Category: Transforming Trauma Podcast

In this episode of Transforming Trauma we hear from Jacqueline Russell and Dexter Ellis. Jacqueline is the Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Chicago Children’s Theatre, and founded The Chicago Children’s theatre seventeen years ago with the goal of creating the best quality children’s theatre. She also started the Red Kite Project in order to support children on the Autism Spectrum, providing them and their families with theatrical and educational programs. Dexter has been with the Chicago Children’s Theatre for over four years, and now proudly serves as the Director of Education & Community Programs. Jacqueline and Dexter completed the Level 1 NARM Online Basics Training last spring and are integrating a trauma-informed approach into their work with youth and the performing arts. 

Dexter and Jacqueline reflect on their experiences of going into various classrooms throughout Chicago. They noticed disparities in access to resources, economic and racial divides, and a strong need for trauma-informed care. The pair reflect on how their NARM training has impacted their work. Jacqueline shares that she’s noticed she’s more able to stay connected to herself and not try to “fix others”. Dexter expressed that he has more capacity to be more curious with the kids that he’s working with as well as in his personal relationships. For both Jacquelin and Dexter, a central theme of NARM, “being in the 50/50”, which means staying connected to oneself while connecting to others, has really impacted how they relate to themselves and the people they work with. 

Dexter reflects on how this framework has impacted how he relates to and holds space for the kids. The trauma-informed curriculum they created at the Chicago Children’s Theatre supports young children to connect to their emotions and build resilience. Dexter shares an example of ways that they use curiosity with the kids if they break an agreement. “We ask the kids, what were you trying to get in that moment, how did it make you feel, how did it make others feel?” This supports a deeper connection between the teacher and the child and helps them to connect more to themselves and build resilience. 

Jacqueline explained that the NARM training has helped her to see the important need for children to be seen, heard, and understood by the adults in their life. This builds a heart connection that is often lacking for children and even for many adults. She reflects on a central theme of the NARM Training: heartfulness. “We talk all the time now that [in our] work for children and with children about how important it is that the work is heartful.”

About:

Jacqueline Russell is Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Chicago Children’s Theatre since 2005. Previously, she served as the Executive Director of Lookingglass Theatre Company, during which time she led the company’s build and move into Lookingglass’ current performance space in the Water Tower Water Works. Before joining Lookingglass, she spent five years as Director of Children’s Programs at Old Town School of Folk Music. In addition to leading CCT’s main stage and award-winning new play development, Russell is the creator of the Red Kite Project, a CCT program dedicated to bringing theatre into the lives of children with special needs. In 2010, she was appointed by the U.S. State Department to serve as Cultural Envoy to Canada, and was honored with the 2013 “Hero of the Year Award” from the Chicago chapter of Autism Speaks. She was named “Tastemaker” by Time Out Chicago Kids, and has three times been highlighted in New City’s “Players” list of “People Who Really Perform for Chicago.” She over saw the funding and renovation of The Station, Chicago Children’s Theatre’s first permanent home located in an old police station which opened in the city’s West Loop in 2017.  Chicago Children’s Theatre received a National Theatre Company Award from The American Theatre Wing in 2018 and the 2019 Award for” Artistic Innovation” from TYA/USA. Jacqueline is one of 20 women featured on the city of Chicago’s mural “Rush More” by Kerry James Marshall.  She spent her early childhood in Beirut and is originally from Houston, Texas and received her BFA from NYU. She has a daughter, Shiri Nicole, two kittens and a turtle named Leonard.

Dexter Ellis is a Louisiana born educator, director, and actor that misses the crawfish and gumbo but is humbled by the Chicago theatre community. After being with Chicago Children’s Theatre for 5 years, Dexter now proudly serves as the Director of Education & Community Programs where he creates a wide variety of programming for Ages 0-14 throughout Chicago. Dexter has also co-directed several public performance pieces with Chicago Children’s Theatre in events such as Luma8’s Art in the Dark Parade and DCASE’s YAS! Festival. Other notable projects at Chicago Children’s Theatre have spanned from creating international curriculum centering on the UN’s Sustainable Goals with The Pomegranate Workshop in Mumbai, India to creating curriculum with the Lurie’s Center for Childhood Resilience that focuses on generating trauma responsive spaces in the classroom and equipping young people with tools to be resilient in a temperamental world.  

Learn more: www.chicagochildrenstheatre.org

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, our guest is Althea Simpson, the founder of Brighter Day Therapeutic Solutions, Unicorn Life Training and the Black Play Therapy Society. Althea is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing in Trauma Recovery, a Registered Play Therapist, and a Certified Lego Serious Play Facilitator. Her approach to treatment is tailored to the unique needs of her clients and she brings a range of educational, professional, and life experiences to her work as a therapist, clinical supervisor, and mental health consultant.

Althea shares that she would like for listeners to learn that play therapy is not just for children, but that it is a trauma-informed treatment. Originally she planned to go into social work to work on the macro, systemic level, and her social work internship experience at a community mental health organization in DC opened her eyes to trauma. She realized the profound impacts of trauma on families and children and decided to focus her career path on helping support the kids and adolescents that were impacted by complex trauma.

Althea was drawn to play therapy early in her career, which is a therapeutic modality that supports clients to express themselves in ways other than just verbal communication. She discusses a play therapy intervention that is aligned with NARM, which is using inquiry in the play therapy process. “It’s not for us [as therapists] to give meaning to [the client’s experience], that’s for the client,” she says. Similar to the NARM approach, Althea invites curiosity which supports clients to connect more deeply to themselves.

While Althea relies on play therapy as her main clinical focus, she acknowledges the central importance of the therapeutic relationship with clients. “Real therapeutic change isn’t possible if the client doesn’t have a real connection with you.”

Althea reflects on the importance of deconstructing the stigma around mental health with black families. She shares, “I’ve been doing a lot of work in healing the black child, and black communities have undeniably unique needs around mental health and trauma.” Althea explains that many black families believe that the answer to their mental health problems is through church. She challenges this notion through addressing the intersectionality of spirituality, religion, and mental health. She also started the Black Play Therapy Society to address the disparities for black therapists not being able to showcase their work, as well as the inconsistencies and information that was being talked about in the black communities.

Althea details many important aspects that therapists need to understand in order to work with black families. She states, “We need more black therapists.” She also asks an important question for non-black therapists who are working with black families, which is, “Are black clients allowed to show up in their authentic self with all their pain, and can they express what they need to express?”

Althea acknowledges that utilizing play therapy helped her to also address her own healing. “I don’t think that we should have clients go where we’re not willing to,” Althea states. Althea’s lived experiences of trauma, as well as healing from her trauma, has supported her in her capacity to help her clients. She explains, “I’m a great therapist because I understand [the work] both personally and professionally.”

Althea bio: Althea is the founder of Brighter Day Therapeutic Solutions and Unicorn Life Training. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specialized in trauma recovery, Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor, and Certified LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator. She has an active psychotherapy private practice in Northern, VA and has experience treating children, adolescents, and adults with diverse backgrounds and ranges of concerns, including anger, substance use/abuse, domestic violence, anxiety, and depression. Her approach to treatment is tailored to the unique needs of her clients and she brings a range of educational, professional and life experiences to her work as a therapist, clinical supervisor, and mental health consultant.

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Brad Kammer, Senior Faculty and Training Director of the NARM Training Institute, is joined by Lara Eisenberg. Lara is a bilingual licensed professional clinical counselor, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and women’s spirituality and sexuality therapist. She’s the owner of Body-Mind Wellness, a somatic psychotherapy and coaching practice, specializing in developmental trauma, anxiety, depression, ancestral healing, sexuality, and spirituality. She also incorporates ritual and trauma-informed touch in her work with clients.

Lara shares that her lived experiences informed much of her work including witnessing violence in her community and her home, and also the oppression she has experienced because of her Jewish ethnicity. She shares how the intersection of her ethnicity and gender were both used against her in the form of objectification, and internalized as self-objectification. Lara shares that due to these experiences she began studying psychology.

Lara and Brad explore together their shared view on complex trauma healing which supports individuals to move from experiencing themselves as an object to a subject. Lara explains how objectification of women in American society disconnects a woman from her own pleasure and body. “If the body is seen as an object, then how do you come into the body in times of your menstrual cycle or discomfort or pleasure?” She explains that through somatic work, a woman can be supported to embody and to connect back to herself and her pleasure.

Lara describes the spiritual underpinnings of her work with women which supports them to reclaim their sacredness. Lara shares with Brad that to reclaim the sacredness is to embody, to connect back to their bodies. She explains that with the right support, her clients have been able to reconnect back to stuck energy and start to connect to their needs and desires. Brad states, “It’s so difficult to stay connected to ourselves while in a relationship to others, and the extra challenges for women to stay connected while they are in relationships without having to pull away from their authenticity, boundaries, and needs.”

Lara shared that she is a new mom and has an 18 months-old daughter which also informs much of her work and desire to heal. She shares the lessons around self-esteem she hopes to share with her child, as well as her clients. Recognizing her own intergenerational trauma as a Jewish woman, including current antisemitism she faces, has helped her as a mother, woman and healer. “I am proud to say I am Jewish and there used to be a lot of shame. I think if there’s one part of your identity that you feel ashamed about, or you feel afraid of revealing, then you can’t be a whole fully expressed being.” Lara embodies this natural pride of the sacred feminine and models it for the women she works with in her life.

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, we hear from trauma therapist, somatic practitioner, and speaker, Becky Carter. Becky specializes in complex trauma (C-PTSD), and has a special focus on supporting transracial adoptees and their families. Throughout the episode, Becky shares about her work with somatic healing of racial trauma, her own connection to her ancestral trauma, and how embodiment can serve as a vehicle for healing.

She shares with listeners her personal experience of being biracial and adopted at ten months old into a white family. She reflects on the varying experiences she had growing up that were informed by her biracial identity and the family that she grew up in. “I walked parallel to a lot of worlds, experiencing different types of racism, oppression, and also realizing how much I was afforded based on the privilege I grew up with,” Becky shares.

Learning about complex trauma and the impact of neglect was really important to Becky’s work with her clients. Becky shares that through her exploration of somatic models she began to understand trauma from a “bottom-up” approach. “And that’s when things really started to make sense to me, that our body can give us so much information about what we experience as safe and what is threatening”.

Somatic healing work has been helpful for Becky not only with her clients, but also in her own healing. “To be able to listen to my body as a woman of color and to connect with it and know that it has something to tell me, and has its own wisdom — that has been transformative,” Becky says.

Becky also reflects on racial trauma on an individual and societal level. She shares the importance of being present with and holding curiously for others, specifically people of color. The episode concludes with Becky reflecting on hope and the role embodied healing approaches can play in manifesting new possibilities.

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, we are joined by Bonnie Badenoch, MA, LMFT. Bonnie is a therapist, mentor, teacher, author, and has spent the last fifteen years integrating the discoveries of relational neuroscience into her therapy practice. She’s the co-founder of the nonprofit agency Nurturing the Heart with the Brain in Mind. For twenty-five years, she has worked with trauma survivors to reshape their neural landscape to support a life of meaning and resilience. 

Bonnie shares what led her to start working with trauma. “I had a really traumatic childhood and I had not had any help with it. I had breakdowns periodically and, you know, just a tragic family history of parents who were so wounded,” she says. Through exploration of her own developmental trauma, Bonnie was able to receive the support that she needed and was inspired to help others. She started the Center for Hope and Healing in Southern California, which was dedicated to healing severe trauma. Bonnie’s understanding of trauma has been heavily influenced by Stephen Porges, Daniel Siegel, and Iain McGilchrist. Bonnie reflects on the importance of true safety, true presence, and connection as essential elements for healing — and she believes it’s vital for therapists to do their own work in order for them to be healthy enough to be present, safe, and connected to themselves and their clients in the therapeutic space.  

Throughout the episode, Bonnie and Sarah discuss the relational aspects that are foundational for effective therapy. Bonnie’s approach, similar to NARM, is grounded in a therapist’s capacity for humility, which has to do with the way therapists meet their clients with openness and curiosity, and not as experts or being focused on “fixing their clients”. This relational focus on healing is a key ingredient to healing relational trauma.

Bonnie gives a couple examples of clients and the growth that they have experienced due to the relational focus in their therapy. Safety, curiosity, and space for clients to connect to their own inner wisdom – which in NARM is part of the agency process – leads to often profound healing and transformation. Bonnie reflects on the power of the therapist “really respecting space and trusting the wisdom inside the person — and if we can just sit together and keep holding space, what needs to come forward will come forward, and it’ll come forward at a pace that’s manageable for the person.” 

As the episode comes to a close, Bonnie reflects on what gives her hope amidst all the fear and devastation that goes on in the world and between one another. She knows that deep inside we all have the capacity to be empathetic and to be connected. “I hold hope because the capacity is still here in all of us.”  Bonnie believes that who we are inherently yearns to orient towards connection and health.