Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Dr. Graham Taylor and Dr. Lawrie Ignacio interview Janina Fisher

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Dr. Graham Taylor and Dr. Lawrie Ignacio interview Janina Fisher · The Trauma Therapist

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
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  Speaker 1: Therapist podcast, where I'm going to be handing over to
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  Speaker 1: mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
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  Speaker 1: hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire you,
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  Speaker 1: all the while keeping the heart of this podcast alive.
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  Speaker 1: So sit back and enjoy.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Project.
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  Speaker 3: I'm doctor Graham Taylor and this is my colleague, doctor
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  Speaker 3: Lori Ignacio. Hello, Doctor Guy McPherson has kindly invited us
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  Speaker 3: to guest host.
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  Speaker 2: On his impressive and very well respected podcast.
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  Speaker 4: We're so excited today to have as our guest doctor
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  Speaker 4: Janina Fisher.
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  Speaker 5: Janina, it's so nice to have you with us.
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  Speaker 6: Welcome to the show.
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  Speaker 5: As we start, if you would share with us how
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  Speaker 5: you came to develop your model and method of working
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  Speaker 5: with trauma.
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  Speaker 6: Well, you know, back when I started in the trauma
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  Speaker 6: field in the Age of the Dinosaurs, it was back
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  Speaker 6: in the nineteen nine ninety one, and we didn't know
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  Speaker 6: anything about trauma. It's very sad to look back. I mean,
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  Speaker 6: the good news was that it had been identified and
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  Speaker 6: things like childhood sexual abuse which had never been recognized
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  Speaker 6: as traumatic. Strange as that sounds was finally recognized as traumatic,
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  Speaker 6: but we hadn't a clue how to treat it other
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  Speaker 6: than to get people to talk about what happened to them.
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  Speaker 6: And that wasn't working so well because when they talked
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  Speaker 6: about what happened to them, they became suicidal, self destructive, overwhelmed,
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  Speaker 6: a shamed. They didn't feel liberated, they felt ashamed. So
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  Speaker 6: in the old days, we were just experimenting. Anything that worked,
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  Speaker 6: we would say, okay, that's trauma treatment. And then over
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  Speaker 6: the years the field developed more and more sophistication. EMDR
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  Speaker 6: came along and helped a lot of people whom we
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  Speaker 6: couldn't help before. You know, the sematic approaches, sensory motorcycle
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  Speaker 6: therapy and sematic experiencing added a whole new group of
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  Speaker 6: clients we could help. But still there was and still
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  Speaker 6: is a group of clients that we are not so
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  Speaker 6: successful with or they're not so successful with our methods,
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  Speaker 6: and usually they get very stigmatizing diagnoses like borderline and
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  Speaker 6: so they get relegated to the difficult client personality disorder
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  Speaker 6: group when they're trauma survivors. So I started very early
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  Speaker 6: on there were two things I had in mind. One
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  Speaker 6: was we have to be able to help that group,
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  Speaker 6: not just the majority, but all trauma survivors. And I
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  Speaker 6: also had this very crazy idea that I didn't tell
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  Speaker 6: anybody because I thought they will think I'm nuts. I
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  Speaker 6: thought trauma treatment shouldn't have to hurt so much. It's
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  Speaker 6: just not right that people who have suffered should have
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  Speaker 6: to suffer all over again. There is something wrong with that,
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  Speaker 6: and we have to look for ways of treating trauma
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  Speaker 6: that don't hurt so much. But again, I didn't tell
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  Speaker 6: anybody for years and years until I developed enough of
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  Speaker 6: a reputation that I could say crazy things. People might
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  Speaker 6: not believe it, but they would at least listen.
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  Speaker 2: That's really good. I love the idea of having a
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  Speaker 2: capassionate approach to something in someone's life that more times
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  Speaker 2: than not they had nothing to be able not to
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  Speaker 2: do with it, but to be able to control around it.
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  Speaker 3: And it's painful enough to have lived it, let alone,
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  Speaker 3: to have to go back and rehab yourself out of.
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  Speaker 6: It, right to re experience it all over again. I mean,
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  Speaker 6: we would never imagine a medical a medical issue you
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  Speaker 6: go in with an injury and they injure you again
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  Speaker 6: as a way of treating you, we would say this
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  Speaker 6: is totally crazy and unethical, that's right, but that's.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, we know that.
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  Speaker 3: In your approach, Junina, you incorporate your structural association model
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  Speaker 3: as part of a MAP as part of your trauma
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  Speaker 3: informed stabilization treatment you refer to as TIST, which works
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  Speaker 3: with the living legacy of one's trauma and more specifically
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  Speaker 3: the emotional and the somatic memories held by the younger
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  Speaker 3: parts of the person within within theirselves, their deeper parts
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  Speaker 3: of themselves, and they get re experienced in the here
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  Speaker 3: and now in their lives. Show more about it with us.
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  Speaker 3: Would you about to TIST.
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  Speaker 6: A pros that you use yet? I mean I was
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  Speaker 6: very and you know when we were dipping into every
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  Speaker 6: toolbox we could find. One of the toolboxes I discovered
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  Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety six was internal family systems. So I
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  Speaker 6: started to teach myself. There were no trainings in those days,
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  Speaker 6: so I just taught myself. Ifs from they booked The
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  Speaker 6: Mosaic Mind, and it really made a difference for people
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  Speaker 6: clients who were phobic of the body. You could not
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  Speaker 6: ask them to notice the body. They were willing to
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  Speaker 6: notice parts that was not so scary. And so when
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  Speaker 6: I realized that the somatic approaches were not working for
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  Speaker 6: people who were body phobic, I started using part instead
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  Speaker 6: of body, and I was amazed at how people responded.
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  Speaker 6: And then, because internal family systems isn't a trauma model,
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  Speaker 6: it's a psychotherapy model used a lot in trauma work,
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  Speaker 6: but it wasn't designed specifically for trauma, I started creating
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  Speaker 6: my own trauma informed parts approach, which incorporates a lot
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  Speaker 6: of ideas from ifs, ideas, from sensory, motor psychotherapy, hypnosis,
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  Speaker 6: you know, anything that works, and clients really responded to it.
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  Speaker 6: I think in part because the structural dissociation model as
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  Speaker 6: a theoretical foundation is focused not on what happened, but
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  Speaker 6: on how individuals survived it, and it includes. One of
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  Speaker 6: the most important concepts it includes is that it is
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  Speaker 6: normal and natural to split or to fragment under traumatic
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  Speaker 6: conditions because we have a brain that's physiologically split, and
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  Speaker 6: so it's very easy for the brain to compartmentalize. And
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  Speaker 6: the other piece. Two other pieces of this theory I
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  Speaker 6: think are particularly helpful is that we all have an
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  Speaker 6: in state to carry on in the face of trauma, right,
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  Speaker 6: we don't just we don't just experience it. We pick
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  Speaker 6: ourselves up and we go on. And our clients are
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  Speaker 6: poster children for this because they've picked them up selves
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  Speaker 6: up over and over and over and over again, and
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  Speaker 6: they've kept on. They've kept on going, but feeling that
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  Speaker 6: the keeping ongoing is a false self Right, I'm pretending
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  Speaker 6: as opposed to, oh my god, I am actually putting
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  Speaker 6: one foot in front of the other even though I
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  Speaker 6: feel like I'm going to fall apart. So the structural
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  Speaker 6: dissociation really emphasizes that we have two instincts and they're split.
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  Speaker 6: One is to survive in the sense of fighting, fleeing, submitting,
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  Speaker 6: crying for help, and the other is to carry on.
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  Speaker 6: And so they are are the two main parts of
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  Speaker 6: the personality. And then the other very important concept in
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  Speaker 6: tists and it should be in trauma treatment, is that
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  Speaker 6: in traumatic environments there is danger every single day.
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  Speaker 5: Right.
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  Speaker 6: There might be X, Y and Z events, but they're
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  Speaker 6: just as scary on the days that nothing happens, because
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  Speaker 6: the threat of what's going to happen is there every
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  Speaker 6: minute of every day. So our clients come from traumatic
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  Speaker 6: environments and their minds and bodies are really wired to
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  Speaker 6: expect the next assault, the next betrayal, the next abandonment.
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  Speaker 6: And so this structural dissociation theory speaks to that because
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  Speaker 6: it says we develop parts that are driven by the
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  Speaker 6: survival defense responses, and they're not focusing on what did happen,
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  Speaker 6: They're focusing on what the sense is about to happen.
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  Speaker 6: And so our clients, carrying on as they do, get
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  Speaker 6: triggered and the parts assume that the worst is going
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  Speaker 6: to happen. And right just as the parts assume all
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  Speaker 6: the things that are so challenging for trauma survivors, you know,
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  Speaker 6: it must have been my fault. Is the belief of
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  Speaker 6: a bit part. I should have fought back, is the
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  Speaker 6: belief of a fight part. I'm worthless is the belief
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  Speaker 6: of a subid part. I will be abandoned, I'll never
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  Speaker 6: be loved, is the belief of a cry for help part.
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  Speaker 6: And so so really, I think everybody, every trauma survivor
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  Speaker 6: struggles with those parts. They don't have to have dissociative
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  Speaker 6: identity disorder, but the mind is fragmented because that was
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  Speaker 6: the best way of surviving, and that is really so
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  Speaker 6: what's the word. It's reassuring for trauma survivors. Oh, I'm
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  Speaker 6: not crazy. I have parts, but it doesn't mean I'm nuts.
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  Speaker 6: It means that I've found a way to survive. Yeah,
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  Speaker 6: and that's a different story.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: We talk about the brilliance that come with that will
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  Speaker 4: to live and survive and to thrive even past it,
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  Speaker 4: and also the brilliance of even in its fragmentation, Right,
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  Speaker 4: there's there's incredible brilliance there to survive, to make it through.
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  Speaker 7: Exactly what you both are talking about here is you're
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  Speaker 7: you're you do such a beautiful job. And I've listened
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  Speaker 7: to other presentations that you've done, and you do such
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  Speaker 7: a nice job of kind of deep pathologizing what this is,
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  Speaker 7: what what what once response to trauma is, And it's
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  Speaker 7: actually a strength based set of steps that they.
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  Speaker 2: Took to survive their surroundings.
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  Speaker 1: In a way that you're describing, it was.
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  Speaker 3: Brilliant the way you found a way through that. And
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  Speaker 3: maybe it's causing problems now and maybe not necessarily in
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  Speaker 3: the same way that it was then, and maybe we
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  Speaker 3: get to start talking about the different parts and heal them.
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  Speaker 3: But I love the fact that it's conveyed in a
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  Speaker 3: way where someone gets to own it, almost kind of
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  Speaker 3: in a way that says I did a good job, didn't.
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  Speaker 6: I, And to really begin to accept that I wasn't
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  Speaker 6: I wasn't a fraudulent I wasn't a fake person. I
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  Speaker 6: was a person trying to survive in spite of parts
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  Speaker 6: that were constantly threatened by everything in a normal life.
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  Speaker 5: Janine, I'm wondering, if you can speak briefly to for
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  Speaker 5: those that go through how does it either heal trauma
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  Speaker 5: or heal the legacy of trauma?
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  Speaker 4: What can they expect post I guess.
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  Speaker 6: Treatment, Well, it defends a lot on the person, as
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  Speaker 6: you would guess. You know, there are some people who
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  Speaker 6: just do a couple of sessions and immediately it's I
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  Speaker 6: was watching a video of such a client just earlier today,
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  Speaker 6: and it was kind of amazing because she immediately felt
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  Speaker 6: a tremendous warmth and kind of loving compassion toward her
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  Speaker 6: little part. And so it was. It went very quickly,
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  Speaker 6: and my guess is was a single session. So I
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  Speaker 6: don't know what happened next, but I would guess that
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  Speaker 6: she had significant relief and a whole different way of
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  Speaker 6: relating to herself and then I have you know, I
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  Speaker 6: have clients who have struggled for years even using TISS
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  Speaker 6: because they have so many parts they experience. Literally, I
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  Speaker 6: have clients who experienced hundreds of acts of abuse, and
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  Speaker 6: can you imagine processing all those events? You know, I
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  Speaker 6: think people couldn't get through a treatment that involved processing
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  Speaker 6: hundreds of events. So the way we heal trauma entisst
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  Speaker 6: is through the development of a secure attachment relationship to
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  Speaker 6: the parts, so and a take. That also can take
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  Speaker 6: time because many clients have parts who are very hostile
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  Speaker 6: to vulnerability and vulnerability parts because their vulnerability was exploited. Right,
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  Speaker 6: that's a reaction. And so sometimes I have clients who
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  Speaker 6: fight compassion for their parts because it's associated with weakness. Right.
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  Speaker 6: You don't survive trauma by being compassionate because it makes
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  Speaker 6: you too soft. And so it can take a while
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  Speaker 6: to build the compassion for the part. But the wonderful
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  Speaker 6: thing is it doesn't hurt. I mean, obviously there are
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  Speaker 6: moments when there are intense feelings, but because the treatment
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  Speaker 6: is about meeting those intense feelings with compassion and validation,
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  Speaker 6: it's a really different experience. I'm a big fan of
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  Speaker 6: Bruce Ecker. Do you know his work. It's all based
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  Speaker 6: around this. It's called memory reconsolidation, and it's based around
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  Speaker 6: this idea that what we need to heal the past
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  Speaker 6: is to have experiences that directly disconfirm the past. And
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  Speaker 6: so it's not about talking about it, it's not about events.
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  Speaker 6: It's about a felt experience that contradicts the past, because
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  Speaker 6: that felt experience could never have happened. So when my
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  Speaker 6: clients take a young wounded part under their wing and
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  Speaker 6: they feel warmth and they feel empathy for that part,
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  Speaker 6: it's an experiences that disconfirms the past because you know,
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  Speaker 6: in TIS, there's a lot of seeing the child, listening
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  Speaker 6: to the child, and all of those are things that
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  Speaker 6: disconfirm the past because these are clients who were never
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  Speaker 6: listened to as children. They were never seen, never acknowledged,
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  Speaker 6: never validated, never comforted. And so all of those experiences
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  Speaker 6: resolve the past, not by reliving it, but by contradicting it.
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  Speaker 6: And it's so cool, that's beautiful.
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  Speaker 2: So those corrective almost like.
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  Speaker 3: A corrective emotional experience, is an opportunity to kind of
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  Speaker 3: change the paradigm in a way. That challenge is an
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  Speaker 3: old one, that they've been functioning under and not just
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  Speaker 3: seeing that well, look what I survived, but also realizing
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  Speaker 3: maybe the thoughts and the beliefs and some of the
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  Speaker 3: protective mechanisms once upon a time to work, but they're
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  Speaker 3: not necessary or real, right.
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  Speaker 6: And the wonderful thing is they don't have to They
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  Speaker 6: don't have to have that that cognition. They have to
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  Speaker 6: feel it. That's the Bruce Ecker idea that you can
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  Speaker 6: talk about the world now being different, but unless you
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  Speaker 6: feel it, it doesn't it doesn't land.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm thinking of Leslie Greenberg.
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  Speaker 5: I think he said you have to feel it to
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  Speaker 5: heal it, right, that idea, right, the experience of.
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  Speaker 6: That, right, And he's a parts guy too.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, it's true.
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  Speaker 5: And I love it that the vehicle by which to
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  Speaker 5: heal is compassion and care and love, not hurt having
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  Speaker 5: to in the name of you know, healing, to retail
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  Speaker 5: stories and hurt again, that you just bypassing that altogether.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 6: The thing that's a little challenging is as I can't
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  Speaker 6: say to my clients, to heal, you have to love
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  Speaker 6: your parts, because they're going to say, no way, right,
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  Speaker 6: there's no way you're going to ever get me to
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  Speaker 6: love these parts. I hate them, I'm ashamed of them,
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  Speaker 6: blah blah blah. So I keep that my little secret.
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  Speaker 6: I just kind of lead them, lead them to it
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  Speaker 6: because which I think is true in human life, because
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  Speaker 6: you can't prescribe love, right, You've got to feel it.
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  Speaker 7: That's right.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, I love that.
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  Speaker 2: Those are great things.
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  Speaker 8: You know, what a what a wonderful approach you've created,
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  Speaker 8: and it's compassionate, it's very personal and what a what
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  Speaker 8: a what a wonderful experience someone has to go through
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  Speaker 8: this with you, with others that are trained in this area.
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  Speaker 8: We would love to have others following listening to the
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  Speaker 8: day's show to be able to follow up with you,
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  Speaker 8: your work.
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  Speaker 3: Any trainings you may be doing. What's the best way
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  Speaker 3: for them to follow you?
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  Speaker 6: Probably so they can follow they can visit my website
• 21:17
  Speaker 6: and then check in there, LinkedIn probably, LinkedIn Instagram, they
• 21:26
  Speaker 6: can follow me probably I would say best on Instagram
• 21:31
  Speaker 6: or LinkedIn. And we've just we have two hundred now
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  Speaker 6: therapists certified in tests from around the world. Because our
• 21:44
  Speaker 6: online training is very international, people from all all over
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  Speaker 6: the world join.
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  Speaker 8: Congratulations, what thank you, It's been great to have you
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  Speaker 8: with us today and you're a wonderful guest and thanks
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  Speaker 8: for all you're doing in the field.
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  Speaker 6: Yes, well, thank you guys. It's such a pleasure to
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  Speaker 6: talk with you.
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  Speaker 3: It's very mutual.
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  Speaker 6: Thank you guys.