For clients with complex trauma, parts work can be a valuable approach when shame, intellectualizing, and dissociation are obstacles to trauma reprocessing.
Tag: Attachment
Secure, insecure, disorganized, anxious, avoidant, attachment wounds, attachment trauma, attachment theory, Bowlby, Ainsworth, attachment injury, attachment style, secure base, therapeutic relationship, connection, safety, healing
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Trauma, Connection, Loss, and Grief: The Book That Made Me Cry
“We can convince ourselves that we’re okay and keep ourselves upright by hanging our crumpling anguish on rigidity and perfectionism and silence, like a wet towel hanging on a rod. We can become closed off, never open to vulnerability and it’s gifts and barely existing, because anything at any moment could threaten that fragile, rigid scaffolding that’s holding up our crumpling selves and keeping us standing.”
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The Best of Therapy 2023: The Ingredients for Good Therapy
If you’ve read about my experiences with previous therapists, you’ll understand why I was on a quest this year to identify the ingredients for meaningful and effective therapy. As a client with anxiety, neurodivergence, high sensitivity, and complex trauma, here’s what meant the very most to me in therapy for 2023.
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What does it mean to be a trauma-informed therapist?
“Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think… After trauma, the world is experienced with a different nervous system. The survivor’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their lives.”
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
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The Most Important Qualities of Effective Therapists
“Study after study shows that the most important factor in the success of your treatment is your relationship with the therapist, your experience of ‘feeling felt.'”
Lori Gottlieb
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Childhood Emotional Neglect and C-PTSD
“Children, especially highly sensitive children, can be wounded in multiple ways: by bad things happening, yes, but also by good things not happening, such as their emotional needs for attunement not being met.”
Dr. Gabor Mate
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Healing Attachment Trauma: The Therapeutic Relationship
“Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
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Understanding Complex Trauma: What is C-PTSD?
“You might have feelings of shame, unworthiness, or helplessness. Perhaps you feel plagued by anxiety or believe that you don’t belong in this world. These kinds of thoughts and feelings might lead you to withdraw from relationships in order to avoid further rejection or hurt…The painful emotions of complex PTSD are remnants of your past. More importantly, you can heal.”
Dr. Arielle Schwartz