WPC Ep. 7: Recovering from Trauma: How and Where to Go to Heal

Tune in to this episode as Dr. Marsha Chase walks us from trauma to healing.

Vodcast version: click here
Resources:
https://tfcbt.org/resources/
https://www.therapistaid.com/

Transcript

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
0:01 
Welcome to the whole person centered podcast. Our mission is to improve the human condition by providing resources, research and training opportunities and direct health services while supporting the development of highly competent professionals. Thank you for joining us today on this very special episode about trauma. I am Dr. Aurélia Bickler the whole person centered director, and it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Marcia Chase. Dr. Chase is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a specialization in child and adolescent therapy. She's a postdoctoral fellow as an assistant professor at National University. Also in the marriage and family therapy program. Her specializations include child and adolescent therapy, trauma therapy, attachment disruptions, anxiety, depression, anger management, family, couples and marital therapy. Thank you so much, Marsha, for being here today. How are you?

Dr. Marsha Chase
0:54 
I'm good. Thank you for having me. How are you?

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
0:58 
I'm great. Thank you. So to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself both professionally and personally. Yes.

Dr. Marsha Chase
1:05 
Well, I am a mom and a wife and I live in. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I grew up in Pennsylvania, and I loved living there. But the snow drove me away. So I am now a little bit more warmer. And I love it. It's great. Professionally, you went through a whole long list of things. And as working in residential treatment, which is kind of where I started my mental health career. I've worked with just so many different, so many different challenges, so many different cultural diversity concerns and family disruptions and attachments and things. So it really does. It was a tough job. I think being a therapist is is hard, but it is so rewarding. And so I just learned about different people and that everybody's unique. And so all of those challenges, just kind of show that there. There is so much. There's so much that we can do. Yeah.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
2:22 
And and having so much experience behind you. Specifically around trauma, which is our topic today. I'm curious, could you explain to our audience what trauma is?

Dr. Marsha Chase
2:36 
Yes, trauma is often seen by a lot of people as like the experience that we go through, right, it is this violent experience, this thing we witnessed, or were a part of, you know, whether it is abuse, or being in in the war and being in the military, or witnessing family members struggle like that. It's not, it's not really the experience, although that is like where it comes from. What it is, is that distressing response that comes with that experience. That feeling inside your chest or in your throat or in your head that that says this is an unsafe situation, or something I need to protect myself from. So it's really that that feeling that comes with it.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
3:32 
Yeah. And as you say that I I am having my own reaction of just different things that I feel I might have witnessed, but also, as a therapist, as well, as a fellow therapist. I'm thinking about people who don't even recall some of their trauma or any of their trauma, how how would you how do we go about even recognizing that we have gone through trauma or that we have it in there somewhere?

Dr. Marsha Chase
3:58 
Yeah, that is really challenging. Because if if somebody's not aware that they've experienced something like that, or they've, we know what we would call like living in survival, or just been, you know, create, like, life was like that, right? It's their normal, right? So, so it's really hard to like, say to somebody, oh, that was that was trauma, like, you know, and they may not see it that way. And so it really is they've they've come to therapy because they know there's something that doesn't feel right, right. They know that there's something that they're struggling with. And so they've come in and so we can build a really trusting relationship and they feel supported. And so we can kind of begin to talk about you know, relaxation skills or ways to manage emotions and it kind of opens the door to being and being able to say, you know, I wonder if some of these things that you went through impacted your ability to win manage your emotions, right? And so I think it's, it's just hard if it if it's somebody's normal, they're not going to know that that something was wrong with it.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
5:11 
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we struggle with that in my own head about different experiences, you know, whether it's in my personal life or even my professional life with different clients and such, it's it's complicated. what ways might we have available to us to move through? Or past trauma as victims of trauma?

Dr. Marsha Chase
5:36 
Wow. That's a great question. Because I think we, we often get into, and I keep saying, We but like, people in general, right. Like, there's a lot of challenges these days with, with people being able to move past it, right. They think, Well, I've been through this trauma. So now, this is why I'm like this, this is why this is my behavior. This is an and that's, that's you don't have to stay there. You don't have to be there there is. I mean, you can have somebody to talk to you.

There are groups there are, you can do individual sessions, there is community resources to go to, when in need of, of, you know, exploring some of that stuff. There's so much online now with resources and things to kind of be able to explore in regards to that.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
6:35 
I'm curious about trauma early earlier on it early on in the years, right? I'm thinking about, you know, trauma between zero and six months old. Wow. Where kids might not even know I mean, as now adults might not even know, do you? Do you think that all trauma, any level of trauma or any at any stage of life is as this is going to be a strange word. But as healable is it it is old trauma, kind of something that we can tackle and work through, or there's some that just are beyond our ability to move past?

Dr. Marsha Chase
7:18 
Yeah. Trauma at an early age, where you don't necessarily remember it right is, is the most type of trauma to be able to kind of explore through. Because typically, you don't remember, right, like, you don't remember is, you know, when you were a month old, or six months old, I would even say sometimes up to five years old, when right those are like the most challenging moments when the brain is developing at such a rapid rate.

And it's taking in everything that it gets from the outside. And so to be able to like help somebody move through that it's just about accepting them and where they are and and how they're feeling and what they're going through. So that they can use that in a way that helps them to move forward. Because there's something holding them back from from being able to accept where they are, it's almost like they feel like there's something wrong, a lot of clients feel like, there's something wrong with me, right? Because I feel this way or because I'm acting like this. That zero to six months is is it leads to a lot of attachment disruptions and challenges with relationships, specifically in the future.

And clients can own that as if there's like, there's just something wrong with me. And you know, we don't have to necessarily talk about the hurt, especially don't remember it. So how do you do that? But really trying to to accept where they are and help them to accept themselves where they are so they can move, move past that hurt.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
8:59 
Yeah. It's It's encouraging to know that there are ways to work through even some of the most challenging most powerful types of trauma. Yeah. Are there particular resources out there that might help even somebody even identify or process or even recover from trauma?

Dr. Marsha Chase
9:23 
Yeah, I guess there is. A few sites, I typically get a lot of resources from the it's called if TF cbt.org. But it is the trauma focused cognitive behavioral therapy website, which is my foundation to to working with clients who have trauma. And they have a section on resources and it says it's for trainers, right.

But in that section, there are handbooks to be able to utilize and I think it really does help guide My clients through the process of doing that, and I utilize it to help them I give them the handbook and we kind of follow through with it. They know like what we're going to do step by step, we explore that. And there are, there are so many different sites, therapist a.com is, is, anybody can go there it says therapist aid. But I mean, if you Google trauma, trauma on there, it just comes up with so many things. For you to be able to, to explore for yourself, right.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
10:37 
And what I'm hearing is therapy might be a really good resource. So for the non therapists hearing this podcast or watching this podcast, the the idea is that going to therapy is probably one of the most beneficial way to to work through. Absolutely sharing, ensuring that therapists might be you know, equipped, because I think it's also important to, to know that not all therapists are qualified or willing to work with trauma specifically,

Dr. Marsha Chase
11:07 
I think, absolutely. It is therapy is that the number one thing I would absolutely recommend for people who are who are struggling with with trauma wanting to recover, because you can survive it, it is it is absolutely something that you can in life be okay with and use it as, as a, you know, the reason that you are who you are, as opposed to the reason that you were who you were.

But, but yes, making sure that when you are looking for therapy, that you're you're looking for that therapist who is specialized in trauma therapy, who has that kind of work? Because like you said, some therapists don't, don't know where to start, or it's uncomfortable for them. Because trauma is it is hard. It's hard for the person dealing with it. And it can be hard for the therapist supporting the client.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
12:02 
Yeah, no, I definitely hear you. I'm wondering, do you do you feel that all humans in some way or another are impacted by trauma?

Dr. Marsha Chase
12:12 
If I said yes, then somebody would go, you're biased. But at the same time, again, it's not the experience. It's how we take the experience and how we feel through it. It's that response that comes from it. And if we have a support system, or somebody we can go to right, like when you fell down and got hurt, where did you go? Right? And, and as a mom, if my kids fell down and got hurt, where would I want them to go to to me? Right? And if you don't have that, that is where your risk for being impacted by the trauma and having those reactions that indicate those responses, and that's what's happening. That's where the risk is, is not having that support.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
12:59 
Right. Lee Lee, leading us back to attachment. You know, yeah, forward. I mean, this is this is a huge piece to the puzzle for sure. And, and as you're answering this question, I was thinking, you know, I think trauma is even if we're not directly impacted, there are people in our lives that have endured something. And so at the end of the day, I think, I think all of us in some way or another, and maybe I'm biased to right, we're both. So that might not be fair. But but but you know, we, I think I think it might be fair to say that at least everyone has somebody in their lives and is working through or or has has gone through some kind of significant trauma. Yeah. In one way or another.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
3:48 
Thank you so much. Do you have any additional thoughts or or anything that you'd like to share that I haven't asked you about?

Dr. Marsha Chase
13:55 
I guess I just want to share that. If if there is somebody who's listening to this and you are hurting and you have experienced it, you are not alone, and it is okay to reach out. It doesn't mean there's something wrong. It's just something that's happened to you and you can work through it.

Dr. Aurélia Bickler
14:17  
Thank you so much, Dr. Marcia Chase, and thank you all for tuning in and listening to our episode about trauma. Stay tuned for our next podcast. Until then, read intentionally, laugh wholeheartedly. Connect within and towards people who inspire you and who bring you joy.