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From the archives: Linda Gantt, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Are Today we even another episode from the archives with
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Speaker 1: one of my incredible guests. Enjoy Welcome to the Trauma
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Speaker 1: Thepists podcast, a show about the incredible people dedicated to
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Speaker 1: helping those who experienced trauma. My name is Gy macpherson,
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Speaker 1: and my mission is to raise awareness of trauma and
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Speaker 1: to inspire.
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Speaker 2: Each of us to help those around us. Welcome to
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Speaker 2: the Trauma Therapist Podcast.
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Speaker 3: My name is Gay McPherson, and this is the podcast
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Speaker 3: where we're interviewing master trauma therapists from all over the
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Speaker 3: world to learn about what inspires them and the steps
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Speaker 3: they've taken to become masters in their field. If you're
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Speaker 3: a trauma therapist, if you're interested in trauma therapy, or
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Speaker 3: if you're simply really passionate about helping other people, this.
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Speaker 2: Is it today.
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Speaker 3: I am so excited to introduce my guest, Linda Gant.
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Speaker 2: Linda, are you ready to go?
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Speaker 4: I am all right.
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Speaker 3: Linda Cant has a Master of Arts in art therapy
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Speaker 3: and a doctorate in interdisciplinary Studies. She's the owner and
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Speaker 3: executive director of Intensive Trauma Therapy in Morgantown, West Virginia,
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Speaker 3: an outpatient clinic for trauma related disorders. Where art therapy
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Speaker 3: is a primary means of treatment. Linda is also the
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Speaker 3: co developer, along with Carmelo tabone of the formal elements
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Speaker 3: ART therapy scale and instrument designed from measuring diagnostic information
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Speaker 3: and drawings. All right, Linda, so just a little bit
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Speaker 3: about you share with us where you're calling from, and
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Speaker 3: perhaps a little bit of personal information, and then we'll
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Speaker 3: get going.
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Speaker 4: All right, Well, I'm calling from West Virginia, from the
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Speaker 4: northern part of West Virginia where West Virginia University is,
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Speaker 4: and I live in a beautiful area called Lake Woods.
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Speaker 4: And this was a place that my late husband, Lieutenant
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Speaker 4: and I had found almost by accident, and we moved
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Speaker 4: out here because Luke could fish out of his front yard.
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Speaker 4: So that was a wonderful discovery that we had of
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Speaker 4: Morgantown and we lived here happily ever after. So lou
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Speaker 4: was quite a passionate person who was an amazing man
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Speaker 4: of many, many interests. And you had contacted me shortly
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Speaker 4: after he had died, and you didn't realize that that's
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Speaker 4: what happened. But I wanted to give you a sense
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Speaker 4: of what his personality was like just by just describing
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Speaker 4: the picture we used for the program that we did
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Speaker 4: for his memorial service, and it's one of them out
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Speaker 4: on our lake on his windsurfer in his tuxedo, holding
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Speaker 4: a glass of wine and a cigar in one hand
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Speaker 4: as he guides the sale of the wind surfer. And
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Speaker 4: this was taken and when he wanted to show some
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Speaker 4: college friends of mine what kind of man I had married.
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Speaker 4: And so he came out of the house without a
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Speaker 4: word to any of us as we were sitting there
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Speaker 4: by the lake, and he hopped on the windsurfer, sailed
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Speaker 4: across the lake, turned around, and came back and one
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Speaker 4: of our friends snapped the picture as he started to
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Speaker 4: alight on the dock. But that gives you some sense
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Speaker 4: of what this man was like. He was a lot
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Speaker 4: of fun and he was a passionate person. He was
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Speaker 4: especially interested in trauma, and people around West Virginia have
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Speaker 4: been calling us man Paw Trauma because we were sort
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Speaker 4: of a fixture and a number of trauma conferences that
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Speaker 4: were sponsored by the university.
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Speaker 3: So just to frame this for our listeners, you know,
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Speaker 3: I reached out a while ago UH to Linda's husband,
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Speaker 3: Lieutenant Uh, to invite him to be on the podcast
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Speaker 3: and I guess, you know, several weeks had passed, and
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Speaker 3: then I got an email from you, Linda, and you know,
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Speaker 3: in that email, you inform me that actually Lou had
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Speaker 3: passed away, you know, pretty recently, so you know, and
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Speaker 3: and that was kind of it. And then I kind of,
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Speaker 3: I think after a couple of days, I kind of
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Speaker 3: emailed you back and said, I asked you if you'd
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Speaker 3: like to be on. So I think that, you know,
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Speaker 3: gives us a little bit of background for our listeners.
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Speaker 3: But let's kind of transition here, uh with our with
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Speaker 3: our first uh subject, Linda, which is the quote? You know,
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Speaker 3: this this podcast really is about learning about you and
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Speaker 3: what you've done, what's inspired you, So share with our
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Speaker 3: listeners a quote, if you will, a montro whatever, something
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Speaker 3: that's kind of guided you in your journey.
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Speaker 4: All right, Well, it was a quote or a mantra
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Speaker 4: that Lou and I had shared, and it's finished the
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Speaker 4: story because what we believed happens in trauma is that
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Speaker 4: a person dissociates at the time of going into the
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Speaker 4: biological freeze, and in that altered state that ensues, the
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Speaker 4: memory of what is happening is very much garbled or
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Speaker 4: fragmented or fractured, and as a result, when the person's
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Speaker 4: come out of that traumatic event, it's very difficult to
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Speaker 4: tell exactly what happened. I think a lot of therapists
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Speaker 4: are frustrated at the fragmented nature of many trauma memories
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Speaker 4: and don't know quite what to do about it. But
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Speaker 4: we had the idea that you really did need to
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Speaker 4: finish the story and then you could deal with other things,
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Speaker 4: such as what these various events meant in the life
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Speaker 4: of the individual. If you didn't finish the story, however,
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Speaker 4: a person was prone to having flashbacks and intrusive and
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Speaker 4: avoidant and arousal symptoms, all the things that we characterize
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Speaker 4: as being part of PTSD.
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Speaker 3: So finish the story. Now, When did that become apparent
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Speaker 3: for you? When did this idea of finishing the story
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Speaker 3: become apparent for you?
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Speaker 4: Well, it was probably the most vividly apparent when lou
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Speaker 4: was working at the university doing a comparison of three
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Speaker 4: different ways of getting the story. He used nitrous oxide
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Speaker 4: with one group, you know, laughing gas, and then with
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Speaker 4: another group you used sodium ammatol administered intravenously, and then
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Speaker 4: with the third group he used hypnosis. So the question
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Speaker 4: was of these people in these three different groups, which
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Speaker 4: ones derived the greatest benefit from this means of accessing
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Speaker 4: the material. And what he found was it really didn't
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Speaker 4: matter about the method of obtaining the story. What mattered
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Speaker 4: was that the story was actually finished. Because those people
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Speaker 4: who would go into an ab reaction and who would
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Speaker 4: get so bent out of shape by the details of
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Speaker 4: the story and would want to stop recounting what had happened,
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Speaker 4: those were the ones that who had the most difficulty. However,
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Speaker 4: the ones who finished the story even if it was difficult,
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Speaker 4: but it nonetheless came to a point where the person
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Speaker 4: could say, yes, I survived, then those people were the
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Speaker 4: ones who had the greatest benefit. And so that was
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Speaker 4: such a striking demonstration that you really had to get
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Speaker 4: all of the details of the story in order for
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Speaker 4: the person to feel that it was truly over.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's I think just so resonant with
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Speaker 3: you know, a lot of our listeners certainly, and how
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Speaker 3: we as clinicians along with our clients get to that
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Speaker 3: point of finishing the story and the ways, the different
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Speaker 3: ways that you know, we can go about doing that
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Speaker 3: is another topic which I want to get to before
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Speaker 3: we do. However, let's kind of take a step back
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Speaker 3: here and share with us, Linda, really, how you got
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Speaker 3: into this field of trauma, How you became became in
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Speaker 3: a sense to be known along with Lou as maw
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Speaker 3: and PAW trauma. You know, people get into this field
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Speaker 3: for a lot of different reasons. A lot of our
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Speaker 3: listeners are at various stages with their engagement in trauma
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Speaker 3: education and so forth. But share with us how you
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Speaker 3: got into this field. What drew you into it?
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Speaker 4: Well, it seems like it was in the dark ages
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Speaker 4: because we're talking about my career spanning forty years. Lou's
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Speaker 4: career spanned fifty years. And you know, when I began
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Speaker 4: in my career, nobody talked about trauma. So we're talking
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Speaker 4: about the early nineteen seventies, and at that time, Lou
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Speaker 4: was the chief of psychiatry at a general hospital in
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Speaker 4: the Washington, DC area, and I was the first start
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Speaker 4: therapist who was hired there, and so he and I
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Speaker 4: started getting extremely interested in the subject of psychosis. And
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Speaker 4: people who were in my art therapy groups were there
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Speaker 4: because they couldn't go into the verbal groups. They couldn't talk.
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Speaker 4: They were acutely psychotic, but they could do artwork. Sometimes
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Speaker 4: the artwork was pretty rudimentary, but we were very interested
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Speaker 4: in how the psychotic symptoms were expressed through the art.
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Speaker 4: We also had a dance movement therapist and an occupational therapist,
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Speaker 4: and so the three of us worked with these very difficult,
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Speaker 4: essentially nonverbal patients. Well, nobody did anything though in terms
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Speaker 4: of assessing for trauma. At that time. The concern was
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Speaker 4: if you ask people about any kind of trauma history,
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Speaker 4: it would be opening a can of worms. And at
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Speaker 4: that time people were just thinking of trauma being something
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Speaker 4: like sexual abuse. They weren't thinking about medical trauma, about
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Speaker 4: combat trauma. And this was before the third edition of
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Speaker 4: the DSM came out and had PTSD in it, and
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Speaker 4: of course, your listeners to the Trauma Podcast, I'm sure
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Speaker 4: quite familiar with the way that the veterans groups had
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Speaker 4: lobbied the people who were working on the DSM to say, hey,
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Speaker 4: wait a minute, we've got something that is a disorder
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Speaker 4: that needs to be included in that Bible of psychiatry. Now,
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Speaker 4: Lou had a private practice at this same time, and
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Speaker 4: he had a lot of patients who were on lithium
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Speaker 4: he got an investigator's license in order to study the
11:50
Speaker 4: use of lithium, and he would periodically have to hospitalize
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Speaker 4: some of the people in his private practice. And we
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Speaker 4: saw together one case of a woman who had what
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Speaker 4: was called at that time multiple personality disorder, and her
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Speaker 4: artwork was an important key to what was going on
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Speaker 4: with her. In fact, she mailed in at one point
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Speaker 4: some artwork that she had done that was sort of
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Speaker 4: a It was kind of like a cryptogram or like
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Speaker 4: a puzzle that Lou and I had to try to
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Speaker 4: figure out. So we were very intrigued by the highly
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Speaker 4: dissociative patients, but you know, we didn't even have the
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Speaker 4: capacity to be able to talk about dissociation because everybody
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Speaker 4: was so focused on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder at that time.
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Speaker 4: So when we moved to West Virginia in nineteen seventy nine,
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Speaker 4: Lou took a job at a community mental health center
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Speaker 4: as the medical director, and I went on and started
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Speaker 4: working on my doctrin. But this freed us up to
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Speaker 4: start looking at some of the trauma presentations that the
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Speaker 4: American Psychiatric Association was having at that time. There weren't
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Speaker 4: many of them that were being offered, but there were
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Speaker 4: ones by Bennett Braun and Richard Kloft, and there wasn't
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Speaker 4: any research to speak of. Most of these presentations were
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Speaker 4: about some of the clinical aspects, lots of case studies
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Speaker 4: and so forth. So we got very intrigued with those presentations.
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Speaker 4: And then the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies is
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Speaker 4: s TSS and what is now called i SSTD the
13:55
Speaker 4: International Society for the Study of Trauma and Association were
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Speaker 4: just fled organizations, and boy talk about passionate people. Those
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Speaker 4: trauma therapists were really so excited to be able to
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Speaker 4: get together with other clinicians and start comparing notes. And
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Speaker 4: of course those two organizations are fabulous places for people
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Speaker 4: to go and get really the best of the best
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Speaker 4: in the way of research and presentation and clinical advice.
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Speaker 3: So yeah, so you you share the story of you know,
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Speaker 3: kind of when you just started working out and you're
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Speaker 3: using uh, you know, drawings and art therapy in the
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Speaker 3: sense to work with individuals who had schizophrenia, and even
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Speaker 3: trauma really wasn't talked about certainly at that time. You know,
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Speaker 3: you talked about it as uh you know, if you
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Speaker 3: if you spoke about it, you'd certainly be opening up.
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Speaker 2: A can of work.
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Speaker 3: And then what was the transition, Linda, that for you
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Speaker 3: where you said, this is something I'm interested in or
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Speaker 3: passionate about or curious about. At what point did did
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Speaker 3: trauma become something that you wanted to pursue?
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Speaker 4: Oh goodness is it was not so much a sudden
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Speaker 4: thing as it was just a gradual kind of revelation.
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Speaker 4: Like everything that I read or heard about in these
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Speaker 4: clinical conferences just got more and more intriguing, and lou
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Speaker 4: and I would talk about about these things that we
15:39
Speaker 4: had seen or these patients we were treating, and it
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Speaker 4: was it was just something that was so riveting. Now
15:51
Speaker 4: we had the idea that we would be able to
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Speaker 4: write a grand theory of psychosis. And after we started
16:01
Speaker 4: going to these larger national meetings, we said, whoops, we
16:06
Speaker 4: better change direction, because trauma is where it's at. So
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Speaker 4: I think it was a kind of gradual sort of change,
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Speaker 4: but a very significant one.
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Speaker 3: Sure, sure, I completely understand that I didn't mean to
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Speaker 3: imply that it was just a light bulb moment.
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Speaker 2: But all right, so Linda, let's let's move along here.
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Speaker 3: You know, we talked a little bit about, uh, you know,
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Speaker 3: what what the process of you getting into this field.
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Speaker 2: You started off with that.
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Speaker 3: Quote in a sense, now share with us kind of
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Speaker 3: an early clinical error. You made something, uh you know
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Speaker 3: that that happened maybe when you were just starting out
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Speaker 3: or maybe even recently. But how that impacted you and
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Speaker 3: how it kind of informed the work you do.
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Speaker 4: Well. I think that we realized that the clinical errors
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Speaker 4: were in not really paying enough attention to, uh, the
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Speaker 4: what the person was trying to tell us without having
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Speaker 4: the words for it. So I think that the story
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Speaker 4: or the information I've given you about lose comparison of
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Speaker 4: those three different groups, this nitrous oxide group and the
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Speaker 4: sodium amitol group and the hypnosis group, that there were
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Speaker 4: mistakes made in the in the treatment of those individuals
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Speaker 4: and that had to be uh what corrected. It's like
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Speaker 4: doing a mop up operation, uh you know when I
17:44
Speaker 4: can also think of one woman who came into the
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Speaker 4: general hospital who was a lovely person who was just
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Speaker 4: so nice to talk to when she was and highly dissociative.
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Speaker 4: But she would get triggered, although I didn't know what
18:05
Speaker 4: that word was at the time, she would get into
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Speaker 4: a childlike state and there was nothing that I could
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Speaker 4: do to get her back because I didn't know the
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Speaker 4: principles of grounding. Nobody in our hospital talked about grounding.
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Speaker 4: It wasn't a concept that I really learned until I
18:24
Speaker 4: would say until sometime in the mid eighties. And now
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Speaker 4: grounding is something I think every therapist needs to know
18:36
Speaker 4: in order to make certain that you don't put a
18:40
Speaker 4: person into a state that they're not going to be
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Speaker 4: able to easily get in their car and drive home
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Speaker 4: after a session.
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Speaker 3: So, okay, I appreciate you sharing that, And I guess now,
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Speaker 3: you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself.
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Speaker 2: You know, you started off by saying, finish this story.
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Speaker 3: And you know, I know at your facility, Intensive Trauma Therapy,
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Speaker 3: you know, you guys do trainings so forth. How what
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Speaker 3: is your process of working through that or towards finishing
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Speaker 3: that story?
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Speaker 2: How talk to us a little bit about about that, Linda.
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Speaker 4: Well, we have a structure that we use at Intensive
19:26
Speaker 4: Trauma Therapy that is built on the concept of the
19:30
Speaker 4: instinctual trauma response. Now, there have been a number of
19:33
Speaker 4: people like Peter Levine, Ellert nine who's and Bob Scare
19:38
Speaker 4: who talk about the importance of the freeze and what
19:44
Speaker 4: we had done was to kind of elaborate on the
19:48
Speaker 4: process of going into a trauma and giving people what
19:52
Speaker 4: essentially is the nonverbal truth of a traumatic event. Regardless
20:01
Speaker 4: of the event, whether it's a medical trauma or a
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Speaker 4: natural disaster or a fire, or domestic violence or sexual abuse,
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Speaker 4: it all all those things follow essentially the same kind
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Speaker 4: of pattern when you so we tell people when they're
20:19
Speaker 4: doing their processing and drawing pictures of their their trauma
20:26
Speaker 4: that they start off with a before picture, and then
20:29
Speaker 4: a startle picture, then the thwarted attempt to fight or flee,
20:34
Speaker 4: and then when that doesn't work, they go into a
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Speaker 4: freeze and then into the altered state of consciousness and
20:42
Speaker 4: then into automatic obedience. And not in every trauma, but
20:48
Speaker 4: in those that involve another person, that's usually the case.
20:53
Speaker 4: And all through those those different aspects of the instinctual
20:59
Speaker 4: trauma response, you have body sensations that later become the
21:06
Speaker 4: symptoms that are so troubling. You know, it's not the words,
21:09
Speaker 4: but it's the bodily experience of what the person is
21:13
Speaker 4: going through that is really the key. And so many
21:19
Speaker 4: symptoms are things that seem kind of baffling, but when
21:25
Speaker 4: you put them in the context of what actually happened
21:29
Speaker 4: in the trauma. Then you're going to recontextualize them and
21:36
Speaker 4: they cease to be symptoms. But anyway, I was explaining
21:39
Speaker 4: the different pictures that a person draws, So they're going
21:45
Speaker 4: in the sequence of what we know to be the
21:49
Speaker 4: usual trauma sequence, and then we get to self repair
21:54
Speaker 4: and then to an after picture. And so we have
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Speaker 4: a series of pictures that can then be put on
22:03
Speaker 4: to the wall, penned up on a very big bulletin board,
22:08
Speaker 4: and the therapist can represent the story back to the
22:14
Speaker 4: person using as many of the person's words as possible.
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Speaker 4: And so this is something that a lot of therapists
22:24
Speaker 4: don't do, is to give this kind of feedback. The
22:27
Speaker 4: representation seems to be one of the most impactful aspects
22:31
Speaker 4: of our process of telling the story because we tell
22:39
Speaker 4: it again in the representation and it's clear then to
22:45
Speaker 4: the person that we heard what they had said, and
22:50
Speaker 4: also that the story is over with.
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Speaker 3: Now you're speaking about these different stages or drawings that
23:00
Speaker 3: client is going to be working on and working through.
23:05
Speaker 3: Obviously each client is going to be different, but over
23:09
Speaker 3: the course of how many weeks with a process like this, unfold.
23:13
Speaker 3: For example, I mean, would someone be working on one
23:16
Speaker 3: particular drawing or stage for several weeks or several monthels, Oh.
23:21
Speaker 4: No, No, In fact, it wouldn't be that long. Now,
23:26
Speaker 4: we have our intensive work, which is a substitute for hospitalization,
23:34
Speaker 4: and that's where people come for a week or two
23:38
Speaker 4: and work every day seven hours of therapy. That's what
23:43
Speaker 4: makes our program what we think to be a unique one.
23:48
Speaker 4: We haven't found any other place that does quite as
23:51
Speaker 4: many hours of therapy as we do. But we train
23:57
Speaker 4: people to also use this process in a more traditional,
24:02
Speaker 4: one time a week kind of delivery model, and so
24:07
Speaker 4: in that case, a person could do several of the
24:11
Speaker 4: drawings in one hour's session.
24:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
24:15
Speaker 3: It reminds me of one of the former previous guests
24:19
Speaker 3: I had on here, Gerald vest who works very closely
24:23
Speaker 3: and has for a long time with veterans, and he.
24:28
Speaker 2: Said something very similar.
24:29
Speaker 3: He said, you know, the treatment that he's talking specifically
24:35
Speaker 3: about veterans, but the treatment that these guys need is
24:39
Speaker 3: intense and it's constant. It's not just you know, this
24:44
Speaker 3: coming in once a week, and that ability to be
24:48
Speaker 3: with them for those many hours was just so therapeutic.
24:53
Speaker 2: For them. So your your program just sounds amazing and I'm.
24:56
Speaker 3: Just really excited to share that with our listeners here
25:00
Speaker 3: up on the show notes page.
25:01
Speaker 4: All right, well, let me also say about veterans. Uh,
25:06
Speaker 4: Lou did a lot of work with the Veterans Administration
25:09
Speaker 4: Hospital in Clarksburg, West Virginia, and so many of the
25:16
Speaker 4: techniques that we use were developed with the veterans in mind.
25:22
Speaker 2: Oh okay, nice.
25:24
Speaker 3: So this brings us, Linda to one of my favorite
25:28
Speaker 3: credit questions, which is why why you know, I really
25:31
Speaker 3: believe it's important. Uh, you know, we know why we're
25:35
Speaker 3: doing something because I feel it just inspires us on
25:38
Speaker 3: our journey.
25:39
Speaker 2: So let me let me put that to you. You
25:41
Speaker 2: know what, why do you keep doing this? You know,
25:46
Speaker 2: day after day?
25:48
Speaker 4: Because these are where the most exciting developments in mental
25:52
Speaker 4: health are. You know, when when you look at what
25:57
Speaker 4: we've learned of late, like, for instance, the Adverse Childhood
26:01
Speaker 4: Experiences Study, the a study, we've found out how maltreatment
26:07
Speaker 4: in childhood shortens a person's life by a decade or two. Right, Well,
26:13
Speaker 4: doesn't this give us all an impetus to do something
26:16
Speaker 4: about it? And then when we think, wow, something can
26:19
Speaker 4: be done. That's really exciting. You know, in these long careers,
26:29
Speaker 4: we've been able to see that even though there have
26:34
Speaker 4: been some amazing medications that have come online as far
26:39
Speaker 4: as trauma goes, those medications just take the edge off symptoms,
26:45
Speaker 4: but they don't cure the underlying problem. It's when the
26:50
Speaker 4: person is having so much dissociation or intrusive or avoidant
26:56
Speaker 4: symptoms that the past is weighing so heavily on the individual.
27:03
Speaker 4: Then you got to go back to what we started
27:06
Speaker 4: the interview with. You've got to finish the story and
27:08
Speaker 4: then the person can move forward.
27:12
Speaker 2: So, you know.
27:14
Speaker 3: What, what I'm really curious about is the intensity of
27:17
Speaker 3: your program. And you know, you said you work seven
27:20
Speaker 3: hours with these individuals. What is how do you start?
27:26
Speaker 3: For example? I'm just really curious about the process of,
27:31
Speaker 3: you know, building rapport and so forth. How does can
27:34
Speaker 3: you kind of give us ascription of what that might
27:39
Speaker 3: look like.
27:40
Speaker 4: Yes, well, of course, our staff would have already talked
27:45
Speaker 4: to the person who's coming into the program, and it
27:48
Speaker 4: might have been let's say, it's typical to have two
27:51
Speaker 4: telephone interviews before the person is ready to come in.
27:56
Speaker 4: Prior to those interviews, the person is already filled out
28:01
Speaker 4: three of our trauma assessments. When they arrive at the clinic,
28:05
Speaker 4: they'll fill out three more. And we're very big on
28:08
Speaker 4: doing outcome research. But on day one we say, we're
28:15
Speaker 4: going to let you experience all of the processes we're
28:20
Speaker 4: going to use to process the a trauma. And so
28:27
Speaker 4: from the time that we start with the guided imagery
28:32
Speaker 4: to the time we finish at the end of the
28:35
Speaker 4: day with the externalized dialogue, we will have given a
28:41
Speaker 4: person the sense of how you can take a trauma
28:46
Speaker 4: and put it into past history. And we start off
28:50
Speaker 4: by saying this is practice, but we use an event
28:55
Speaker 4: that people are not likely to remember, which would be
28:58
Speaker 4: either a baby in distress us, which we say, you
29:01
Speaker 4: know this is practice. You can make up a story,
29:03
Speaker 4: but you'll just learn how the process goes, or you
29:07
Speaker 4: if you had a difficult birth, you can do that
29:11
Speaker 4: because that a lot of people have information if they've
29:14
Speaker 4: had difficult a difficult birth, or it might be the
29:21
Speaker 4: something about the climate of the household in which the
29:26
Speaker 4: person grew up. But it's really pretty amazing. After we've
29:31
Speaker 4: done the psycho educational piece early in the morning and
29:35
Speaker 4: then we've taken them through these practice sessions that people say, oh,
29:40
Speaker 4: I see how this works, and I see that this
29:42
Speaker 4: is different from what I've done in therapy before, because
29:48
Speaker 4: we really get right down to what needs to be done.
29:53
Speaker 3: Now, are you working with individuals as a team or
29:58
Speaker 3: is it one on one or both?
30:00
Speaker 4: We're working We're working as a team.
30:02
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, that sounds that sounds really exciting.
30:06
Speaker 4: So and the important thing is that that any of
30:10
Speaker 4: the transference issues are generally transference to the clinic as
30:14
Speaker 4: a whole.
30:17
Speaker 2: Okay. So, so, Linda, you've been doing this for a while.
30:20
Speaker 3: You know, you've talked about, you know, the decades that
30:24
Speaker 3: your career has spanned. You know, many of our listeners
30:27
Speaker 3: are perhaps just beginning their trauma education. Some have been
30:32
Speaker 3: therapists for a while, but you know, maybe don't think
30:35
Speaker 3: that they've worked with trauma individuals or individuals have been
30:38
Speaker 3: suffering from trauma. What advice would you have for for
30:43
Speaker 3: someone a therapist who's interested in kind of beginning to
30:47
Speaker 3: work with trauma clients or individuals who suffered from trauma.
30:53
Speaker 4: Well, I think that there are a couple of things
30:56
Speaker 4: that I would advise. One is go get We had
31:00
Speaker 4: Bethel Vanderko's brand new book. I just got a copy
31:03
Speaker 4: of it recently, and I think he does a wonderful
31:07
Speaker 4: job synthesizing what has happened in over his career with
31:14
Speaker 4: respect to people being able to understand that trauma is
31:19
Speaker 4: so pervasive and yet so treatable. And then I would
31:23
Speaker 4: say to the beginning therapists who might be somewhat timid,
31:28
Speaker 4: is that they can get really good advanced training. You
31:32
Speaker 4: have to have specialized trauma training. You can't just rely
31:36
Speaker 4: on what you got in your graduate program, because if
31:41
Speaker 4: you were if you finished your graduate education four two thousand,
31:50
Speaker 4: or even twenty ten, the likelihood of having several courses
31:56
Speaker 4: devoted to traumas pretty low. In fact, I've talked to
32:02
Speaker 4: a lot of people who come to us for training,
32:04
Speaker 4: and I'll say, how many of you had a single
32:09
Speaker 4: course in trauma? And many people would not raise their
32:13
Speaker 4: hands because they just didn't have that kind of information.
32:17
Speaker 4: But I tell you, the number of publications we have
32:21
Speaker 4: in the field now is so wonderful and exciting. Their
32:25
Speaker 4: fabulous books available, And I think that if the beginning
32:31
Speaker 4: therapists would attach themselves to a study group in their area,
32:36
Speaker 4: or if there isn't one, Maybe they would put one together,
32:40
Speaker 4: get a couple of people for a pure supervision group,
32:43
Speaker 4: or are interested in trauma. That's a fantastic way to
32:47
Speaker 4: be able to dip your toe into the water.
32:51
Speaker 2: Sure. Sure.
32:52
Speaker 3: And that book you're referring to is The Body Keeps
32:56
Speaker 3: a Score by Besonnicock, which I'll have linked up in
32:58
Speaker 3: that completely agree as a phenomenal book. So, speaking of books, Linda,
33:04
Speaker 3: can you recommend too, either trauma related or not, which
33:10
Speaker 3: have really influenced the work that you do?
33:12
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, vander Cooke's earlier book back in nineteen eighty seven,
33:17
Speaker 4: called Psychological Trauma. He talked about the one woman who
33:24
Speaker 4: was quite psychotic, who was a survivor of the Coconut
33:30
Speaker 4: Grove nightclub fire, and she would have an anniversary reaction
33:34
Speaker 4: every year and be floridly psychotic when she would see
33:40
Speaker 4: the flames leaping up the walls of the room that
33:45
Speaker 4: she was in. And it was from that information that
33:55
Speaker 4: let us know we were on the right track and
33:57
Speaker 4: working with really acutely psychotic people, that it was something
34:02
Speaker 4: that was trauma based. And then you know Bob Scars
34:08
Speaker 4: book The Body Bears the Burden is wonderful because he
34:13
Speaker 4: comes from more of a medical perspective, and he also
34:18
Speaker 4: talks about pre verbal trauma, which is a special interest.
34:23
Speaker 4: You know, the artwork is so helpful for processing pre
34:29
Speaker 4: verbal trauma. Freud said that his patients told him they
34:34
Speaker 4: could draw their dreams rather than talk about them. It's
34:39
Speaker 4: too bad Freud didn't go ahead and take them up
34:42
Speaker 4: on that suggestion.
34:44
Speaker 3: So two books there, uh, Besille van Accock's Psychological Trauma
34:49
Speaker 3: and Bob Scares The Body Bears the Burden, you know,
34:53
Speaker 3: before you before we stop here, and I just I
34:56
Speaker 3: just really want to ask you this question. I mean,
35:00
Speaker 3: you know again you you have such a rich experience
35:04
Speaker 3: and you have a breadth of experience and knowledge.
35:07
Speaker 2: What do you think has shifted?
35:09
Speaker 3: And I know this is probably an impossible question, but
35:13
Speaker 3: what do you think has shifted for you from when
35:18
Speaker 3: you first started working with you know, individuals who've been
35:22
Speaker 3: traumatized to to now? I mean, is it just the
35:26
Speaker 3: way you approach someone? Is it your openness, is your
35:29
Speaker 3: ability to you know, draw from the years of experience
35:35
Speaker 3: you have, is your willingness just to uh not have
35:38
Speaker 3: to think like you have to you know, change something
35:41
Speaker 3: or fix something.
35:43
Speaker 2: Can you speak to that a little.
35:45
Speaker 4: Well, I would say that what seems to have changed
35:49
Speaker 4: for me, guy, is I've really developed the conviction that
35:57
Speaker 4: trauma is the most treatable of all the male health disorders,
36:02
Speaker 4: and knowing that gives me a lot of passion, and uh,
36:14
Speaker 4: it certainly informs my training that I give to other clinicians.
36:21
Speaker 4: H I feel like the it's really hard for us
36:28
Speaker 4: as society to recognize how badly we treat other members
36:35
Speaker 4: of our society, especially our youngest members. But if we
36:42
Speaker 4: could accept that that we there are things we can
36:46
Speaker 4: do to prevent people from having such traumatic lives, and
36:52
Speaker 4: we could also see that we can treat the people
36:57
Speaker 4: who have had such histories and that we can get
37:02
Speaker 4: some some amazing progress, then I think that's that's really
37:14
Speaker 4: the most exciting thing that.
37:17
Speaker 2: I was just gonna say. I appreciate that.
37:18
Speaker 3: I mean that that conviction, having that conviction, But it
37:23
Speaker 3: also seems having that conviction born of the years of
37:28
Speaker 3: experience you have and what you know, the weight that
37:31
Speaker 3: carries with it for you in the treatment room or
37:35
Speaker 3: with with the clients you work with. So thank you
37:38
Speaker 3: for sharing that. So, Linda, what's the best way for
37:41
Speaker 3: people to get in touch with you.
37:45
Speaker 4: I'll give you two email addresses. One would be for
37:48
Speaker 4: our general program. That would be info at Trauma Therapy
37:53
Speaker 4: dot US like United States, and my personal email, Linda
38:02
Speaker 4: at Trauma Therapy dot U.
38:05
Speaker 3: S Okay, so two emails again, they'll be up on
38:10
Speaker 3: the show notes page. And your website. Uh, let's see
38:18
Speaker 3: here Intensive Trauma Therapy. That'll be linked up. You have, uh,
38:25
Speaker 3: you know, information on your training institute, publication resources, anything
38:30
Speaker 3: you want to share with us about the website, well.
38:36
Speaker 4: It's thundergoing a revision.
38:37
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, awesome, we'll link that up. Linda.
38:41
Speaker 3: I want to thank you so much, and really especially
38:44
Speaker 3: because of the context you know in which this took place,
38:47
Speaker 3: but you've been just so gracious and I really appreciate
38:52
Speaker 3: you taking the time to share your experience.
38:55
Speaker 4: It's been lovely talking to you. And I'll say the
38:59
Speaker 4: same thing that Garrison Keeler says, go and do good work,
39:03
Speaker 4: all right, touch take care Okay.