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Trauma is a Moving Target with Georgina Smith, PhD · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this 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. Super excited to have us make
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  Speaker 1: us today. Doctor Georgina Smith, Georgina welcome.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
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  Speaker 1: You are welcome. So doctor Smith is a founder of
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  Speaker 1: Revolve Recovery, a trauma focused iop and California, and creator
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  Speaker 1: of the Trauma Ecology Integration Model or TEIM. TEIM used
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  Speaker 1: trauma as a dynamic ecology shape not only by individual experience,
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  Speaker 1: but also by relational, generational, institutional, and cultural ecosystems. This
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  Speaker 1: approach reframes healing beyond individual resilience, helping both clinicians and
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  Speaker 1: clients understand trauma's wider or of harm and adaptation. All right, Georgina,
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  Speaker 1: just a little bit about you initial there, but before
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  Speaker 1: we going share with the listeners where you're from originally
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  Speaker 1: and where you are.
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  Speaker 3: Currently well personally, I'm from a small island in the
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  Speaker 3: UK called Guernsey, which no one's often heard of. But
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  Speaker 3: I obviously have been here a long time, as you
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  Speaker 3: can tell by my accent.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I came.
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  Speaker 3: Out to college in California to USC and knew for
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  Speaker 3: a very long time that psychology was going to be
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  Speaker 3: my passion.
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  Speaker 2: But that's where I began.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, well let's kind of continue on with that. How
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  Speaker 1: how did all this start for you? How did you
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  Speaker 1: know psychology?
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  Speaker 3: So I think I'm not speaking alone here when I
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  Speaker 3: say I'm a survivor of trauma. And it was that journey,
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  Speaker 3: and actually my brother's journey that really created my passion
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  Speaker 3: for understanding suffering in the long term impact and reverberations.
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  Speaker 3: It has not just within the body the mind, but
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  Speaker 3: so contextually. And I survived the trauma, my brother did not.
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  Speaker 3: And what I noticed, and I think when he passed away,
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  Speaker 3: the seed was born in me of what would he
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  Speaker 3: have needed to step into.
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  Speaker 2: Because there was a tent.
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  Speaker 3: There is a tendency to see things in a silo,
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  Speaker 3: to pathologize, and he coped by drinking, so I think
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  Speaker 3: there was this idea. Well, the alcoholism killed him. It
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  Speaker 3: was unresolved trauma that killed him. And the alcohol certainly helped.
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  Speaker 2: You know, the.
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  Speaker 3: Alcohol was the physical cause, but it was the unresolved
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  Speaker 3: trauma that lived in his body, and that was also
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  Speaker 3: the system around him where he was. Excuse me, there
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  Speaker 3: wasn't a whole lot of he wasn't in this country.
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  Speaker 3: There wasn't a whole lie places he could step into.
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  Speaker 3: And I think symptoms were seen more as a failing
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  Speaker 3: or something bad versus something sort of a cry for help.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: I often tell people that when they are struggling, whether
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  Speaker 3: it be mentally physically because of trauma, it's signs of life.
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  Speaker 3: You know, even if it may be harming you, these
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  Speaker 3: are signs of life. This is something in your system
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  Speaker 3: that has learned to do what it's doing to protect you,
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  Speaker 3: even if it's not working anymore. So that was where
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  Speaker 3: it began, and I was determined. I have a private practice,
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  Speaker 3: I've had it for over seventeen years, but I was
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  Speaker 3: determined to build something that he would have needed to
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  Speaker 3: step into, something that saw the whole person, and something
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  Speaker 3: that'saw not only what was going on internally, but what
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  Speaker 3: needed to be repaired ecologically. I really this model sees
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  Speaker 3: trauma as a moving living breathing ecology that moves through time,
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  Speaker 3: that are intersectional systems that move through time.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to get into that. And that is
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  Speaker 1: fascinating the way you're describing that, and I'm not sure
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  Speaker 1: I've heard that described as such before. But if we
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  Speaker 1: stick take a step back a little bit, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: obviously well, I'm not asking you to talk about anything
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  Speaker 1: you don't want to share or feel comfortable sharing, but
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  Speaker 1: to help us understand a little more of the context.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking about familial trauma. Yes, abuse going on here.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Was this something that was your brother, your only sibling? Yes, okay,
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  Speaker 1: was this something you.
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  Speaker 2: Guys talked about in the greater family, within your family? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Within No, no, no.
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  Speaker 3: And that's a big part of you know, my whole
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  Speaker 3: dissertation was on invalidation. It wasn't on the more the
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  Speaker 3: big teach I don't actually like saying big to your
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  Speaker 3: small tea. It's all it's all big, But it was
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  Speaker 3: more in the relational pieces of invalidation because there is
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  Speaker 3: this conflict of reality, what's going on inside the home
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  Speaker 3: and then what is normalized and presented to the world
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  Speaker 3: that distorts reality and has a lot of people, including myself,
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  Speaker 3: internalize the badness, so the core beliefs develop. I'm bad,
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  Speaker 3: I'm in trouble. What am I going to have to
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  Speaker 3: do to stay safe? Am I going to have to please?
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  Speaker 3: Am I going to have to perform?
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  Speaker 2: Achieve? You name it?
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  Speaker 3: And so seeing sort of when when things are just
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  Speaker 3: chronically invalidated, that felt more what's the word insidious over
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  Speaker 3: time than some of the bigger harm, you know, physical
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  Speaker 3: abuse you name it, or witnessing too.
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  Speaker 1: That topic and your dissertation sounds fascinating. The invalid you're saying,
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  Speaker 1: maybe was even more insidious because why it's internal Say
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  Speaker 1: more about that.
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  Speaker 3: I likened it too, and in no way minimizing all
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  Speaker 3: the other kinds of abuse or neglect. Right, it's all harmful.
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  Speaker 3: The invalidation piece. I liken it too. And this was
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  Speaker 3: a quote from somewhere I can't quite remember right now.
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  Speaker 3: It's like telling a child if their feelings are too much,
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  Speaker 3: or the feeling they're told their feelings are wrong or inappropriate,
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  Speaker 3: or there's a negative response to them, which makes sense
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  Speaker 3: in an abusive system, there's no tolerance for coregulation, for hearing,
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  Speaker 3: for facing truth, And it's like the child not maybe
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  Speaker 3: consciously yet because they're young, internalizes a sense of well,
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  Speaker 3: it's like telling them water isn't wet or grass isn't green.
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  Speaker 3: My natural, pretty understandable response to the situation at hand
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  Speaker 3: is made bad.
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  Speaker 2: And so the child doesn't know what to do with that.
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  Speaker 3: The child takes that in and goes so that's normal,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm the problem, and that can become a narrative
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  Speaker 3: and many people should express it differently, but that can
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  Speaker 3: become this core belief that creates patterns of being in relationships,
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  Speaker 3: being in the world, and then potentially creating sort of
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  Speaker 3: these repetition compulsions that then you have these systemic reinforcers.
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  Speaker 3: Right if you're working in let's say a toxic work
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  Speaker 3: environment or some other relationship that continues to perpetuate that
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  Speaker 3: very same cycle.
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  Speaker 1: So it's almost like when not almost like it sounds
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  Speaker 1: like it, it impacts creates the paradigm, the psychological paradigms,
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  Speaker 1: and the superstructures from which a young kid is moving,
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  Speaker 1: is learning, is growing as understanding the world. So how
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  Speaker 1: do you move through the world, your teange, your twenties, college,
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  Speaker 1: How are you, how are you acting? How are you
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  Speaker 1: being in the world during these times.
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  Speaker 3: That's and I speak for myself and many of the
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  Speaker 3: individuals I work with because I specialize in trauma and
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  Speaker 3: complex trauma, and I think it sort of becomes this.
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  Speaker 3: There was this way of functioning and wrapping yourself up,
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  Speaker 3: and I became an overfunctioner.
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  Speaker 2: So I went the opposite way.
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  Speaker 3: You know, I had learned, Okay, you have to kind
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  Speaker 3: of go into the witness protection of your own biology,
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  Speaker 3: be quiet, put your head down.
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  Speaker 1: You have these amazing ways of describing what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: I love that the witness protection that okay.
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  Speaker 3: Sorry, yeah, and that's what it really feels like like
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  Speaker 3: in your bones, and you can't always name it right.
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  Speaker 3: But as you know, I've done a lot of work
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  Speaker 3: I'll be maybe you know, with therapy, and I've committed
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  Speaker 3: to that forever.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 3: I think in this work we do, it's so important.
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  Speaker 3: But there was this overfunctioning, and I think this sense
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  Speaker 3: of you have to silence your voice to a degree
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  Speaker 3: unless it's agreeable, unless you're achieving, and unless you're proving
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  Speaker 3: your worth in that sense. But then I think there
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  Speaker 3: can be an undoing right when you're.
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  Speaker 2: A little old.
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  Speaker 3: And I speak for myself and many of the young
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  Speaker 3: adults I work with, where college might be that launch
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  Speaker 3: into autonomy in more independence and then different senses of Okay,
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  Speaker 3: I'm finding my identity and path in the world, and
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  Speaker 3: all of a sudden you're not sort of in that
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  Speaker 3: same family system where this horror is going on inside,
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  Speaker 3: and then there's this wholemark box and bo that's being
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  Speaker 3: presented to the world where you've internalized the paradox of
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  Speaker 3: it all, and.
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  Speaker 2: I think things start to come up. That was certainly
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  Speaker 2: the case for me.
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  Speaker 3: Pain recognition meaning making as Judith Hermann talks about, of
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  Speaker 3: really what it meant, what it was, what it did
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  Speaker 3: for me. And what was really interesting is I wrote
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  Speaker 3: a poem at some point my twenties, and this was
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  Speaker 3: after I'd left the home and I wrote I feel
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  Speaker 3: like the worst.
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  Speaker 2: Is yet to come.
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  Speaker 3: And I remember thinking about them saying, well, that's impossible,
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  Speaker 3: how could that possibly be right?
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  Speaker 2: It's already happened. And it was the consequences and the.
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  Speaker 3: Fallout over time from pervasive trauma, for example, my brother's passing,
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  Speaker 3: sort of my undoing in college and ultimate repair and
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  Speaker 3: purpose finding and just the passion I have. You know,
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  Speaker 3: I've always been a highly curious person, which has enabled
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  Speaker 3: me to be very resilient. And there's a positive to
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  Speaker 3: overfunctioning as long as you channel it. But it perpetuates.
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  Speaker 3: And so that's where this model was born in sense
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  Speaker 3: and also not because we're victim to the systems and
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  Speaker 3: it's never going to end. But I think seeing it
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  Speaker 3: not only as a fixed point in time with time
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  Speaker 3: limited effects, when we see it as something not only
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  Speaker 3: internal but moving, it gives us multiple access points of
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  Speaker 3: healing because we see so much more than the wound
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  Speaker 3: in front of us.
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  Speaker 2: Because the wound travels, it doesn't stay put.
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  Speaker 1: The wod travels. Well, well, let's let's talk tor Ginia
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  Speaker 1: about so you you when you went to college or
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  Speaker 1: how did you At what point did you did you
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  Speaker 1: say to yourself or I want to study psychology, want
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  Speaker 1: to get a doctorate? How did that come about?
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  Speaker 3: I mean immediately, I felt I figured that out in
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  Speaker 3: high school that I wanted to understand human suffering, and
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  Speaker 3: I felt like there was more, there was more to
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  Speaker 3: be understood. And there's been so many amazing steps in
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  Speaker 3: the field of psychology, trauma research, and so forth. But
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  Speaker 3: I think with everything that happened and watching my own journey,
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  Speaker 3: my brother's journey, and the echoes I really call them
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  Speaker 3: echoes that move through time and impact and have so
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  Speaker 3: many systemic reverberations. I wanted to understand it more and
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  Speaker 3: I felt like, you know, this may not a bit cliche,
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  Speaker 3: but it was just in my bones. It was, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and I do ancestrally speaking my mom. You know, it
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  Speaker 3: talks to me about there are missionaries in my family, ancestors,
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  Speaker 3: and I just feel that in my bones and I
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  Speaker 3: can't say that any other way than what it is.
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  Speaker 3: So I think that has been a saving grace and
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  Speaker 3: it's like a calling, but it's also from my own
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  Speaker 3: experience and feeling like, you know, I can't I have
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  Speaker 3: something to give here. So obviously we do our work,
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  Speaker 3: so we don't use our work to you know, work
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  Speaker 3: out our stuff.
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  Speaker 2: But it was so much.
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  Speaker 3: Somewhere I felt like I belonged and that I could
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  Speaker 3: make meaning and I could help people right like and
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  Speaker 3: really understand and be in those trenches and have I'm
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  Speaker 3: really really tolerant of a lot of discomfort. We know why,
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  Speaker 3: and that again can work for me and it can
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  Speaker 3: work against me. But in the case of this work,
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  Speaker 3: it really works for me, and you just start seeing
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  Speaker 3: things and I just see things so much more systemically.
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  Speaker 1: Now, how talk about First of all, let me just
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  Speaker 1: remind everyone I'm speaking with doctor Georgina Smith, founder of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Revolve Recovery. We're talking about the Trauma Ecology Integration Model
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  Speaker 1: or TEI am, how did that come about?
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  Speaker 3: So it's a funny story that I'll try to make brief.
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  Speaker 3: It was in part from my brother's experience, as I mentioned,
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  Speaker 3: and his being sort of pathologized and wanting to understand
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  Speaker 3: the long term effects of trauma. And it was also
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  Speaker 3: so that grief, So Revolve is book nded by grief,
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  Speaker 3: but in not as negative of a way as it sounds.
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  Speaker 3: Revolve when my brother passed away, that seede was planted.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't know how I was going to create this place,
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  Speaker 3: but I knew I had to. My grandmother passed away
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  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, and she was sort of the
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  Speaker 3: magic of our childhood, her and my mom, but she
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  Speaker 3: was the magic and really a sense of safety. And
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  Speaker 3: when she passed away after a long life, it sort
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  Speaker 3: of felt like the loss of these generational arms that
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  Speaker 3: had held us, and so I went into a mild
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  Speaker 3: kind of existential crisis, and I was like, we're doing this.
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  Speaker 3: So that was my kind of mobilization through grief of
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  Speaker 3: I'm creating this. I don't know how, but I will,
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  Speaker 3: and I wanted to do it right, and I wanted
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  Speaker 3: to have something that people can step into and be seen,
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  Speaker 3: because sometimes I think we get so lost in.
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  Speaker 2: We sometimes hyper individualize, or.
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  Speaker 3: Focus on fixing, or focus on all of these things,
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  Speaker 3: especially in the culture we live, and sometimes we have
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  Speaker 3: to go back to basics, which isn't only seeing the
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  Speaker 3: whole of the ecology of a person, but remembering that
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  Speaker 3: when we are a heart beat in the room with somebody,
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  Speaker 3: it changes so much already, you know, the power of attunement.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember the I.
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  Speaker 3: Think it was nineteen seventy six, the stilled face experiments
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  Speaker 3: where they had a mom come in with the baby
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  Speaker 3: and they just had her ghost flat.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, so right.
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  Speaker 3: I was like, the poor baby and she went flat,
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  Speaker 3: and the baby at first was kind of reaching for
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  Speaker 3: a response and then got distressed. Just that simple which
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  Speaker 3: isn't simple at all, but that attunement and mirroring that
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  Speaker 3: sometimes we just have to remember our presence because I know,
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  Speaker 3: you know, in my early years of being a therapist,
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  Speaker 3: I got in my own way.
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  Speaker 2: It's like, okay, got to do it well, got to
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  Speaker 2: do it well.
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  Speaker 3: And I think many of us can sort of attest
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  Speaker 3: to that in our beginning experience.
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  Speaker 1: What did you when you said I got to do this,
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  Speaker 1: start this? What did you want to start? What was
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  Speaker 1: it you wanted to create?
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  Speaker 3: When I was in the room and having those experiences, Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I wanted a place that people could step into that
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  Speaker 3: felt like these, like a relational holding space. Doctor Robert
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  Speaker 3: Stalero writes beautiful, beautifully about sort of trauma needing a
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  Speaker 3: relational home, and I wanted to build a place where
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: people could step into. And we have a trauma focused
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  Speaker 3: program that doesn't just say they're trauma focused, but that
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  Speaker 3: truly is trauma focused. Where we are non pathologizing, we
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  Speaker 3: are destigmatizing, We are functional. We look at the function
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  Speaker 3: of the symptoms, and we don't just look at the
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: function of the symptoms within the one place like their body,
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  Speaker 3: their relationship, the trigger, the whatever.
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  Speaker 2: We look at all of it.
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  Speaker 3: And that doesn't mean we don't slow it down and say, okay,
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  Speaker 3: we're here right now, but we look at the threads
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  Speaker 3: and how they show up is this tapestry for the person.
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  Speaker 2: And because that if we sort of.
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  Speaker 3: Say, okay, well you've done EMDR, You've had so much
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  Speaker 3: more healing, regulation repair, and then they go back out
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  Speaker 3: into the same system that they were from, it's not
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  Speaker 3: going to be enough if we neglect the community piece,
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  Speaker 3: the systemic reinforcing piece, intergenerational legacy, burdens things that are
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  Speaker 3: kind of wired in epigenetically. You know, it was so
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  Speaker 3: important to us that we see at all. And it
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  Speaker 3: was also important to me that I create a team
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  Speaker 3: where we feel like a family, which all sounded a
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  Speaker 3: bit idealistic, but I'm like, I don't care. That's what
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  Speaker 3: we're going to do it, and we are because if
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: we don't take care of ourselves in this work, it's
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: not gonna typically go too well.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things that there's been a theme here,
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  Speaker 1: but I just feel I want to kind of honor
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  Speaker 1: your brother. It's obviously it was is a big part
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  Speaker 1: of your life. Is there anything more you want to
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  Speaker 1: share about that?
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  Speaker 3: Or thank you for saying that. That brings up emotion
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  Speaker 3: for me. You know, it's on a funny note. He
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  Speaker 3: was a funny, funny person, and I sometimes think he's
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: up there saying like.
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  Speaker 2: Oh my god, are you're still talking about this?
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  Speaker 3: And on the other hand, I know there's a part
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  Speaker 3: of him being like, yeah, I keep talking about me
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  Speaker 3: because my goal isn't to sort of have him remembered
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  Speaker 3: through the trauma or through the alcoholism, but to be
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  Speaker 3: remembered for him to have.
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  Speaker 2: A legacy that helps others.
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  Speaker 3: You know that this mattered, that his story mattered, and
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  Speaker 3: there was nothing wrong with him what happened to him.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't sort of what.
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  Speaker 3: Someone wrote that I'm blanking on names right now, but
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's not what happened to you, right or
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: it's not what happened what's wrong with you. It's what
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: happened to you, and you know what happens around you.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that's the next step we took. But
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  Speaker 3: he was just a very funny, brilliant, maybe too brilliant person,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: you know, And he didn't make it out And there's
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: reverberations from that for always. And that doesn't mean that
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: it never ends, and that doesn't mean that our trauma
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: is indefinite. I think it means that the more we
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: look at the broader picture, the forest instead of the trees.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: We get to see how these things are playing out,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: what the patterns are, what is needed, so that we
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: can more effectively repair these internal ecologies and external too.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: It feels, and I think you said as much that
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: your brother's experience really shaped your idea of looking at
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: trauma as an ecology assets. I mean with the found
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: in the establishment of te I am, how did how
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: did that come to fruition this idea?
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if we if we look at the
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: lens through my brother, I started seeing his story not
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: just through the abuse in the family, but through the
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: This was back a long time ago, through school systems
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: that back in the day were especially in the culture
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: we lived in, highly punitive, and there wasn't a lot
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: of resources or access for you know, if a child
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: comes in with a bloody nose or bruises and you know,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: but if they misbehave, they will get caned anyway, right,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: very normalization, normalization of corporal punishment. So there was this
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: way that the messaging on micro and macro levels is
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: you are the problem, you are bad, You're going to
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: be punished, and you're not worthy, and it just emanated
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: and then of course attempting to drink to cope and
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: to noumb legal consequences. So it feels like, Okay, now
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: I'm in trouble here, right. The system is punitive and
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: not that you. Of course, you have to be accountable
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: when things like that happen. But it was constant messaging,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: not only what he carried in his body that needed
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: to be medicated and he's self medicated, but the messaging
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: from so many macro places and the gradual, kind of
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: continual rejection of him based on the ways he was
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: trying to cope. So team is very much looking at
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: the core wound, but looking how it travels, looking how
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: it then creates ways of relating, ways of coping in
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: the world that continue to backfire even though they're supposed
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: to be protective. And then the systemic reinforcers. And I
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: sort of look at his life cycle and it was
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: all there, you know, and there was such a focus
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: on the alcoholism, and of course there needed to be
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: a focus on that, but there were so many other
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: things that were harming and perpetuating harm.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Give Georgina if we can, can you give us an
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: idea specifically of what this looks like within revolve how
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you work with people. How do you bring this team in?
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we do so beginning just in our intake process,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: we not only do the regular biopsychosocial, spiritual, nutritional, look
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: at all the parts.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: We take their ACE score, so adverse.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: Childhood experiences, because as we know, the higher that number is,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: the research shows there's more a likelihood of more disease,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: physical illness, autoimmune disorders. And we look at their resiliency score,
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: like where were their protective factors in their life and
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: where are their risk factors and are they still there?
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: Some people come in and they have such a high
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: ACE score and zero protective factors, So that's going to
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: also and not that we still don't have the same approach,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: but we're going to individualize that care with more awareness
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: of how much they're going to need and require. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: then within the work we build in a lot of
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: ifs parts work, neurobiological methods, EMDR, but we hold the
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: person in a way that we do what we call
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: orbit mapping, and that's the ecology. So we will look
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: at let's say there was a stress or what we
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: typically might call a trigger. I call it a trauma
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: satellite because it's typically a small thing. Someone criticized the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: client and they had they go through these orbits, the
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: primary orbit being let's say, a flashback to being criticized
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: as a child, right or a verbal abuse that was.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Going on in the home.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Then they moved to the secondary orbit, which is, Okay,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I've got to be quiet or I have to please
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: to be safe because I'm feeling in trouble. And then
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: they go back to work and it's a critical punitive,
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: put your head down, do the work environment. And they
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: are they're in all these echoes that are become that
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: kind of ecological atmosphere that they grew up in, that
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: they have lived in, and it's these reinforcers. So when
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: we help them kind of see all these happening in
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: real time, it gives again so many more access points
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: of healing because we're not pathologizing them and saying, Okay, well,
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: you're having a big reaction. You know, there's a reason
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: this is coming up. It's not just a trigger. It's
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: not just stimulus and reaction. There's something else that's going
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: through you and we want to help you address that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: So there's there can be not just more regulation learned
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: in the body, but there can be maybe it's reconnection
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: to their culture. Maybe it is if they've learned to
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: silence and never have a voice. They may say, well,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: I can't change the system, right, so that's no good,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And we say, well, where can you have a voice? Right?
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Maybe it's just in here with me right now that
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: you can have that voice that is safe, and we
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: start to extrapolate what that might look like. So there's
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: this bigger ecological consciousness that they're carrying, and a lot
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: of clients feel hopeful because it's like this, this tapestry
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: is being presented in front of them, and they're like,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: it's not just this or this helps so much, but
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: why am I still stuck over here? And we really
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: help flesh that out for them?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Who do folks treat that.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: A lot of individuals with PTSD and more so complex
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: trauma so and what I call polydiagnosis and not even
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: just dual. So maybe they come in with co occurring addiction,
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: but it is usually trauma that maybe they've been in
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: a few treatment centers and maybe they have tried before
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: because something isn't working wherever they've been or whatever they've
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: tried to do. Maybe they have a head full of knowledge,
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: but it doesn't help them because insight is one thing,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: but the cognitive top down approach doesn't almost reach into
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: the body and then reach into the collective. And so
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: that's where we help take them into a more bottom
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: up approach as much as they can tolerate. Right, we
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: have to focus on safety and stability stabilization first. But yes,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: so a lot of people, you know, maybe there's cocurring
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: mood disorders, anxiety, a lot.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Of people with pain and autoimmune.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: So we collaborate with a lot of outside providers because
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: trauma shows up in the body, it's carried in the body,
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: and so we really do a lot of somatic work
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Is this in patient or outpatient?
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: It's outpatient.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So a lot of clients might come to us
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: while they're in sober living, or they've been in a
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: residential and they come to us, or they're living at
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: home and they're like, you know what, I want to
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: do some deeper work. Am I trauma and I need
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: a little more than that once per week therapy session.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Georgina, it feels to me, I mean, obviously you're so
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: passionate about this work. Yeah, given the culture, the therapeutic
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: culture that we're living in now. Trauma is obviously much
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: more what people have a certain heightened level of awareness
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: about it. What do you think needs what's your opinion
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: of that. Where do you see the education currently for therapists,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: What do you think needs to change or maybe be
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: emphasized more?
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Doctor Ariel Schwartz mentioned it in the clip I saw,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: which is I think you were talking about multidisciplinary, the
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: importance of multidisciplinary and integrated approaches. I think it's this
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: idea that we can hold paradox both and we live
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: in a very either or society, so it's sort of like, well,
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: if you're doing this, you're not doing this not necessarily.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: We're just talking about that right now, the ability to
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: hold two things at once and to get more curious.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: We are in a very what's it called echo chamber
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: social media, and things get diluted and reductionist, and honestly,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: it may not be popular, but I think complexity has
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: to be met with complexity.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: And we can't oversimplify.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: I think oversimplification is dangerous, and that doesn't mean we
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: have to overcomplicate, but I think it's about getting more
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: curious holding space for a both and remembering that we
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: are not silos. We are impacted by generations, legacies, our bodies,
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: our beliefs, our relationships, the ways we have learned to
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: protect ourselves, and we have to hold space for that
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: versus seeing it through one lens. I think we miss
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: so much and we tend to overpathologize or hyper individualize
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: and put the burden of healing on the person. And
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: again that doesn't mean we take that away. Of course,
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: they have to do their work, and there's usually a
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: lot of grief around that because they didn't ask to
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: be here. So yes, it's sort of a multidisciplinary approach,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: and it's there's so much more, so much more we need,
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I think, to do differently and be curious and open
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: our minds and be compassionate.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let me one more. As we kind of went
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: down here. You know, you talked early on about when
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: you were a newer clinician, maybe you had kind of
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: gotten in your own way. Contrast that with the way
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you are now. You have years behind me, Yeah, you're seasoned.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: What's the difference. What does it look like for you?
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: I can almost describe it in a moment, and it
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: was in a session, and this sort of.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Embodies it for me.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: I there's an individual struggling many many years ago, decades ago,
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: and I think angry at therapy process, and I think
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: I went into the role of I've got to do more.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: I've got to do how you know, he's not getting better.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: And I noticed myself in the room and I said,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: you're missing it.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Sit back and breathe.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: And I literally adjusted, not so much that he would
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: have necessarily, but I adjusted and I breathed, and then
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: I saw and I just reflected something and there with
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: the tears, this anger melted in there. It was so
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: when I got out of my own way needing to
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: sort of do the best thing and get him better,
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: you know, No, I sat back and I think that's
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: how I feel now. The ability to trust in the process,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: which is hard to tell someone who's coming in with trauma,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: right They're like, I'm not trusting anything, thank you, I'm
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: not going to breathe, I'm not going to be still.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: That is dangerous.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: But the ability to sit back and see remember that
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: right now, maybe all I need is my heart and
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: listen and see.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: And that's the beginning.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: And when I find myself kind of maybe something's happening,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: I'm holding something in my body, something's getting in the way. Breathe,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: sit back, you know, And so it really feels like
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: a deeper embodiment of trust and of being there for
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: the right reasons, you know, really remembering why we do
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: this or why I do this.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Think, honestly, if we can end with I'm a quote person.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: But when you ask that question too, I thought of
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: bell Hooks and if I can remember it, she said,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Can I remember it?
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: She said?
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: I'm often struck by the dangerous narcissism that is fostered
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: by spiritual rhetoric from the in the individual self improvement,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: the focus on individual self improvement versus the practice of
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: love within the context of society.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: And that's it.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's so powerful oness always sat with me,
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: because that is it. There's sort of this hyper focus
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: on our own experiences and fixing it and getting better,
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: and we've got to have relief and we don't want
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: to sit with discomfort. And you know, but this idea
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: that there's so much more outside of us too, and
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: where are we practicing this within the context of community
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: and finding places of belonging again.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Wow, all right, Tretina, how do people learn more about
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: you and Revolve Recovery.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: You can check us out at Revolve Recovery dot com
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: www dot Revolve recovery dot com. I also have a
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: website doctor Georgina Smith dot com and we have a
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: whole Instagram page for Revolve at Revolve Recovery.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, well yeah, all those linked up at the shownes's
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: page here at the Trauma Faederis podcast dot com. Tretina, amazing,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, Jesus, so inspiring. Thank you so m cute.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: All right, take care