For many clients, stress can feel like a natural byproduct of having a family, holding down a job, pursuing an advanced degree, or keeping up with the hectic pace of life in general. The problem is, when stress becomes chronic it can impact their brain, body, and virtually every aspect of their life. So how […]
A Mindfulness Exercise To Ease Patterns of Blame – with Zindel Segal, PhD
For some clients, their go-to response to hurt or disappointment may be to find something (or more often someone) to blame it on. And when that blame is accompanied by anger and harsh criticism, it can wreak havoc on their relationships. So how can we help clients begin to manage distressing emotions, instead of jumping […]
A Simple Metaphor to De-Shame a Client’s Trauma Response, with Ron Siegel, PsyD
After a traumatic event, a client might feel deeply ashamed by how they responded to the situation. Perhaps they froze and now blame themselves for not fighting back. Or, maybe they ran away, but now regret not standing up for themselves. As clinicians, we’re able to recognize that these reactions happen at the level of […]
[Infographic] – How the Nervous System Responds to Trauma
It can often be difficult for trauma survivors to understand how or why they reacted a certain way during a traumatic experience. Instead of seeing their trauma response as the result of a split-second, unconscious decision made by their nervous system, your client may blame themself for not reacting differently. This can be especially true […]
What We Might Be Missing – Listening for Racial Stress in Session
There may be times when a client comes into a session with a specific story about racism that they experienced, and they want to talk about it. But according to Usha Tummala-Narra, PhD, a client’s experience of racial stress will usually come up much more subtly – and it could be easy to miss if […]