost for
11:35
Speaker 1: therapists to have that experiential exploration is incredible to me.
11:42
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that really inspires me. And
11:45
Speaker 1: I would even argue that it's one of the things
11:50
Speaker 1: that is lacking in therapy today. How profoundly necessary that is.
12:01
Speaker 1: I mean, do your own work is a common adage
12:05
Speaker 1: that we hear, and it's simple, but it's not easy, right.
12:12
Speaker 1: I mean, people who get into this field they want
12:15
Speaker 1: to help and they want to fix and they want
12:17
Speaker 1: to cure the person sitting in front of them. But
12:21
Speaker 1: when it's you, well you're talking to you, You're asking
12:24
Speaker 1: me to look at my own stuff. Whoa hang on?
12:28
Speaker 1: So how do you? How do you do that? How
12:31
Speaker 1: does this program we're talking about here, the Early Trauma Protocol, now,
12:37
Speaker 1: is this something that you invented?
12:41
Speaker 2: To start with? I became interested in the very earliest
12:46
Speaker 2: years of life, which what I mean by that is
12:48
Speaker 2: from conception to age four, which is an area that
12:52
Speaker 2: has not really been accessible because there is no language
12:57
Speaker 2: and there's no explicit memory during these years. So would
13:00
Speaker 2: you know what's going on? That was the challenge. But
13:06
Speaker 2: I studied with someone who has done this work in
13:09
Speaker 2: her own way, and I did a four day intensive
13:14
Speaker 2: as a client her oldest client, and learned about her
13:20
Speaker 2: approach and started utilizing it. And with all due respect
13:24
Speaker 2: to what I've learned from that person, I became more
13:29
Speaker 2: and more inclined to depart and develop my own approach.
13:34
Speaker 2: And that has some overlap, but not that much in
13:38
Speaker 2: fact with where I started. And it's because of what
13:43
Speaker 2: happened for me in my therapy with her and what
13:46
Speaker 2: was happening for my clients that I began to recognize
13:50
Speaker 2: the need to diverge and make the approach different. So
13:55
Speaker 2: it is now mine, and I will I give her
14:00
Speaker 2: credit for the initial inspiration. I'm doing my own work
14:04
Speaker 2: now and that's what I am motivated to do as
14:08
Speaker 2: training because I'm concerned that I wish I had had
14:12
Speaker 2: this understanding many years ago, ten twenty years ago, and
14:18
Speaker 2: then I could have get had the opportunity to train
14:22
Speaker 2: a lot of therapists across the country and beyond. But
14:27
Speaker 2: my time is limited and I want to make sure
14:29
Speaker 2: I get as many trained people as possible because I
14:32
Speaker 2: think it's really important for clients and others as well.
14:38
Speaker 1: So there are not correct me if I'm wrong, but
14:40
Speaker 1: there are specializations or studies or modalities that do focus
14:47
Speaker 1: on like zero to five, but you're talking about conception
14:50
Speaker 1: to four, so a little different. Let's talk about this.
15:00
Speaker 1: How do you do it? How do you do it?
15:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Well, the answer is that although there's no
15:14
Speaker 2: explicit memory, that is pictures that we associate with memory,
15:19
Speaker 2: I remember that I was on the you know, I
15:21
Speaker 2: was here, I saw my mommy and whatever it was,
15:24
Speaker 2: and there's no language. So we have to find the
15:28
Speaker 2: way that these memories are held, and that is in
15:32
Speaker 2: the body. They are, as Bessel Vandergilt says, the body
15:37
Speaker 2: keeps the score. So there will be as we go
15:42
Speaker 2: through the I'm talking about the actual processing of different
15:46
Speaker 2: time segments consecutively, there will be moments that arise with
15:51
Speaker 2: negative sensations in the body that are indicative of implicit
15:56
Speaker 2: memories and implicit meaning they're unconscious. And as we work
16:02
Speaker 2: with those timeframes, we are looking at the difference between
16:08
Speaker 2: what happened for them as babies and even before birth
16:13
Speaker 2: with their bio parents, that is, the biological parents they had,
16:18
Speaker 2: and how that failed to meet their needs. And as
16:23
Speaker 2: soon as we identify what went wrong, we immediately make
16:28
Speaker 2: a repair and hopefully you're going to ask me how
16:30
Speaker 2: do we do that?
16:33
Speaker 1: So okay, So are we are we talking about trauma solely?
16:43
Speaker 1: I mean, are we talking about someone comes to you
16:45
Speaker 1: and or not? Are we talking about a client comes
16:49
Speaker 1: to you and they're experiencing depression or anxiety?
16:53
Speaker 2: But okay, at the top of the hierarchy, if you
16:57
Speaker 2: can visualize an image our all the problems of adults
17:01
Speaker 2: going from soup to nuts, so all the DSM disorders,
17:07
Speaker 2: all the acting out behaviors like people who are chopaholics,
17:12
Speaker 2: or gun violent or domestic violent perpetrators, people who are
17:17
Speaker 2: in jail people. I mean, the whole gamut of adult problems.
17:22
Speaker 2: And what we have learned in current therapeutic milieu is
17:29
Speaker 2: that the commonality in those diverse different types of problems
17:35
Speaker 2: in adults, the commonality as you dig down is trauma.
17:41
Speaker 2: So that is the newest perspective that we have in
17:44
Speaker 2: trauma therapy. What I do is I take it one
17:48
Speaker 2: step further and I ask about what is the source
17:53
Speaker 2: of what is the underlying foundation of trauma itself? And
17:58
Speaker 2: the answer I come up with is attachment disorders and
18:03
Speaker 2: specifically insecure attachment in the relationship between parents and children.
18:11
Speaker 2: And this is an epidemic, if you will. It's a
18:15
Speaker 2: cycle of intergenerational trauma because parents very often treat their
18:22
Speaker 2: children just the way they were treated because they don't
18:25
Speaker 2: know any better. And so what we have is that
18:29
Speaker 2: cycle of repetition where their children then could potentially treat
18:37
Speaker 2: their offspring the same way. And that's the source that
18:41
Speaker 2: you see popping up in adult problems later in life.
18:47
Speaker 2: They start in that basis, in that environment, that foundation
18:54
Speaker 2: or what I call healing trauma from the roots up.
18:58
Speaker 2: And that's what we're working with, is what went wrong
19:03
Speaker 2: in the relationship between parent and child from the get go.
19:08
Speaker 1: All right, let me, I'm gonna put you on the
19:09
Speaker 1: spot here a little bit. Let's I want to I
19:12
Speaker 1: want to dial in and ask you to give us
19:17
Speaker 1: a little case study. How do you work? For example,
19:20
Speaker 1: a client comes to you, maybe pick someone obviously we
19:24
Speaker 1: don't need a name, but what does it look like?
19:27
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have a client who was in an
19:37
Speaker 2: situation of a marriage for twenty seven years where she
19:41
Speaker 2: was beaten daily and she would put herself in the
19:45
Speaker 2: way if that husband of hers went after her kids.
19:49
Speaker 2: So she got beaten in on a regular basis and
19:55
Speaker 2: didn't feel that it was possible for her at that
19:59
Speaker 2: time time to get out of the marriage because she
20:03
Speaker 2: was afraid she could not afford to pay for her children,
20:07
Speaker 2: and this ex husband, fortunately now would threaten her that
20:13
Speaker 2: he would never pay assent for their kids and he
20:18
Speaker 2: would even leave the state if need be. So she
20:21
Speaker 2: felt stuck. There's that word again. And when we explore
20:27
Speaker 2: why she would put up with something like that, we
20:31
Speaker 2: discover that she was actually physically, emotionally and sexually abused
20:40
Speaker 2: as a young child. She was beaten by her father,
20:45
Speaker 2: and it became her expectation that that's how things would be,
20:50
Speaker 2: and that on some level, most surviv survivors of trauma
20:56
Speaker 2: believe that it was their fault, that there was something
21:00
Speaker 2: wrong with them from the beginning, and that is that's
21:05
Speaker 2: something that is really important to address.
21:08
Speaker 1: I was going to say, that's a big that's a
21:10
Speaker 1: big statement. You just mad. I mean, it's it's it's
21:13
Speaker 1: a is it not a generalization.
21:16
Speaker 2: It is, but it's based in the fact that as children,
21:21
Speaker 2: we would rather we would we would require ourselves to
21:27
Speaker 2: take responsibility for the problems because we are trapped with
21:33
Speaker 2: the parents. We have and the idea that they have
21:38
Speaker 2: deficits that we can't control makes us so helpless that
21:43
Speaker 2: we need to believe that it must be our responsibility
21:47
Speaker 2: because then at least we can try to make it better.
21:51
Speaker 2: And that's the survival method that children use. And you
21:55
Speaker 2: could say, well how do they know? They know really
21:59
Speaker 2: early if the parent is not focused on meeting their
22:04
Speaker 2: needs and taking care of them, but is actually using
22:08
Speaker 2: a child to take care of their own needs and feelings,
22:13
Speaker 2: then these children will cut off their own feelings to
22:16
Speaker 2: try to please parents that they depend on for their survival.
22:23
Speaker 1: So you're working with that woman. You both discover that
22:28
Speaker 1: she had these experiences as a young kid. What happens next?
22:35
Speaker 1: Where do you go next?
22:36
Speaker 2: As we work through the various developmental stages. She started
22:43
Speaker 2: with a view that the problem was her father and
22:48
Speaker 2: that her mother was an ideal mother. That's the biggest
22:54
Speaker 2: obstacle to this work. We call it loyalty to the parent.
22:57
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's both parents, sometimes it is only one. And
23:02
Speaker 2: so at the beginning, when she would do a repair,
23:05
Speaker 2: and I haven't explained what a repair means. A repair
23:09
Speaker 2: is a process that we get to with clients where
23:13
Speaker 2: they choose a mythical mother and father, the parents they
23:18
Speaker 2: would have chosen if they had had a choice, that
23:23
Speaker 2: would meet their needs as they actually deserved and wished
23:27
Speaker 2: them to be met. And in her case, she had
23:32
Speaker 2: a mythical dad. But she thought she didn't need a
23:35
Speaker 2: mythical mom because if she was with a different father,
23:39
Speaker 2: a different parent, everything would have been fine. And bit
23:43
Speaker 2: by bit it began to dawn on her that actually
23:47
Speaker 2: a lot of the problems had something to do with
23:49
Speaker 2: her mother as well, and she was so protective of
23:53
Speaker 2: her mother that she suffered that abuse silently. She didn't
23:59
Speaker 2: want to put a bird on her mother. You would say,
24:01
Speaker 2: oh my god, is that true. That is so common.
24:05
Speaker 2: It's actually not a shocker at all. It happens very
24:08
Speaker 2: often with children who have been abused or neglected very
24:14
Speaker 2: early in their lives or adopted. That's another area that
24:20
Speaker 2: indicates the need for this early trauma protocol work, because
24:24
Speaker 2: no matter how wonderful their adoptive parents were, and they
24:28
Speaker 2: may have been, the fact that parents gave them, gave
24:33
Speaker 2: them up, as it seems, always feels like a trauma
24:37
Speaker 2: for all of them. And so working on that, she
24:41
Speaker 2: began to see that maybe there was something that her
24:45
Speaker 2: mother had a part to her, and it stopped her
24:49
Speaker 2: from being the person she could have been. So, bit
24:53
Speaker 2: by bit, as she experiences what it's like to be
24:57
Speaker 2: loved by parents who are in secure attachment themselves and
25:04
Speaker 2: able to offer what little children and babies really need
25:10
Speaker 2: the picture of themselves, her picture of herself changes and.
25:16
Speaker 1: Me and he represent there for a second. So you said,
25:19
Speaker 1: you invite her to conjure up kind of a mythical
25:23
Speaker 1: ideal mother and father, so and through them she's experiencing
25:28
Speaker 1: this love.
25:29
Speaker 2: That's correct, and this acceptance. I mean, the other thing
25:32
Speaker 2: she's experiencing it through is my relationship with her, the
25:36
Speaker 2: relationship with a therapist, but that's under the surface. But
25:42
Speaker 2: what you're doing with repair is allowing that person to
25:46
Speaker 2: see how different parents would have treated those experiences of
25:52
Speaker 2: attachment injuries in a totally different.
25:55
Speaker 1: Way, right, and probably for the first time, yes, which
26:02
Speaker 1: is amazing, especially for someone who probably thought she would
26:08
Speaker 1: never experience that or doesn't even know anything else, doesn't
26:11
Speaker 1: even know anything better.
26:12
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And for many of excuse me, for
26:15
Speaker 2: many of these clients, they don't even know what secure
26:18
Speaker 2: attachment looks like. They have no experience of that as
26:22
Speaker 2: parents or as children. So one of the things we
26:26
Speaker 2: do is teach them what the difference is between secure
26:30
Speaker 2: and insecure attachment. And I have a very unusual way
26:33
Speaker 2: of doing that.
26:36
Speaker 1: Okay, you can't, you can't say that and leave it
26:40
Speaker 1: under fire. I do tell, do tell what is it?
26:45
Speaker 2: I use instead of conceptual or theoretical descriptions, I use
26:52
Speaker 2: attachment photos and these are meant to be evocative. They
26:57
Speaker 2: help people experience what secure attachment actually looks like with
27:03
Speaker 2: a case studying I have, and I'm very grateful to
27:06
Speaker 2: have of parents who are in connection with their first
27:12
Speaker 2: child and what that looks like for them. And then
27:16
Speaker 2: they also learn what insecure attachment looks like. And there
27:20
Speaker 2: are five different responses that children have to insecure attachment,
27:25
Speaker 2: so they start to identify which are their responses and
27:29
Speaker 2: how those responses can still be present in themselves as
27:33
Speaker 2: adults today.
27:36
Speaker 1: Right, Well, this is very lack of a better word,
27:44
Speaker 1: it's just very intense. I mean, we're talking about this
27:49
Speaker 1: fundamental organic love and rupture exactly. Now, let me ask
27:58
Speaker 1: you something, Rachel. I'm curious when you first started training
28:07
Speaker 1: with Mario, what was your goal as a young therapist,
28:14
Speaker 1: you've just gotten in this field, Like, what were you
28:16
Speaker 1: thinking you wanted to do?
28:19
Speaker 2: I wanted to heal people, okay.
28:21
Speaker 1: Okay, and how did you define that for yourself?
28:26
Speaker 2: Well, as it evolved, I became aware first of the
28:29
Speaker 2: difference between talk therapy and therapy that went to the
28:34
Speaker 2: level of the unconscious mind, because that's usually, as it sounds,
28:39
Speaker 2: something people are not conscious of. They're not aware of,
28:42
Speaker 2: and so the problems are stopping them on a level
28:46
Speaker 2: they don't even know exists. And the other thing is
28:51
Speaker 2: to become more and more experiential. And I learned that
28:55
Speaker 2: through Gestalt, through hypnotherapy, and ultimately through the Early Trauma Protocol.
29:01
Speaker 2: I take an experiential approach. That's why I don't use
29:06
Speaker 2: cognitive reasoning or conceptual analysis. I actually use the attachment
29:12
Speaker 2: photos to help people get connected with their responses on
29:19
Speaker 2: an emotional level.
29:21
Speaker 1: Now, let's jump to present day when you're working with someone.
29:30
Speaker 1: When you first meet someone, how are you interacting with them?
29:34
Speaker 1: How are you engaging with that? Let me let me
29:36
Speaker 1: there's a follow up thing here, and to what degree
29:40
Speaker 1: are you self disclosing?
29:47
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't expect that to be the question.
29:50
Speaker 1: Okay, what's kind of okay?
29:54
Speaker 2: Well, when I first meet someone, I'm going to find
29:57
Speaker 2: out what they're there for and why they're there now,
30:01
Speaker 2: and what they hope to achieve, what their goals are,
30:03
Speaker 2: what their hopes are. I'm going to have a context
30:07
Speaker 2: to know what they want to work on, and that
30:10
Speaker 2: something may often be present day problems or trauma that
30:15
Speaker 2: was certainly
37:00
Speaker 1: Passssssssssssssssss