[SPEAKER_00]: Therapy chat podcast episode 505.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Therapy chat podcast with Laura Regan, LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_00]: The information shared in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, here's your host, Laura Regan, LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host, Laura Reagan, and this week as we continue our series on EMDR.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm bringing you a replay of my conversation with Mark and Volmey.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mark and I and I talked about a
[SPEAKER_02]: betrayal, experience that we actually shared in a strange way when we both had been connected with someone in the therapy world who basically lied, cheated and stole, manipulated so many people.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this left a real wound among so many who had trusted this person.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we talked about
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's dive right into my conversation with Mark and Volmey.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host Laura Reagan, and today I'm so happy to be here with Mark and Volmey.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mark, and thank you so much for being my guest on Therapy Chat today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I'm so happy we're finally getting together.
[SPEAKER_02]: We were in London at the not your typical psychotherapist conference.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I invite you then to be on the podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I dropped out of life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had COVID and I finally sent you the invitation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm glad that we're making it happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: So can we start off by you just telling our audience a little bit more about who you are and what you do before we get into our subjects for today?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, my name is Mark and Balmy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a licensed mental health counselor, my niche is Trauma, I'm a EMBR train therapist, certified consultant and training.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love doing EMBR and also just helping people find relief with their mental health struggles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think in using EMBR, I'm still, I still do consultation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just been a really great way to,
[SPEAKER_01]: help people connect the dots, not only what they need to repair and heal from, but to answer the wide question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I this way?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do I view the world in people this way?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I having this disarmony within my minded body, this disconnect?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I gain the
[SPEAKER_01]: I just love that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also published my first book this past summer, trauma stories discovered, strenght through our vulnerability.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's been a really cool experience too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's right here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Trauma story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll put a link to your book in the show notes and thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really, yeah, I'm really happy that we connected.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was so random in London where you had kind of just rolled in from California, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, it was a long trip, but it was fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I knew it was a warm place, but it was at least on the east coast.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you had not the extra three hours of travel, but exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we, I was in the restaurant and you came in and you had just gotten there and I was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, betrayal trauma comes as so many forms.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think at the heart of it is, it feels like a betrayal because the person or the institution or the entity that is caused a violation, you feel blind, you feel blindsided, you didn't see it coming because it came from someone where you would at least expect it, whether that's their relationship, a merit or relationship, a dating relationship, a friendship,
[SPEAKER_01]: a business relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is still a form of grease that we have to process, but I think even more so we have to acknowledge and add language to the impact of the offense.
[SPEAKER_01]: And oftentimes we don't, we suppress it, especially as clinicians.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have all this knowledge about mental health and we sometimes forget that we need our own medicine that we give to other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really crazy space for ourselves, so we can move forward and heal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I appreciate what you shared there, because I think when people think of betrayal, trauma, we often think of like a partner cheating on a partner within a monogamous committed relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: And
[SPEAKER_02]: But one of the things you said that's really important about the concept of betrayal trauma is that broken trust.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like it's not somebody who you thought that you had no expectations of in your leg.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh well, what did I expect from this person?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like this person should be someone who I can trust because they made a vow.
[SPEAKER_02]: They signed a contract.
[SPEAKER_02]: They promised something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think whether your niche is trauma or not in the mental health show,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we have to acknowledge that there is some traumatic impact from a betrayal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It leaves a wound that causes us to look at scenarios, people, and different situations differently, especially if the context of that perspective fits the way we were betrayed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a girlfriend who broke my heart broke up with.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now whenever I see couples, and I see a young lady being very nice and considerate to her spouse, I look at it with a grain of solace, it's only matter time before she breaks his heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if I don't say that, there's a sense of where I'm believing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can, in as such a stupid perspective, I can't make my perspective the normalization of everyone else.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think that's healthy for me to say, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is healthy for me to say these are the feelings I'm experiencing.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is where the disturbance is shown up for me and my body.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not that I've acknowledged that can I just create some margin and just sit with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think sometimes we're so quick to be robotic about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, now that I know what this is, I need to fix it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have stuff to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have people to serve, but
[SPEAKER_01]: As first responders, we need to give us the same load of race and care that we would give our clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some of us need more time than others with the portray.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because it's so recent and the depth of the portray is so hurtful, that sometimes we're not so sure we can get over it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's where trauma therapy can really step in to give us not not heal us to the point where the offense never happened,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's not always easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think, you know, as for me, I specialize in relational wounds and childhood trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, when you're a child, you're depending upon your caregivers to keep you safe because you cannot keep yourself safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when they break that trust and then later in life as an adult, someone who you expect to be safe, whether it's because of their role, like if it's a police officer, a medical provider, a mental health provider, their role is like, you know, police, it's protect and serve.
[SPEAKER_02]: And until health therapists and medical providers, it's do no harm, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's this sort of way that we, by the role, just like a child would say, you know, parents don't hurt kids, parents don't do things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Parents are the ones who love kids the most and they're the ones who take care of kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's what their role is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it kind of shatters the way you see the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: If my parents could hurt me, then who in the world could I trust because that's biologically who I'm tied to, they're the ones that I expect to always be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's I think that a notion of shot in denial, it definitely has a lingering effect after betrayal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we really need to grapple and wrestle with.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't believe I just experienced that in front and it's by this person or by these group of people and.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that initial thing takes a while to, I wouldn't say disappear, but settled to the point where we feel we're ready to talk about it or to attempt and move forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's hard sometimes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, you know, as you said that the impact of the betrayals that we experience, you mentioned kind of that understanding the way it changes the way we view things, you know, is important.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was thinking about that impact, like with one thing that I was thinking about
[SPEAKER_02]: Before I even met you, was the situation where the FTC explained that better help had been, you know, which is a tech-based mental health services company for anybody who's listening is not familiar with it, that they had been dishonest about their privacy practices, well, having telling consumers, this is a safe way to receive mental health treatment and really
[SPEAKER_02]: promoting people seeking help, maybe for the first time making it seem really accessible and available and safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when the FTC came out and said that they had lied about their privacy practices, which I believe from what I understand that even though better help
[SPEAKER_02]: $7 or $8 million, they denied that they did anything wrong, but what I read, the FTC was pretty clear, they said they lied to consumers.
[SPEAKER_02]: So to me, that was a major betrayal, and I felt that as a betrayal of our
[SPEAKER_02]: Because even though that company is a tech company and not a group of therapists, the people that they are using for the services or therapists.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like the exploited the therapists in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they clearly exploited the consumers who are using their services in my opinion, because
[SPEAKER_02]: they, according to what the FTC said, they said this will be private and then they sold their private information when they said they wouldn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, at least according to the FTC, that's not my my, you know, statement, but that's what they said.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it just made it, it made me so disheartened because it's like, now how are people going to believe when we say in our field that we're here to help that they can trust it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it's just another black eye to the mental cell.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think what betrayal on the attempts to do is, it tries to resurrect the negative beliefs that were imprinted by our initial traumatic spheres.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I experience something traumatic again?
[SPEAKER_01]: It left negative beliefs, I'm inadequate, I'm not good enough, I'm available.
[SPEAKER_01]: After betrayal, those negative beliefs,
[SPEAKER_01]: start flirting with me again.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is if they're trying to come back, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's like it's now this adverse validation of all the things I worked so hard to push.
[SPEAKER_01]: I worked so hard to not have to believe anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to move past and now after this injury, I'm starting to question
[SPEAKER_01]: I think betrayals have a way, if we don't get the necessary help with them, they have a way of causing us to believe the lies about ourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'm going to get training in the MDR, but I haven't yet, but I know not about trauma, don't judge me for not be training the MDR, but there are a lot of other trouble more doubt that he's out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: But regarding MDR, does it help?
[SPEAKER_02]: change those implicit beliefs about those imprinted negative beliefs about self and two part question because in betrayal trauma I feel like there's also like beliefs about like the world as a like the world is not a safe place.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, that's a good question.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it does because when let's say you're my client and your negative belief is it was my
[SPEAKER_01]: what happened to me at five, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But we, what we have in the MDR is a positive belief, which is like the goal of where we aspire to attain to, eventually when we've come to a place of resolution with it, with our trauma, and that the positive belief could be below a year or a year child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So once your belief system makes the transition over to you are all the a child, then you can now hold on to the new belief.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't my fault.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was only a child.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it happens so naturally because the one of the best ways I could explain how EMDR works is to use a visual from the 90s when we had those square computers
[SPEAKER_01]: behind EMDR, when we're traumatized, it's like all the wiring in the limbic system, the middle part of our brain and embrace them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some stuff are not it up, and of course there's this thing called the make-of-the-mill of the fire alarm.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's constantly reading, telling us, people aren't safe, the world's not safe, we're still in a high-insense of dysregulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: EMDR comes in and untangles those
[SPEAKER_01]: The same way that the body can grow a scab after a cut, it's almost the mind's way of saying, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me mutat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me heal from these negative beliefs by allowing my nervous system to fully metabolize a lot of this trauma tension that has been story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it happens so naturally in real time that I've done EMD out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would hundreds of clients.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still get a kick out of
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, finally seeing their facial expressions where the light bulb comes on.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was my fault.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a bitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they're saying this to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, okay, I think we made a turn, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it happened so naturally that it catches them by surprise.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, there's the answer to your question.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just wasn't sure if it was like the beliefs about self or the beliefs about the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess, you know, even beliefs about the world, if you have the belief like the world isn't safe, it really comes down to there's no place that I can be safe and if you can change that to I can be safe even if or I can, you know, find safety even though there may be danger or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that you bring data.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think when you're asking that question, it regards to soften the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are so intertwined.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I actually, if you don't mind me sharing, I still have a personal experience for Matt.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was in college, I was walking to get something to eat in my neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was robbed of gunpoint.
[SPEAKER_01]: I talked about it in my place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it left me with really bad PTSD.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said somebody put a 19, 20 years old, they put a barrel of a gun down on my forehead.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all I wanted to do was get something to eat.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were robbed of me.
[SPEAKER_01]: For years, I've got to have saved.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was very hyperbidulate, always felt the need to wash my back, felt highly dysregulated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And after doing the trauma work and coming to a place to resolution, I still believe the world is insane.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I feel safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm able to navigate through the world with a sense of, I'm not going to the ATM at night.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not driving down this street in night.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean to be out unless I'm, I listen to celebrating a special occasion like the holidays or a birthday certain times of the night.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't need to be out to, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think having in my setting, it almost felt like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I was able to re-engage, society, and enjoy life again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I stopped living with the sense of, I'm afraid of the world, everything's scary, let me go into my, like, it's like, you're free, but you're living in a mental prison, because trauma can keep you, that, that shack, and until you get help with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for sharing that and I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_02]: You went through that, but also it's beautiful to know that you've broken free from that fear and healed because it's not weird or crazy for someone to be like, well, how in the world, what I possibly feel safe.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was robbed at gunpoint, someone put a gun to my head.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I can't walk down the street and go to get something to eat without fear of being robbed, then how could I be safe in the world?
[SPEAKER_02]: But it sounds like to me that it's more about like, I have the discernment to be able to sense what are the best ways to keep myself safe and to know when I'm in a safe or unsafe situation versus
[SPEAKER_02]: you know that generalized fear of everything and everyone makes you think you're never safe meanwhile sometimes that threat is not present and other times it is and you need to be able to actually discern
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the key word discernment room because I just generalize it and think the world's not safe nowhere is safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still staying behind closed doors locked up at home with the very charge nervous system that feels like a threat could come around to coordinate any minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can have the best alarm system, all the weapons, all the weapons in the world,
[SPEAKER_01]: like I'm in Fallujah and still have a sense of, I'm terrified, I'm not saying, and be very guarded and all this going to do is cause my nervous system to work on overdrive and now I'm very anxious or you know, and it just robs you of any sense of regulation, ability to be present, it's like it's like you're you're living but you're not really dry.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and you know, I feel like with our current political climate, it's a little bit different from what we were talking about before in terms of like the relational lack of safety or betrayal within relational experiences, even if it's like a relationship to an institution or an individual or an institution.
[SPEAKER_02]: But like when you think about what there's certain people
[SPEAKER_02]: everyone in our country be afraid and want to have like enough weapons like as if they were in Feluca and right and you know but what you see is now door dash or knocks on the wrong door and the homeowners coming out with literally guns blazing
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's this whole thing happening where it's that phrase, the fabric of our society, not phrase, it rips the fabric of our society because, you know, it begins like, who can you trust, which is kind of what I guess I was saying at the beginning about the betrayal by, well, actually it was before we were recording, I think, but when I were talking,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when someone who should be trustworthy a neighbor, you know, it should be safe that if you go and knock on someone's door like my car broke down, they should say, here you can borrow my phone, you know, but so it shakes just a general sense of safety in the world that there's so much fearfulness.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then people, I think people respond, and I guess even systems respond if we're really looking at it in the most compassionate way, systems are like, mistrustful too, and, you know, but, it's not, the systems have more power.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they need to, they need to get their crap together, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the example you use about in just the climate we live in, a door desk, I can knock on a door and get shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that as validation took a knee of more mental professional society, why we need to normalize the conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there are so many people who are
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's this perspective that if you have PTSD, you're a combat veteran.
[SPEAKER_01]: When a trick that a matter is, most of the people with PTSD and complex PTSD have never been in a military.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're everyday people going to work smiling, seem like they have it together, but once they're triggered, once they hear this sound, once they want someone touches them at a particular place, they
[SPEAKER_01]: go up, they town travel back to when that offense happened in their triggered and everything within them's activated, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so many of us are nervous to fill their charge because we have under resolved things and we're trying to navigate our way through our life with these under resolved issues, not knowing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our trauma responses were so up in relationships, it'll especially show up around strangers when we feel like our boundaries have been violated.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if I'm that one resolved trauma, my boundary could be no one not some my door.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it sounds weird, if that's what gender is for, but I could be so traumatized that
[SPEAKER_01]: a knock on my door reminds me of when I was eight I heard cops knocking before they kicked the door down and maybe they accidentally shot someone who knows I'm just making up a hypothetical scenario you don't know what that person's thinking mentally and I'm not good don't eat someone knocks on the door you you heard of that's not what it's saying but I'm saying is if you looked at it from the perspective of the traumatized person who filled the
[SPEAKER_01]: Something went wrong years ago that they probably left on a dress if sat on bold fit if yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like if you're listening and you feel that if anybody knocks on my door, I'm going to have to kill him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or I'm going to have to have my gun, or I have to have a gun to protect myself from all the people who are continuously trying to kill me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is an indication that there's some thing, whether you've been in combat or not, that is making you feel unsafe and it's giving you a skewed perception of reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even if you have a totally valid feeling for feeling that way, like having been robbed at gunpoint, having been abused, mistreated, physically assaulted somewhere along your life.
[SPEAKER_02]: But most of us who haven't had combat, thank.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you and I know, not because we're trauma therapists, but most of us who haven't had combat or been robbed at gunpoint as an adult, because even like if a child was there when their parent was robbed at gunpoint and the child wasn't the direct victim of it, like the gun wasn't pointed at them, I bet you if that person comes into therapy as an adult, they're probably going to say, I don't know why I feel the way I do.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not going to say it's because when I was eight my mom
[SPEAKER_02]: And I wear at the ATM and she was held up at gunpoint.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're gonna be like, well, that did happen, but, you know, I don't really feel anything about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't think that's really affecting me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the person was to come to you and they were like, yeah, that did happen when I was eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: My mom was robbed at gunpoint and I witnessed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't really think that affected me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just don't trust anyone and I have an arsenal of 50 guns in my
[SPEAKER_02]: house up one in every room always within reach, but it's not because of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then nothing else has ever happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't really know what's wrong with me or why I feel this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, and then they come to you for therapy.
[SPEAKER_02]: What would you, what would you, how would you look at that as working with EMDR?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think would you think that it's probably not that thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I would automatically know most of the time when someone when a client tells me that didn't affect me or I had a great childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I already know there's something under the hood that I need to find, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So how definitely said, okay, let's explore it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always want to have a posture of curiosity, but I never want to make a client feel like, because I'm trained in this area, I have to write to tell them,
[SPEAKER_01]: I know themselves better that I know that I know what's in their hands and their bodies better than they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do want to give the client a margin to almost walk in tandem with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would make a suggestion of less less explore of anything there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or would you be comfortable with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's let's just see if if nothing's there that we could always move on to a different target.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we could either target the incident at eight to see
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's anything there, or we could do it the present day, except they're failing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the EMDR, as when you start with the present memory, and we work out, we'll always work out to the original connection, because trauma started in an nervous system.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, my parents are up at eight, and nine, in my 40s, I say it doesn't affect me.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I go to a trauma therapist, he's going to say the current level of stress and anxiety you feel as an adult, where do you feel the new your body?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll say my chest and my gut.
[SPEAKER_01]: Say okay, now, let's think of an early time where you felt that same level of disturbance in your body.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll start to explore, I was an undergrad working at work in all five exams.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's think further bank when I was in high school and before I know what I'm like, why?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is how I felt the night at eight, but I will come to that conclusion by just conversation in the process of doing EMDR and scanning my body, paying attention to my emotions and what's coming up for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your light all the bells and whistles up internally and you're doing EMDR?
[SPEAKER_01]: Your mind's instantly gonna make the connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's still something there for me from back when I was,
[SPEAKER_02]: That's such a clear description of how that works.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope that anybody who's listening and has been like, I'd like to try EMDR, but I really don't get like what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's really helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I also want to...
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I, I definitely want to say I agree with you 100% as a trauma therapist.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, if I'm talking about how I'm conceptualizing the work with another trauma therapist, I'm thinking, well, let's be curious about that thing that they mentioned happened when they were eight.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to say it really doesn't affect them or it really does affect them if they're saying it doesn't, but at the same time, and I would never want anyone to think that I know better than them.
[SPEAKER_02]: or think that I think I know better.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't think I know better.
[SPEAKER_02]: They might see that I'm acting like I think I know better about their life than them and I would need to be checked if, you know, by my client like, hold up.
[SPEAKER_02]: If, if I were to do that, but
[SPEAKER_02]: But we also know that because of dissociation, it's like a clue.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned when we were talking before, before we started recording, you mentioned kind of like the way you approach things is sort of like, you know, putting together clues.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's a clue that there's something that objectively was likely to have been a traumatic experience for any child to witness something like that, but they say it doesn't affect them.
[SPEAKER_02]: that there's a high likelihood that dissociation protected them from feeling.
[SPEAKER_02]: their trauma response in that situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it's not to tell them, oh, I know better than you about yourself, but just to pay attention, oh, here's a clue.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they said it was terrifying, then you know it was traumatic.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if they say it didn't affect me, it's like that's in congruent with what I know about trauma.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's probably an indication that there's something here to be curious about.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I love how you said we need to look under the hood,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's why if someone's in this field as a trauma therapist, continuing consultation is great because often times when we're in novices in this field, we're looking for a fight of flying response of trauma.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we often test to get about the
[SPEAKER_01]: The free status that says the association you mentioned where some people look call it is another term, the personalization where this almost like this disconnect between themselves and their bodies.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when does when a client is saying I don't think I was affected by that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then actually do me well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that they're not lying or trying to lie.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not lying exactly because the goal of therapy is not to make you calm because sometimes it's so calm that you're frozen.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're enough and you don't feel anything but the goal is to have you so regulated that you could be present in the moment and taking into higher experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if you're if you're if you're so numb and frozen that you can't feel anything, how can you be present?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're not even aware of what's going on internally and
[SPEAKER_01]: and if you have a heightened sense of fight or flight or a fond response which makes people pleasing, you can't be present either because that hyperbidulous has you aware about all of the things that don't matter, it don't even contain a what's taking place right in front of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: people try to will power their way through.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to work harder at paying attention to my wife's speaking or with so much sharing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But could it be we just need to work through all of the stuff that's in the way internally?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I hope it's a behavior modification techniques would not calm on over charge nervous system.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mike drop, that's a perfect place to stop because yes, it's behavioral stuff is fine for a beginning level, but when you have deep unspoken implicit memory.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, somatic methods like MDR brain spotting and other things like that are are the ways to access and let it heal so market.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where can people find you if they want it to consult with you for EMDR or they want to work with you as a therapist for EMDR and they want your book where can they find you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I start up on my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I'm ever fortunate to meet you in person, I usually take a couple copies with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be, I'll left a sign of cop, a personalized copy free.
[SPEAKER_01]: As far as finding me, the name of my practice is bedrock counseling, BS and boy bedrock counseling.
[SPEAKER_01]: On Instagram, I'm at bedrock counseling.
[SPEAKER_01]: and also my name at Mark and Volmey and same thing on Facebook, same thing on TikTok.
[SPEAKER_01]: My website is www.betterockcountsling.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think with social media, that's probably the quickest way to find me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, all my Lincoln bio, it has everything, it even has my other personalized page.
[SPEAKER_01]: And someone ever wants to bug me for it, to speak on mental health, to learn more about the bookwriting process, or the different stories in my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think social media will be the best point in contact.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I am so grateful to you for taking the time to share a small sliver of your knowledge today about Betrayal trauma in the MDR with us.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was wonderful to have the time to get to know more about you and what you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hope that many people will check out your book and get in touch with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure there are some people who would love to consult with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate it, Lawrence.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was, it was an honor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully this won't be our last conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, definitely not.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care.
[SPEAKER_01]: You too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to Therapy Chat with your host, Laura Reagan, LCSWC.
[SPEAKER_00]: For more information, please visit Therapy ChatPodcast.com.