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The Complex Trauma Training Center with Brad Kammer · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
• 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
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  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
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  Speaker 1: back to the podcast. I'm really excited to have back
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Brad camera. Brad, welcome back, my friend.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Hi, guys. Always such a pleasure to have these
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  Speaker 2: thirty minute intervals every couple of years, reconnect and Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I just love so much of what you're putting out
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  Speaker 2: in the world. So thank you for it including me
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  Speaker 2: in the process.
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  Speaker 1: Awesome. I appreciate that. So. Brad is a licensed psychotherapist, educator,
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  Speaker 1: and the founder and director of the Complex Trauma Training Center.
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  Speaker 1: He's a co author of The Practical Guide for Healing
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  Speaker 1: Developmental Trauma and executive producer of the Transforming Trauma Podcast.
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  Speaker 1: For more than twenty five years, Brad has worked at
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  Speaker 1: the Intersection of Psychology or by All G and somatics,
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  Speaker 1: training therapists worldwide through the NORM model and his Space
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  Speaker 1: program for Interdevelopment. Beginning his career in humanitarian aid work,
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  Speaker 1: across Asia. He's dedicated his life to understanding and transforming
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  Speaker 1: complex trauma in the effects of early adversity. All right, Brad, obviously,
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  Speaker 1: just a little bit about you before we get going.
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  Speaker 1: Share with the listeners where you're from originally and where
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  Speaker 1: you are currently, and then we will dive in.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Well, I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but
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  Speaker 2: I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. So my family all
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  Speaker 2: lives back in the Midwest in Ohio, and I've been
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  Speaker 2: living here in northern California for about twenty years now,
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  Speaker 2: a couple hours north of San Francisco, in a small
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  Speaker 2: town called Yukaia in Mendocino County. So yeah, that's where
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  Speaker 2: I am. I'm actually in a new house right now
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  Speaker 2: because we had a pretty significant chock trauma that happened
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  Speaker 2: a few months ago where I lost my house in
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  Speaker 2: a fire.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
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  Speaker 2: So we're in a new, beautiful rental house. But my
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  Speaker 2: family and myself have been kind of luckily had a
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  Speaker 2: lot of good trauma skills and a lot of good
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  Speaker 2: support over the last couple of months. And yeah, what happened, Well,
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  Speaker 2: this is a good kind of PSA. I guess it
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  Speaker 2: was an e bike. We had our e bike charging
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  Speaker 2: outside and they think that the battery just combusted or
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  Speaker 2: whatever they call it. Oh yeah, and I was the
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  Speaker 2: only one home, luckily, so but yeah, those those fires
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  Speaker 2: are really hot. The e bike batteries exploded an incredible heat.
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  Speaker 2: So if you do have an e bike, you know,
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  Speaker 2: they build these little cases that you can get that
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  Speaker 2: really help if they do explode. But you know, I
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  Speaker 2: never thought about when you get onto an airplane and
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  Speaker 2: they say, like, you know, anyone have lithium batteries. I'd
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  Speaker 2: never even thought that. That's why they asked, because lithium
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  Speaker 2: batteries have a history of exploding. So anyways, you know,
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  Speaker 2: these things come into our lives for different reasons, and
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  Speaker 2: so just trying to kind of learn and look at
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  Speaker 2: the silver linings of it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, wow. All right, So we're going to be
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  Speaker 1: talking about this book here today, the Workbook for Healing
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  Speaker 1: Developmental Trauma, Tools and Techniques from the neuro Effective Relational
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  Speaker 1: Model otherwise known as NORM and ARM your co author
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  Speaker 1: with Lawrence Heller, doctor Lawrence Heller. So let's give our
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  Speaker 1: listeners kind of a the thumbnail of what NORM is
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  Speaker 1: and then segue into the book. But before we do that,
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  Speaker 1: I just want to even lead up to that with
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  Speaker 1: a little bit how did you get into this field
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  Speaker 1: in the first place?
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  Speaker 2: Anyway? For listeners, Yeah, yeah, I mean Larry and I
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  Speaker 2: have both been on your podcast several times, which is cool,
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  Speaker 2: so thanks again for having us on. And I shared
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  Speaker 2: a little bit in one of them about I worked
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  Speaker 2: with Burmese refugees in Asia, so I worked in humanitarian
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  Speaker 2: aid and I was just kind of blown away by
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  Speaker 2: the levels of individual and collective trauma. And even at
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  Speaker 2: that time, I didn't even have that word in my vocabulary, trauma.
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  Speaker 2: I got introduced that word when I came back to
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  Speaker 2: the States and was talking to one of my supervisors,
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  Speaker 2: and I was explaining what I was interested in based
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  Speaker 2: on my experiences working with Burmese refugees, and he's like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: you're interested in the field of trauma. And I said, oh, okay,
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  Speaker 2: Well I didn't realize that, but yes, I guess I am.
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  Speaker 1: What about that? What about that? What about those people?
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  Speaker 1: Got you going? Well?
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  Speaker 2: I think now, after all these years, I've really realized that.
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  Speaker 2: I think it really evoked something about my own intergenerational
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  Speaker 2: and cultural trauma. I you know, the Burmese people that
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  Speaker 2: I worked with were very oppressed and were being targeted
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  Speaker 2: and attacked and killed and enslaved and all sorts of
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  Speaker 2: just things. And you know, at the time, I don't
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  Speaker 2: think I was so conscious of about what that evoked
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  Speaker 2: inside of me and my family lineage and my history.
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  Speaker 2: But something awakened for sure in me that I wanted
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  Speaker 2: to serve. I wanted to help people both on the
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  Speaker 2: collective and in individual level. And then when I got
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  Speaker 2: introduced to the trauma field, which was right around two
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  Speaker 2: thousand or so, it was a really exciting time because
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  Speaker 2: you know bessel vand Koch's this was pre his popular book,
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  Speaker 2: but he was getting a lot of notoriety, and of
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  Speaker 2: course Judith Herman and you know these folks that were
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  Speaker 2: it was still kind of at the beginning stages of
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  Speaker 2: the field getting popular. And I came into sematic experiencing
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  Speaker 2: with Peter Levine and that's where Larry was a senior
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  Speaker 2: teacher at that point in the sematic experiencing work, and
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  Speaker 2: I got really interested in working more with relational and
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  Speaker 2: complex trauma, and so I spent you know, many years
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  Speaker 2: learning about kind of shock trauma through the sematic experiencing model,
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  Speaker 2: but I felt like there was more out there that
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to study, so started studying attachment and interpersonal neurobiology.
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  Speaker 2: And then when Larry started putting together NORM, that's when
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  Speaker 2: I kind of really started going deeper into becoming a
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  Speaker 2: ment you know. He mentored me and then we became
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  Speaker 2: partners in teaching, and that's kind of how the whole
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  Speaker 2: NORM journey took place.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about NORM. How do you describe it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, the neuro effective relational model is about working
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  Speaker 2: with complex trauma. That's a big term and in the
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  Speaker 2: United States the diagnosis isn't even fully approved or accepted
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  Speaker 2: yet CPTSD complex post tramac stress disorder. It basically adds
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  Speaker 2: on to PTSD three new categories, so it adds on
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  Speaker 2: affectis regulation, self concept or what they call negative self concept,
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  Speaker 2: and interpersonal disturbances. So that's really what we work on
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  Speaker 2: in NORM. We work on those three categories. We work
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  Speaker 2: on relationships and how relationship to get disrupted from our
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  Speaker 2: early blueprints of life and our earliest relationships. We work
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  Speaker 2: with affect regulation. We work both top down and bottom
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  Speaker 2: up with that, so we work through the body, but
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  Speaker 2: we also work through the beliefs and the narratives that
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  Speaker 2: we have. And then that last piece is so core
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  Speaker 2: of negative self concept because we work with self, we
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  Speaker 2: work with identity, we work with how that gets fragmented
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  Speaker 2: and how you know, so much of what we're trying
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  Speaker 2: to do in our adult lives is to kind of
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  Speaker 2: return back home, is to find our authentic selves, and
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  Speaker 2: the strategies we used to do that are often leading
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  Speaker 2: us further away from that. And so how do we
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  Speaker 2: support people to come back home to themselves in a secure,
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  Speaker 2: a live way.
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  Speaker 1: So interesting to hear those different pillars in a sense,
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  Speaker 1: and would you say those are particularly necessary to address
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  Speaker 1: complex trauma as opposed to what other types of trauma,
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  Speaker 1: shock trauma or single instant in trauma.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we do differentiate it. In the normal work, there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of overlap and people often in the trauma
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  Speaker 2: field that have a lot of hot debates about this,
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  Speaker 2: and I try to stay out of those debates. But
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  Speaker 2: in the narm work, we do differentiate shock trauma works
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  Speaker 2: with different neurobiological systems. Generally this is very simplistic, but
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  Speaker 2: generally having to do with fear, fight, flight, freeze, whereas
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  Speaker 2: again very simplistic developmental and complex trauma. Relational trauma has
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  Speaker 2: much more to do with the shame, the psycho biology
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  Speaker 2: psychobiology of shame and the way that we shut ourselves
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  Speaker 2: down around relationship and belonging, and that that's a survival
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  Speaker 2: strategy to kind of protect ourselves when there's relational failure
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  Speaker 2: of relational loss. But it does trigger a whole different
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  Speaker 2: kind of neurocircuitry that you know, we believe in norm
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  Speaker 2: that you need a different kind of approach than some
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  Speaker 2: of them were strictly shock trauma models.
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  Speaker 1: When you got it, I want to we're going to
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  Speaker 1: want to get into the book more specifically and also
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  Speaker 1: the training center. But as you started to get in
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  Speaker 1: study trauma and get into this field, how did you,
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  Speaker 1: how did you do? How are you feeling? How how
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  Speaker 1: was it for you to work in that field, in
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  Speaker 1: this field when you were kind of just starting out.
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  Speaker 2: I love the questions you bring. Yeah, well, I mean
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  Speaker 2: I think like a lot of people and a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people on your podcast, I mean, so many of
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  Speaker 2: us came into it, whether it was conscious or not,
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  Speaker 2: to learn about ourselves to heal ourselves. So I think
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  Speaker 2: there was I was I've always been, including now like
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  Speaker 2: on these two tracks, which feel very connected, the professional
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  Speaker 2: and the personal. I love that about our field of
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  Speaker 2: being a therap where we can use our professional work
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  Speaker 2: to learn more about ourselves. I strongly believe that the
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  Speaker 2: quality of presence and effectiveness of therapists is impacted or
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  Speaker 2: dictated by our ongoing work on ourselves, in ourselves or
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  Speaker 2: lack thereof or lack there yeah. Yeah, And you know,
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  Speaker 2: I'm very passionate about the field of psychotherapy, and it
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  Speaker 2: pains me to hear clients who reach out. There's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of obstacles in the way of humans getting therapy,
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  Speaker 2: and then they reach out and then they have these
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  Speaker 2: negative experiences or at least not helpful experiences, and that
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  Speaker 2: pains me, which is part of why I've created the
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  Speaker 2: center to kind of do ongoing, deeper training for therapists
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  Speaker 2: outside of you know, graduate school. And so yeah, early on,
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  Speaker 2: I've always been looking for mentors. I've always been looking
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  Speaker 2: for a professional community. I felt very alone even when
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  Speaker 2: I was working in clinics and working in agencies or
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  Speaker 2: group practices. I you know, I've looked for I believe
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  Speaker 2: that we need to be in relationship and to do
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  Speaker 2: this work well and to sustain ourselves in a healthy
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  Speaker 2: way in this career. So that's always been something I've
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  Speaker 2: been looking for, and this opportunity in the last couple
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  Speaker 2: of years to create this complex trauma training center has
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  Speaker 2: been you know, very very much. What's the word, like
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  Speaker 2: a I don't know, actualizing something that's been a dream
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  Speaker 2: of mine for a long time and it's been really
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  Speaker 2: exciting to be part of that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that. So what did you want
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  Speaker 1: to do when you How did you come up? How
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  Speaker 1: did you get to the point where like I want
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  Speaker 1: to I want to create this center and why?
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  Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much to this question. It's again
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  Speaker 2: a great question. I think. One of the things is
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  Speaker 2: like in the you know, I was in the Somatic
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  Speaker 2: Experiencing community for a long time. One of the things
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  Speaker 2: that I heard a lot of people complaining about is
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  Speaker 2: like once they finished the training, it's a three year
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  Speaker 2: training there and this has changed a lot since then,
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  Speaker 2: But back in the old days, there was nothing left
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  Speaker 2: to do, like unless you were going to become an
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  Speaker 2: assistant for the trainings, like there was nothing else. So
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  Speaker 2: it's like you went so deep into this community and
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  Speaker 2: then boom, you're done and you're gone, and yeah, people stay,
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  Speaker 2: you know a little bit in relationship, but there's nothing
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  Speaker 2: that people can come back to to feel that community support.
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  Speaker 2: And so that was just something I really started listening
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  Speaker 2: to and feeling in myself. And so when Larry and
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  Speaker 2: I started getting together and we created the arm Train Institute,
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  Speaker 2: that was something that I was bringing about my desire
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  Speaker 2: to kind of create a professional home for people. And
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  Speaker 2: so that's kind of been my development of wanting to
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  Speaker 2: really even expand it beyond just norm therapists, which is
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  Speaker 2: why you know, we ended up creating the Complex Trauma
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  Speaker 2: Training Center because we wanted it to be a community
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  Speaker 2: that people could come from, different clinical backgrounds, different modalities
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  Speaker 2: that people use to really learn these very core principles
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  Speaker 2: of like what it is like to be a huge
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  Speaker 2: human that is practicing these modalities and how do we
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  Speaker 2: be human together and learn together, grow together, support each
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  Speaker 2: other with all of our really difficult clients and cases.
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  Speaker 2: And yeah, so that was really a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: impetus of what I was feeling into and starting to
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  Speaker 2: dream up that's really cool.
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  Speaker 1: So not merely a community to support the professional development,
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  Speaker 1: but a community to support the human development, which feeds
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  Speaker 1: obviously feeds into one's professional development exactly. Yeah, yeah, wow wow,
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  Speaker 1: very cool. So all right, that's the Complex Trauma Training
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  Speaker 1: Center and as you said, like anyone from any background
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  Speaker 1: can join that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have different programs. I mean, we offer NORM training,
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  Speaker 2: so for people that want to get clinically trained in
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  Speaker 2: armed we offer those, which is awesome. But we've been
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  Speaker 2: developing more what we call these inside out programs for therapists.
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  Speaker 2: So we have one this year that we launched called SPACE.
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  Speaker 2: It's an acronym. It's for Supporting Presence, Awareness, Connection and
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  Speaker 2: Embodiment for therapists. And it's like inside out learning, so
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  Speaker 2: it's not like we're teaching a whole set of curriculum.
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  Speaker 2: We're basically taking topics that are very common topics for therapists,
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  Speaker 2: like different topics around counter transference and other patterns that
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  Speaker 2: come up, and we're really exploring it both internally for
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  Speaker 2: ourselves and in relationship to this community that we're all
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: kind of sharing our learning together. So we're creating this
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  Speaker 2: really cool opportunity to really kind of from do inside
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  Speaker 2: out learning, and the next year we're creating new programs
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  Speaker 2: about specific topics. For example, we're going to do a
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  Speaker 2: topic an inside out workshop on narcissism. So instead of
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  Speaker 2: us focusing on calling everyone else a narcissists and diagnosing
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  Speaker 2: our clients, we're going to get to know how it
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  Speaker 2: lives inside of us and yeah, how it's impacted us
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  Speaker 2: from our family systems, and looking at our shadow material
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  Speaker 2: and what we project out onto other people, what we
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  Speaker 2: can you know, we have this exercise like think about
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  Speaker 2: an authority figure or celebrity or someone in power and
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  Speaker 2: think about you like a negative reaction you have to them,
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  Speaker 2: and see if you can locate, like where that's coming
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  Speaker 2: from inside of you and if there's something inside of
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  Speaker 2: yourself that you don't like that you're seeing in them.
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  Speaker 2: And it is a little challenging and evocative and sometimes
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  Speaker 2: even a little painful, but again we go with this
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  Speaker 2: belief that we can't take our clients to places that
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  Speaker 2: we haven't been ourselves, and so doing this internal work,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: and even the three of us as teachers before we
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: go into the class, the three of us are doing
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: these exercises together on each other or with each other
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  Speaker 2: is a better way to say it. And so we're
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: going in and then we share some of that transparently,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: so that we're not like these experts that are there
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  Speaker 2: to teach you something. We're there because we are doing
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  Speaker 2: this material alongside you.
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  Speaker 1: All love that. Let me just remind everyone. Speaking with
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  Speaker 1: Brad Kamer, founder and director of the Complex Trauma Training
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  Speaker 1: Center and co author along with doctor Lawrence Teller, of
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  Speaker 1: The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma. All right, let's
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: get into this book. Yeah, so, which I have right
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  Speaker 1: here again, show everybody workbook implies it germinated from another text.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, okay, what is that? Okay, there's a lineage of text.
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  Speaker 2: So it started with doctor Lawrence Teller and Allen Lapierre.
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  Speaker 2: They put together the first NORM book that came out,
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  Speaker 2: I believe in twenty twelve. It was called Healing Developmental
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  Speaker 2: Trauma that presented the theory of NORM and it was
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  Speaker 2: the very best best selling book within the field of
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: you know, trauma and psychotherapy. And over the years their
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: publisher has gotten so many requests for like more clinical
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: work because it was it was their first attempt to
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: really formulate this ARM model. And again, beautiful book, a
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: lot of great theory, a little bit of clinical work,
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: but not a lot We've developed so much of the
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: clinical model since those early days where Larry and Aleen
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: were putting that together. So they were asking Larry all
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: the time, like, hey, when's the follow up clinical book?
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  Speaker 2: And so Larry and I started working on that and
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  Speaker 2: put out in twenty twenty two, which I think maybe
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: was the last time I was here, I'm not quite sure,
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  Speaker 2: but we came out with The Practical Guide for Healing
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  Speaker 2: Developmental Trauma. Now that was supposed to be a workbook
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  Speaker 2: and it turned into you know, four hundred plus pages
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  Speaker 2: because we hadn't really presented to the world the clinical
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: model yet, and so it was a little premature tost
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: to do a workbook when we hadn't you presented the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: clinical model. So we basically took what we were doing
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: in our clinical trainings and we made it into this
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: book that does have a lot of like work booky
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  Speaker 2: kind of things in it, like it has some tips
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: and some exercises, but it wasn't an easy desktop reference
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: because you have to read these long chapters if you
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: want to really kind of understand it. So and then
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: after that, you know, people started saying, like this is awesome,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: but like we need something we can have on our
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: desk when we're working with our clients, and so that's
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  Speaker 2: where the workbook came up. And it's hard. It's hard
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: to create such a sophisticated model like NARM into a workbook.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: So the workbook is one hundred pages still, and we
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: tried to make it very user friendly, where the chapters
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: are very short and we have images, and we have
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: places people can write in the book itself for reflective
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: exercises or clinical things are doing with their clients. But
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: it was a challenge to kind of make it user
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: friendly since the models is such a depth oriented, complex model.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: So we obviously have a lot of therapists coaches listening
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to this podcast, so break it down a little for us,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: get a little specific. How what are they going to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: find when they get this and look through this.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so they are going to find the core of
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: the norm clinical approach. So it is designed primarily for
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: therapists and people that work with complex trauma, but we
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: do offer ARM trainings for coaches and people that aren't
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: licensed therapists and educators, people in different fields that are
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: wanting to take the ARM skills. So that's what we
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: tried to do. We tried to kind of present the
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: basic NORM skills so they could learn about them, experience
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: them themselves, and then apply them. Of course, you can
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: never fully learn a model out of a book like this,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: but start to at least get a feel for how
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: these skills might be useful for the work they're doing.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: That was really our intention to make it as accessible
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: and user friendly as possible.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So let me just open this up here.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: All right, I got it too.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Adaptive Survival Styles is one section NORM, the four pillars NORM,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: relational model, NORM, emotional completion model. How might someone utilize
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: this book? Let's say have a client in mind. Maybe
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: you can search your database and use someone or as
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: an example, but walk us through how they might use
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the book.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Well, okay, let's say they have a client that they're
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: feeling pretty stuck with. They can start from the beginning
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: of how we start a NORM, which is pillar number one,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: which is what we call clarifying the therapy to contract.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: And this sounds so easy on paper, and it's really
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: complicated in real time with clients. It's basically just asking
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: them like what are they most wanting for themselves out
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: of being in therapy with us? Like what are they
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: hoping they would get for themselves if they could have
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: a magic wand even like what would they get for themselves?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Clients are usually not coming in oriented to that. They're
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: not oriented to their heart's desire. They're oriented to the
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: symptoms or their distress that they just want to get
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: rid of or quiet down. And so we start there.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: It's okay, clients come in and they're going to start
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: by I'm working too much or I'm yelling at my
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: kids too much, like that's a behavior that they want
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: to stop, or they a symptom that they want to
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: get rid of. And but we go further, and so
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: then we're going to in the book. In the workbook,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: you're going to see that we start. We have an
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: acronym for the first pillar. It's called aim Aim. So
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: we'll start by just asking that general question like what
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: would you like for yourself? What would you hope for yourself?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: And then they might share something behavioral out like I'll
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: stop yelling at my kids or whatever. And then the
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I is the impact question. So we'll follow it up
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: by saying, so, if you were able to stop yelling
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: at your kids, you know, what do you hope that
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: that's going to bring for your life. How is your
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: life going to look different if you were able to
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: do that? And that starts to get us into more
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: of this territory about these internal states that humans are
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: wanting to return home to. It goes back to the
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: self concept. It's like, we want to ultimately just feel
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: good in our lives, good in ourselves, connected to ourselves, connected,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: having capacity to be connected with other people. So as
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: they're able to get into those internal states that they
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: most desire, which for some clients takes multiple sessions. It
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't always just happen right away, but as they are.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Then the last piece of it is what we call
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: m mirroring, is that we will do NORMI is very
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: based on consent, so then we will reflect it back.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: So okay, so I hear you'd like to explore getting
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: greater peace in your life. I'm just making that up.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: So if you stop you going at your kids, you're
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: going to have greater peace in your life. And then
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: the m would be, you know, I'm happy to explore
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: what's getting in the way of you having more of
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: that peace in your life. And then we've now set
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the stage for starting to explore the different strategies, the
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: different patterns that are getting in the way of their
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: heart's desire, getting in the way of what they most
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: want for themselves, and that then moves us into pillar two,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: which then they can start looking at them what we
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: call asking exploratory questions. So then the way that we
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: start asking certain questions to try to deconstruct some of
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: those obstacles that are in their way of connecting to themselves.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Now, is this hypothetical client or this is for clients
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: who've experienced developmental trauma?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I mean, you know, again, we run the
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: risk of flattening the concept of trauma if we over
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: extend it, so I'm aware of that. But you know,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: it seems pretty likely that people are on a spectrum
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: of experiencing developmental trauma. There are definitely people that are
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: that have experienced such significant, profound development attachment intergenerational trauma
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: that it leads to some of the really significant or
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: severe mental health conditions personality disorders, schizophrenia. Again, we don't
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: know exactly the cause and effect of how that happens,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: but I think we've had literature and research long enough,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: going all the way back to psychoanalysis, that our earliest
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: moments of life impact our development, the impact our neuro development.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: We use a lot of the ACES research to understand
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: that and that that does affect the way that we
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: kind of show up. So yeah, we're working with those
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: impact of developmental trauma. And there is a kind of
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: a different spectrum for each client. So for example, if
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: you look at the chapter the section that talks about
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: the norm personality spectrum, that's how we talk about a spectrum,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: and we use that to assess our clients where they're
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: falling on a spectrum. They can actually use it themselves
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: if they're interested, they can score themselves or therapists can
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: score their clients. It's not like an evidence based, like
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: fully scientifically validated model, but it's a clinically useful model
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: for tracking ten different psycho biological capacities that clients have
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: and scoring them on each of those ten one to
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: ten on each of these ten different levels of psycho
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: biological capacity, and then coming up with the score. So
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: let's say this client scores forty five. Again, this is
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: a subjective thing that the therapists might do with or
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: for the client, and then that helps us to start
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to adapt and inform the clinical approach that we're going
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: to take because the client has different capacities at different areas,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: and we also get to track progress over time, like
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: maybe they started at a lower score, but now they're
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: scoring higher. So again, this is something that they can
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: pull out and use after a session and score their
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: clients and kind of track that as they go in
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: their notes.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: What do you feel, kind of stepping back a little bit,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: what do you feel differentiates this this, this workbook, this
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: model from you mentioned semitic experiencing or any of the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: other ones.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: One of the things that we get the most feedback
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: is pillar three, which is what we call reinforcing agency.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: That's a really big piece that people that come who
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: have trained in all these different models I F. S, EMDR,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: you know, all the different acronyms, they say that one
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: of the most differentiating factors is, at least in the
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: clinical model, is about the pillar number three, which is
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: about reinforcing agency that we're we're our our invitations, our
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: interventions are very much designed to support clients to become
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: more aware and more connected to the ways that they're
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: organizing themselves internally and then relating to their experience. So,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: for example, I mean. You know. This is example I
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: given my teaching a lot. It's like you're walking back
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: from the bathroom at work and you see a coworker
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: kind of coming past you going to the bathroom. You
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: say hi, and they don't say hi back. What do
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: you do with that experience? Like, you know, what does
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: the person do? They started telling themselves maybe that oh,
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I'm unlikable, no one likes me here. I knew this
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: was the truth, you know, and then later you find
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: out that the person just got a text that someone
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: died in their family and they were running to the
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: bathroom to cry. They didn't even see you or hear
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: you because they were just trying to get to the bathroom.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: It had nothing to do with you. But you organized
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: yourself around this deep message of being unlovable, being not accepted,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: not welcomed, and then you start to relate to your
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: internal experience and maybe even started not liking them or
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: being mean to them, rejecting them, because you are now
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: responding to these old messages that are kind of these
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: very deep we call them shame based identifications that go
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: back way into childhood. The way that we learn to
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: internalize the failures that were happening and make them personal
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: about us, which then leads to negative self concept.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So we go in, I know nothing about that, Brad,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: no idea what you're talking about?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's the thing we all. You know,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: it's evocative territory because we do this all the time.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And and so getting more of this kind of we
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: use the short term language of like adult consciousness, like
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: getting more of a kind of an adult perspective on
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: these old strategies we developed as a child is kind
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: of a game changer. And again it's top down, bottom up,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: So some of it is about developing more self awareness
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: and insight, and some of it is about actually how
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: we shift how these shame based identifications are being held
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: in our bodies. And so we're kind of simultaneously working
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: top down, bottom up, and through the relationship. The last
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: piece I'll just share here is that when this isn't
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: in this book, but when we go into more advanced
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: training on norm we work a lot in the relationship
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: and what we work around relational enactments, and basically that
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: like when we come into relationships, we're bringing in these
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: old messages, these old ways of being, and we're sometimes
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: recruiting people into relationships to evoke these old patterns, and
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: so we can kind of work with the clients' ways
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: of projecting or transferring onto us what that evokes for
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: us as therapists, and how to work more in that
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: relational field. And that's that's really exciting work. It's also
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: a little scary because it's like very real time with
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: how the relationship is unfolding. But it can be really
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: dynamic work to unravel some of these relational trauma patterns.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Wow. All right. Once again, the book is called Healing
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: Developmental Trauma. It's workbook tools and techniques from the neuro
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: effective Relational model. Uh wow, all right, intense. So again
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: four therapists, coaches, anyone interested in working with what developmental trauma?
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and even clients. Some clients really love to
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: like learn more about themselves. It can be you know,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of therapists use psycho education, and so clients
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: can use it people that want to do self that
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: are interested in self help. We hope this will be
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: a book both the last actually all three of the
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: NORM books have been written in a way that there
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: is a lot of theory, but we've tried to also
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: write it so people could pick it up off the
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: self help, you know section and use some of the
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: exercises for themselves, even if they're not mental health or
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: other helping professionals.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right, all right, Bret, how do people learn
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: more about you, your work and the book.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can visit us at Complex Trauma Training Center
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: dot com. We also have a podcast which Guy has
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: been on before called the Transforming Trauma Podcasts, which you know,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: we've been very inspired by your Trauma Therapists podcasts here.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: And yeah, we have programs clinical training starting next year
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: early next year January for norm if you want to
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: become an arm therapist. We have this space program for
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: people that from all different clinical backgrounds that want to
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: learn more about this internal and relational and actually it
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: has a spiritual element to these inside out learning programs
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: that we have. And yeah, we just are excited to
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: continue to create a professional community where people can feel
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: supported and come in and out of different events or
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: programs and get as much or as little support as
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: you're looking for to help you in your profession.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Awesome, all right. We'll have each of those linked up
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: here at the show Notes Trauma Theraispodcast dot com. Brad
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: As always appreciate you so inspiring. The book is incredible,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: and I love what you're doing. It's just yeah, I mean,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I think it's needed for therapists, and it's it's kind
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: of crazy that the state of training for therapists at
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: this point that so much is needed once they get out,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you know. But I'm glad that you're there to catch everyone.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's true. I mean we could, we could
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: have a whole nother conversation about the state of graduate
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: programs at this point. It's it's kind of sad, actually,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: but so the good news is that, you know, for
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: people that have resources, there's a lot of great programs
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: out there, and so you know, we're doing what we
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: can to to you know, evolve this field.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: All right, appreciate you. We'll be in touch.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: I appreciate you. Thank you so much.