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Getting To The Why with Rachel Siegfried, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
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
0:14
Speaker 1: show by for me two and one our folks, welcome
0:19
Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my
0:21
Speaker 1: guest today, Doctor Rachel Siegfried, Rachel, welcome, Thank you, so
0:26
Speaker 1: excited to be here. Awesome. Rachel is a licensed clinical
0:29
Speaker 1: psychologist in New York City with extensive experience treating trauma
0:33
Speaker 1: across diverse populations. She holds a BS from Cornell and
0:36
Speaker 1: a doctorate from LIU Brooklyn, who is trained in major
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Speaker 1: New York City hospitals and clinic settings, working with individuals
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Speaker 1: including trauma survivors, veterans nine to eleven, first responders, undocumented individuals,
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Speaker 1: LGBTQIA clients, and emerging adults. She recently authored a chapter
0:54
Speaker 1: on complex PTSD for book on Trauma and the Law,
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Speaker 1: helping legal professionals better understand trauma psychological impact. Doctor Sigfried
1:04
Speaker 1: is particularly interested in exploring moral injury and how entry
1:07
Speaker 1: to trauma is often misdiagnosed as personality pathology rather than
1:13
Speaker 1: recognized as PTSD. All right, Rachel, obviously, just a little
1:18
Speaker 1: bit about you before we could go and share with
1:19
Speaker 1: the listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.
1:24
Speaker 2: I'm a born, born, and brid raised New Yorker, so
1:29
Speaker 2: still in my hometown, New York City.
1:32
Speaker 1: That's it. You ain't leaving.
1:34
Speaker 2: I tried to get away from Cornell for a chapter
1:38
Speaker 2: Smester in Spain, but drew me back.
1:41
Speaker 1: All right, so let's go back. How does this start
1:45
Speaker 1: for you? How does this interest start for you?
1:49
Speaker 2: Well, if you ask my mom, it was in elementary
1:52
Speaker 2: school when she goes to the you know guy and
1:55
Speaker 2: meet all the teachers at a parent teacher conference, and
1:58
Speaker 2: she goes to meet the school count and introduce herself,
2:02
Speaker 2: and she's already very aware, well aware of who I am,
2:05
Speaker 2: because I've been bringing classmates to him who are arguing
2:09
Speaker 2: so that they can go work through their issues. So
2:12
Speaker 2: she would say, then, I would say that I've always
2:16
Speaker 2: just been really interested in people. I really liked observing people.
2:24
Speaker 2: I never really grew out of the why phase of
2:26
Speaker 2: wanting to know why, and my I just I started
2:33
Speaker 2: taking small psychology classes here and there in high school
2:36
Speaker 2: and things, but it really formulated in college. I actually
2:41
Speaker 2: wrote my college essay about people watching and my love
2:44
Speaker 2: of people watching, which luckily they didn't find weird. And right,
2:51
Speaker 2: what do I enjoy sitting on the New York City
2:53
Speaker 2: bus and you know, just live their lives?
2:56
Speaker 1: Have you heard of stalking?
3:01
Speaker 2: And then at in college, I was studying human development
3:07
Speaker 2: and there was a course on risk and Resiliency in
3:10
Speaker 2: childhood and Adolescents. And I really fell in love with
3:16
Speaker 2: that course, with understanding trauma and with childhood and adverse events.
3:23
Speaker 2: And so this professor would use books and memoirs, right
3:29
Speaker 2: like we read on Finding Fish, and we read the
3:35
Speaker 2: book that Pressures is based on to really understand kind
3:38
Speaker 2: of these childhood narratives. And so I liked the professor
3:42
Speaker 2: Janis Whitlock so much that I joined her Non Suicidal
3:45
Speaker 2: Self Interest Behavior Lab, where I spent a very uplifting
3:50
Speaker 2: summer just listening from nine to five to interviews from
3:58
Speaker 2: adolescents who were engaging non suicidal self interest behavior and
4:02
Speaker 2: then interviews with their parents about what they were experiencing.
4:07
Speaker 2: And I was just spending over a month coding these interviews,
4:11
Speaker 2: and in that the big theme we found was that
4:14
Speaker 2: these kids wanted something called respectful curiosity. They really just
4:19
Speaker 2: wanted to be listened to. They wanted someone to want
4:22
Speaker 2: to know the why. And I mean as a podcast interviewer,
4:27
Speaker 2: right you, this is what you do. You get to
4:29
Speaker 2: know people's why.
4:32
Speaker 1: And so if we can just pause there for a second,
4:39
Speaker 1: what what fill that out for us? Because you have
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Speaker 1: these these kids here who are injuring themselves what through
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Speaker 1: all various means, not not suicidal, but at the at
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Speaker 1: the core there's that need. Yes, I guess, uh, I
5:11
Speaker 1: guess I'm a little surprised. I'm not here, We're we're
5:16
Speaker 1: I mean in there, there's got to be a lot
5:18
Speaker 1: of pain, right, I mean, you just don't hurt yourself.
5:22
Speaker 1: So talk more fill that out for us more.
5:26
Speaker 2: So these kids. You know, the interesting part of the
5:30
Speaker 2: studies it didn't go at that moment too much into
5:33
Speaker 2: maybe the individual's traumas or emotion and regulation pieces that
5:38
Speaker 2: were leading to the self injury.
5:40
Speaker 1: They did.
5:40
Speaker 2: That was part of it. Of course, the kids told
5:42
Speaker 2: their stories, but what was going on was these kids
5:46
Speaker 2: were struggling with recovery and why could they not either
5:52
Speaker 2: stop or what was stopping them from being able to
5:54
Speaker 2: address us with their parents, that so much of self
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Speaker 2: injury relies on the secret, and that nobody knows what's happening.
6:04
Speaker 2: And you know, this was two thousand and ten, no,
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Speaker 2: twenty eleven, the this wasn't you know. It's been an
6:15
Speaker 2: even more increasingly studied topic since then, And a lot
6:20
Speaker 2: of the parents thought their kids were acting out trying
6:22
Speaker 2: to get attention, right, We've all heard those words in
6:25
Speaker 2: the field, and that really wasn't what was happening for
6:29
Speaker 2: these kids. And so the more that they were just
6:31
Speaker 2: being told that they were acting out for attention, the
6:34
Speaker 2: more disconnected, the less understood they felt, and the more
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Speaker 2: they wanted to harm themselves because it was the only
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Speaker 2: way that they were either regulating expressing, and often the
6:44
Speaker 2: way that they were self injuring had so much meaning.
6:47
Speaker 2: What they were using to self injure, where they were
6:50
Speaker 2: making the marks, what were they spelling out words or
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Speaker 2: number or did they have a number of them? And
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Speaker 2: all of this was just being missed because of course
7:00
Speaker 2: the parents are panicked seeing their children who they love
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Speaker 2: in danger, but because they're so focused on that and
7:08
Speaker 2: aren't really regulating themselves in that moment, they're really just
7:12
Speaker 2: not engaging with that curiosity.
7:15
Speaker 1: So how do things unfold for you after that? With
7:18
Speaker 1: your work, et cetera.
7:20
Speaker 2: After that it really drove, you know, that interest in
7:23
Speaker 2: the why became even bigger. And I think that really
7:26
Speaker 2: made me curious about specifically trauma and write that risk
7:30
Speaker 2: and resiliency piece. And so I joined more research labs
7:35
Speaker 2: and eventually go to grad school. And in graduate school,
7:38
Speaker 2: it was in the clinical practice that I really started
7:41
Speaker 2: to develop an interest in complex PTSD specifically because when
7:47
Speaker 2: working with patients who could identify a trauma, whether that
7:51
Speaker 2: was sexual assaults or write a shock trauma such as war,
7:55
Speaker 2: they were showing up much more like a personality disorder
8:02
Speaker 2: would be characterized. And that's why sometimes supervisors would point out.
8:05
Speaker 2: They'd say, Oh, this diagnosis is borderline personality or this
8:08
Speaker 2: one is narcissism. And I was just very struck that
8:14
Speaker 2: we wouldn't with these clients and these trauma histories, we
8:18
Speaker 2: couldn't do all of these amazing manualized trauma treatments that
8:22
Speaker 2: were out there, because so much of that work was
8:27
Speaker 2: just building trust and getting to understand why was this person?
8:35
Speaker 2: Why was the person's character and sense of self so
8:41
Speaker 2: impacted in a way where they couldn't have this intimate
8:45
Speaker 2: relationship that would help them eventually heal. And so I
8:50
Speaker 2: then started going to places like World Trade Center and
8:54
Speaker 2: the VA and seeing what it looked like when trauma
8:57
Speaker 2: went untreated and when people had a foundation even before
9:00
Speaker 2: nine to eleven or before being you know, before their deployments,
9:07
Speaker 2: where their childhood foundation of either neglect or physical abuse
9:13
Speaker 2: or sexual abuse how played a significant role in their
9:15
Speaker 2: inability to have safe, loving relationships in the heir. Now, so.
9:24
Speaker 1: This is tough stuff, I mean hard stuff. How are
9:30
Speaker 1: you when you start doing this? Even with going back
9:34
Speaker 1: to the kids in that research project, I mean that's
9:39
Speaker 1: for a lot of people really hard to hear. How
9:42
Speaker 1: are you doing that? How are you managing that?
9:54
Speaker 2: I there's a quote. Have you ever read Theater of
9:58
Speaker 2: War by Brian Dowries Mm hmm, ten out of ten
10:01
Speaker 2: recommend It's an amazing book. And he runs these huge
10:09
Speaker 2: productions where major plays like Greek works are taken and
10:14
Speaker 2: performed in front of audiences like veterans or people in
10:18
Speaker 2: Guantanamo Bay, and through acting through these narratives, he has
10:26
Speaker 2: the community actually come together to see their pain through theater.
10:30
Speaker 2: And he has this wonderful quote where he says, trauma
10:33
Speaker 2: narratives comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And maybe
10:44
Speaker 2: because I am the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, There's just
10:48
Speaker 2: never been a time in my life where I can
10:51
Speaker 2: remember there not being narratives of trauma, but not in
10:57
Speaker 2: an overwhelming way as a child, but that the world
11:01
Speaker 2: is filled with people who have been through incredibly tough
11:04
Speaker 2: experiences that shape who they are. And so the idea
11:06
Speaker 2: of not listening to that narrative or not being interested
11:09
Speaker 2: in that narrative, I guess hasn't really ever overwhelmed me.
11:13
Speaker 2: It just makes me feel closer to people.
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Speaker 1: And when you started doing that work, and I'm guessing
11:20
Speaker 1: this wasn't necessarily conscious, but was there What kind of
11:26
Speaker 1: a poll was there towards these people, towards the stories
11:31
Speaker 1: they were telling. Were you feeling that somehow you wanted
11:37
Speaker 1: to quote unquote help or listen or what.
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Speaker 2: I thought that listening was helping that somebody.
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Speaker 1: One.
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Speaker 2: People like talking about themselves, but people when we feel
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Speaker 2: seen and heard the termine. So much of trauma work
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Speaker 2: is bearing witness when we feel that somebody wants to
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Speaker 2: bear witness to our pain, that we don't have to
12:02
Speaker 2: carry it alone. I think that's when we feel safest
12:07
Speaker 2: and we can really heal, and that that's what trauma
12:10
Speaker 2: so disrupts, especially complex trauma from childhood, that ability to
12:14
Speaker 2: trust and connect with others. So right, the idea that
12:18
Speaker 2: relationships can be what break us and hurt us, they
12:20
Speaker 2: can also be what heals us. And so I've always
12:23
Speaker 2: just really loved the opportunity, whether that was as a
12:25
Speaker 2: friend or as a therapist, to be in that role.
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Speaker 1: Let's talk about this topic of moral injury and untreated trauma,
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Speaker 1: how it's misdiagnosed, How did that resonate become resonant for you?
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Speaker 2: It was really so while we're using the word right,
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Speaker 2: people get diagnosed with a personality disorder with untreated trauma.
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Speaker 2: I always really loved the more jargon a clinical term
13:01
Speaker 2: of characterological disruptions, because I think when we understand trauma
13:07
Speaker 2: as disrupting a character and that ability to build our character,
13:15
Speaker 2: it really helps understand us understand why, right, somebody who
13:20
Speaker 2: experienced trauma at age six is going to show up
13:26
Speaker 2: very differently than somebody who didn't and again it was
13:35
Speaker 2: through working and getting to see first nine to eleven
13:40
Speaker 2: responders rarely who were sharing that they had built their
13:47
Speaker 2: world on being part of a system, right, that they
13:52
Speaker 2: would help others, and there was some kind of justice
13:56
Speaker 2: in the world. For some of these responders, they had
14:01
Speaker 2: childhood like a childhood experience of again either physical abuse, neglect,
14:08
Speaker 2: or sexual abuse, where they had learned to mistrust, to
14:13
Speaker 2: not trust authority figures, to not trust the system, and
14:20
Speaker 2: they became, you know, people who could help other people.
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Speaker 2: That was one of the ways that they survived. They
14:28
Speaker 2: found structure in these jobs. Right, there's so much structure
14:31
Speaker 2: in being an officer, being in the fire department. And
14:37
Speaker 2: then right, seventeen years later, after nine to eleven, after
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Speaker 2: this major trauma in which it wasn't just the physical
14:44
Speaker 2: trauma of what happened on nine to eleven or working
14:47
Speaker 2: in the pit for months after, it was the moral injury, right,
14:52
Speaker 2: the betrayal of what is right that America let them down. Right,
14:59
Speaker 2: they not given the benefits they needed, They were not
15:02
Speaker 2: given the medical or psychological support that they deserved, and
15:06
Speaker 2: they were just not given any financial resources that they needed.
15:11
Speaker 2: And so seventeen years later, all of that is compounding
15:15
Speaker 2: into a complete mistrust of the world and a mistrust
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Speaker 2: of me in therapy. Right in you're saying you're here
15:23
Speaker 2: to help me. I've heard this before. Why should I
15:25
Speaker 2: trust you? And that's what really did it for me,
15:29
Speaker 2: being asked, right, what makes you so special that I
15:32
Speaker 2: should trust you? When this has never worked before?
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Speaker 1: So what do you do with that knowledge? How does
15:39
Speaker 1: that impact your work? What's important to you?
15:44
Speaker 2: I think so much of that work has been informed
15:47
Speaker 2: really by Judith Hermann's work about establishing safety and that
15:52
Speaker 2: being the first thing we do. And you know, in
16:00
Speaker 2: our field, that's something that I think is not so unusual.
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Speaker 2: It's not definitely not unique to me, the idea of
16:07
Speaker 2: really establishing trust in safety and psychological report, but in
16:11
Speaker 2: other fields it's quite foreign, right with You might just
16:16
Speaker 2: develop a professional relationship as a lawyer or a doctor,
16:20
Speaker 2: but the idea that you have to win over someone's
16:23
Speaker 2: trust is not necessarily as common. And so I think
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Speaker 2: I also have really developed a passionate interest in how
16:31
Speaker 2: to help people with complex trauma or how to help
16:34
Speaker 2: other professionals bridge that gap.
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Speaker 1: That's interesting, So talk more about that. How do you
16:46
Speaker 1: translate that how do you communicate that to a professional
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Speaker 1: who for who maybe that that is a foreign concept
16:56
Speaker 1: not in their wheelhouse, if you will.
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Speaker 2: So, I actually come from a family of many lawyers.
17:05
Speaker 2: I'm the black sheep as the psychologist, and my so
17:12
Speaker 2: my experience when I'm you know, interacting with family or
17:16
Speaker 2: other lawyers that I know is so often you can
17:22
Speaker 2: make a case out of anything, but you have to
17:24
Speaker 2: have your evidence. Does your argument make sense? And there's
17:28
Speaker 2: a you know, there's a lot of love of the rational,
17:33
Speaker 2: and complex trauma does not love rational right, and they're
17:41
Speaker 2: what I love. What I love about psychology in the
17:44
Speaker 2: mind is right with the why is there's always if
17:47
Speaker 2: you go far enough, you will get to the why
17:49
Speaker 2: and it will make sense. But you have to take
17:51
Speaker 2: the journey to get there. And that is what I
17:54
Speaker 2: really enjoy helping other professionals understand, is to have that
17:57
Speaker 2: patience to get there.
18:00
Speaker 1: That you do you find yourself having to explain and
18:05
Speaker 1: or justify why that why is important.
18:08
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I think helping other professionals understand when the basis
18:16
Speaker 2: of complex trauma, where it's coming from, right, how disrupted
18:20
Speaker 2: this person's trust system and sense of self. Is that
18:25
Speaker 2: when you're coming in and telling them you do this right.
18:30
Speaker 2: If you, you know, don't get into any arguments or
18:34
Speaker 2: fights while you were, you know, incarcerated, it's going to
18:38
Speaker 2: look better to the judge. Makes total sense when you
18:42
Speaker 2: say it that way. However, when your client, something happens, right,
18:46
Speaker 2: your client gets into a fight, gets into an argument,
18:50
Speaker 2: something happens with another inmate. Lawyers can get frustrated. You're
18:57
Speaker 2: hurting the case. Right, there's your clients now hurting the case.
19:00
Speaker 2: They're not working with you, and there might be an
19:04
Speaker 2: inclination to reprimand right, you can't do that, you shouldn't
19:08
Speaker 2: do that, and helping lawyers and other pressions understand that
19:15
Speaker 2: that isn't what the person needs in that moment. The
19:17
Speaker 2: person has been chastised and berated and humiliated really by
19:22
Speaker 2: authority figures and systems their whole life. And so in
19:25
Speaker 2: this opportunity, starting with why did you get in the fight?
19:30
Speaker 2: Why did that happen? I know you know that that's
19:33
Speaker 2: not a good idea, so why there had to be
19:35
Speaker 2: a reason. And then once you get to the reason,
19:38
Speaker 2: then you can kind of work with the person and
19:40
Speaker 2: say I completely understand where that came from and let's
19:44
Speaker 2: talk about how that isn't That behavior isn't going to
19:46
Speaker 2: help our joint goal.
19:50
Speaker 1: Is is that their job? Though? Would at night? Would
19:58
Speaker 1: it not be more? And I guess every example is different,
20:02
Speaker 1: or every circumstance is different, but maybe it would even
20:05
Speaker 1: open the door for them to say, you know what,
20:08
Speaker 1: let's bring in doctor Rachel Siegfried speak with her. This
20:13
Speaker 1: really sounds like you're dealing with a kid right who
20:18
Speaker 1: is having explosive behavior, and we're berating that kid for
20:22
Speaker 1: all the explosive behavior when we're not really looking at
20:25
Speaker 1: what the hell's going on behind the scenes here with
20:27
Speaker 1: this kid.
20:28
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think bringing in a psychologist is great. There
20:33
Speaker 2: are a few things when you have to have the
20:35
Speaker 2: money and resources for that, right and you have to
20:39
Speaker 2: get your client to agree and to trust to that.
20:42
Speaker 2: If your client doesn't already trust you, they're not exactly
20:44
Speaker 2: going to be in client, especially if they come from
20:46
Speaker 2: a background where psychologists stigmatized that they're going to say,
20:50
Speaker 2: you're now you think I'm crazy? Right now, you're just
20:53
Speaker 2: going to send me to a shrink. There was a
20:55
Speaker 2: totally real reason I did that, you know So I
21:00
Speaker 2: think that there's I love when people would bring in
21:02
Speaker 2: a consultation that I think the lawyer also has to
21:06
Speaker 2: be able to work with the person, and the person
21:08
Speaker 2: has to be able to trust their lawyer. And so
21:10
Speaker 2: I think that's where sometimes asking the why and knowing
21:15
Speaker 2: your limits, right, if you feel that you're not able
21:17
Speaker 2: to navigate that conversation, maybe it's bringing in a professional
21:21
Speaker 2: who can and having them there with you.
21:23
Speaker 1: But so in the bio, I mentioned that you authored
21:32
Speaker 1: a chapter. What was that about? Specifically? Are you able
21:36
Speaker 1: to talk about that a little bit?
21:38
Speaker 2: It's specifically actually about this. It is going through and
21:41
Speaker 2: breaking down a lot of the jargon that is in
21:48
Speaker 2: complex trauma research and explaining kind of that foundation of
21:53
Speaker 2: the loss of autonomy, the loss of trust, feelings of inferiority,
22:00
Speaker 2: and how those will play out can play out within
22:02
Speaker 2: the system and with your clients, and how to even
22:05
Speaker 2: maybe start seeing flags to even think about the question
22:08
Speaker 2: of trauma. Is your client being labeled as difficult? Do
22:14
Speaker 2: they carry multiple diagnoses of different mood or psychotic disorders?
22:21
Speaker 2: And that I think a lot of the times those
22:26
Speaker 2: can be really great indicators that is the person really
22:31
Speaker 2: that difficult or is the person pushing back because they're
22:35
Speaker 2: feeling disregulated or trapped or victimized.
22:39
Speaker 1: Again, feels like you're educating a whole population. I mean,
22:48
Speaker 1: does this come Is this something that's like a brief
22:54
Speaker 1: workshop in law school? If at all, are they I
23:00
Speaker 1: would that would you know? Are they taught this any
23:03
Speaker 1: portion of this? No?
23:05
Speaker 2: Not that it in my experience, No that I've heard.
23:09
Speaker 2: I've never heard of people saying that in law school
23:12
Speaker 2: they got a class on maybe like you know, how
23:16
Speaker 2: to use psychology in vordear or something else, but not
23:21
Speaker 2: how to deal with clients who are struggling with mental
23:24
Speaker 2: illness and how to really question trauma as a basis.
23:29
Speaker 1: What we talk more specifically about why this became important
23:35
Speaker 1: to you.
23:40
Speaker 2: So all of my training was within hospital systems, and
23:44
Speaker 2: my last year was at Elmhurst, and it was during
23:48
Speaker 2: the pandemic UH and it was really hard to see
23:58
Speaker 2: when our clients were already struggling in world where everything's
24:01
Speaker 2: shut down. But so often when I was working on
24:05
Speaker 2: inpatient units, I was getting called to the unit to
24:09
Speaker 2: handle my patient because the patient wasn't cooperating with the psychiatrist,
24:14
Speaker 2: the patient had gotten into a fight with the nurses,
24:16
Speaker 2: or and so it felt like I was constantly being
24:19
Speaker 2: a parent called to school right because your kid did
24:22
Speaker 2: something and it didn't feel right for the client. Right.
24:27
Speaker 2: These patients are here because they're really struggling right there there,
24:32
Speaker 2: because they've had a psychotic break or wanted to done
24:34
Speaker 2: their life, and nobody it didn't feel like people weren't
24:39
Speaker 2: necessarily trying to understand them because it's an overwhelmed public
24:42
Speaker 2: hospital system. There were absolutely people who did, but in
24:46
Speaker 2: that overwhelmed system, you can't spend as much time as
24:49
Speaker 2: you want to with each client, right, and so right
24:52
Speaker 2: when clients aren't taking their medication, it's we're going to
24:55
Speaker 2: go to court or you're gonna have to take it,
24:57
Speaker 2: And well, why don't you want to take it? Right?
25:00
Speaker 2: I've heard clients say, because I'm drowsy. This is a
25:03
Speaker 2: co ed unit. I don't feel safe. That's a great
25:07
Speaker 2: reason if you've experienced sexual trauma and people are saying, well,
25:11
Speaker 2: they didn't tell me that. They didn't tell me that
25:13
Speaker 2: during intake. Of course they didn't. They hadn't built any
25:17
Speaker 2: trust yet.
25:18
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. What do you think allows you to do
25:21
Speaker 1: this work? Because you seem I asked that question because
25:25
Speaker 1: there's a particular obviously curiosity that you have or almost
25:31
Speaker 1: like a need you have to get in there. And
25:37
Speaker 1: what listen ask these questions? What is it?
25:45
Speaker 2: I feel like I've just always felt this. It's just
25:48
Speaker 2: everybody does make sense at the end of the day,
25:51
Speaker 2: like there's a grain of truth at the end of
25:53
Speaker 2: the day. And I just I love a puzzle. I do.
25:57
Speaker 2: I loved to puzzle so much. You know, I'll spend
26:02
Speaker 2: way too much time on sadogu.
26:04
Speaker 1: So and is it is it like we need to
26:07
Speaker 1: find out what's behind or beneath We're at the core
26:14
Speaker 1: of this, And that's important because why.
26:20
Speaker 2: I think once we understand where our behaviors and our
26:26
Speaker 2: feelings are coming from, we can have so much more
26:28
Speaker 2: empathy for ourselves. And right if we feel that we're
26:33
Speaker 2: doing something and it doesn't make sense to us or
26:36
Speaker 2: to anyone else, that's incredibly painful. Right when we feel
26:41
Speaker 2: that we are doing something right, maybe it's that I
26:45
Speaker 2: push away everyone I feel close to. Maybe I understand that,
26:51
Speaker 2: but if nobody else understands why, I'm going to feel
26:54
Speaker 2: incredibly lonely, I'm gonna feel even lonelier than I already did,
26:57
Speaker 2: because I'm not being seen, and that if I don't
27:00
Speaker 2: understand why I'm doing it now, I just I feel crazy.
27:04
Speaker 2: I feel disconnected, And I think I've such a gift
27:09
Speaker 2: to be able to feel that we make sense to
27:11
Speaker 2: ourselves and that others can then also understand us.
27:14
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to be doing this as a psychologist,
27:19
Speaker 1: but it takes on a different aura or you when
27:24
Speaker 1: you were educating other popular or other other professionals about this.
27:30
Speaker 1: Right again, it's it's it's it's a language that they
27:33
Speaker 1: don't normally use, and it's asking. I feel it's asking
27:39
Speaker 1: them to do something that. Okay, it doesn't matter to
27:43
Speaker 1: me why they're doing it. They they created this problem
27:46
Speaker 1: or this X, and why happened. We now we got
27:49
Speaker 1: to deal with all that. Why are you asking me
27:51
Speaker 1: to deal with why? Why is that important? Why is
27:55
Speaker 1: why important?
27:59
Speaker 2: You know? I definitely I've gotten this from my parents
28:01
Speaker 2: when they last at different points, like I've got this case.
28:04
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, oh, if you thought about asking here, and
28:06
Speaker 2: they're like, uh, you know, go down that road, and
28:11
Speaker 2: I think that it is. My answer is always kind
28:16
Speaker 2: of you don't have to do right, You don't have
28:18
Speaker 2: to go down the road of the y. But the
28:22
Speaker 2: person you're deeming difficult, they're gonna stay difficult, have fun. Right,
28:27
Speaker 2: you're not going to get any trust. You might do
28:30
Speaker 2: a great job on their behalf. I don't doubt that
28:32
Speaker 2: there's write that ethic there. You might do a wonderful
28:35
Speaker 2: job as their attorney. Can you do more? Can you
28:40
Speaker 2: be a different experience for this person? Does that matter
28:43
Speaker 2: to you? And my answer is I hope yes. It
28:48
Speaker 2: isn't their job, but you can be, as you know,
28:52
Speaker 2: you can be a different chapter in someone else's story
28:54
Speaker 2: through these small acts, and.
28:57
Speaker 1: Which I mean just right, I mean it's very into
29:00
Speaker 1: seem to say, well, it's not you know, as I said,
29:02
Speaker 1: it may not be their job, it may not be
29:06
Speaker 1: part of their job description. But it's also interesting to
29:09
Speaker 1: think that people who you know necessarily maybe go into
29:15
Speaker 1: that field. Maybe that's not part of their makeup to
29:19
Speaker 1: ask that particular question, right, and whereas for you or
29:22
Speaker 1: myself it would be. But as you're saying, it's crucial
29:27
Speaker 1: to working with the people they're going to be working with.
29:34
Speaker 2: Wow, it matters to the clients. And right, if you're
29:37
Speaker 2: saying I wanted you write by the client, then here's
29:39
Speaker 2: another tool in that toolkit that can really surf you
29:43
Speaker 2: also can serve their defense, right that understanding that this
29:47
Speaker 2: person might have done something violent or criminal, and can
29:54
Speaker 2: we also understand the foundation of trauma and how that
29:56
Speaker 2: could have had an impact or mitigating factors. There's also
30:00
Speaker 2: a legal you know, if you add in, hey, this
30:03
Speaker 2: could benefit your legal defense or your legal strategy. It
30:06
Speaker 2: isn't tech that I think that part is a little
30:07
Speaker 2: bit more enticing too.
30:10
Speaker 1: So as we kind of wine down here, Rachel, in
30:13
Speaker 1: what capacity now are you working? Who do you work with?
30:18
Speaker 2: I'm currently in transitioning to private practice and this spring
30:23
Speaker 2: I'm starting my own private practice. I work with individuals
30:29
Speaker 2: across a range of dimensions, not just complex trauma, but
30:34
Speaker 2: with relationships, stress work, stress, depression, anxiety, and I also
30:41
Speaker 2: work with couples and I really love that work as well.
30:45
Speaker 2: Just getting back to the whys, right, everybody in this
30:48
Speaker 2: relationship has a why for what they're doing, and can
30:52
Speaker 2: you see your partners why? I love that work. So
30:55
Speaker 2: that's who I'm working with these.
30:56
Speaker 1: Days, all right, And we'll have links for all your
31:00
Speaker 1: stuff up here at the show notes page at the
31:04
Speaker 1: Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. So good all right, Rachel,
31:08
Speaker 1: thanks so much for taking to take care all right,