Category: Transforming Trauma Podcast

When was the last time you took a break from learning new professional skills and, instead, carved out space to pursue self-discovery and community support? If your answer falls somewhere between “it’s been a while” and “never,” you’re not alone. 

Most therapists focus so much on the “doing” of therapy that they miss the essential ingredients for “being” in relationship with clients. As therapists chase new skills and trainings, they often leave themselves as humans behind. What if there was a program focused on cultivating greater capacity for being human in the role of therapist?  Where therapists could discover, grow, heal, and share in ways that could create greater therapeutic effectiveness and personal self-care? Where therapists can learn to love their work more, and be nourished by it?

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth welcomes back the faculty of the Complex Trauma Training Center (CTTC)––Brad Kammer, Stefanie Klein, and Marcia Black––to introduce SPACE, an innovative inner development program for therapists debuting in early 2025. SPACE supports therapists on three levels of the human experience: the personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal. 

In this conversation, Brad, Stefanie, and Marcia guide you through the intention of the program, as well as its structure, highlighting the themes and what participants can expect to gain from each session. They also share insights into how their own struggles and learning over their long careers as therapists helped them become more present, authentic, and effective therapists, and inspired their creation of SPACE. 

SPACE offers participants a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment where they can pursue self-discovery from the “inside-out,” becoming more familiar and comfortable with their inner wisdom. “What we want to support here,” says Marcia, “is our capacity to be more and more connected to the parts of ourselves that we may leave out of the work, that we may be afraid of experiencing, and that can be our greatest resources in our work.”

Speaking of the inside-out learning of SPACE, Brad shares: “In our community, there’s such a desire for us to continue going deeper into our own experiences as humans in our role of therapists, not just taking outside knowledge and training, but also bringing our own wisdom into more clarity with our clients,”  Brad reflects on his 25 years in professional training environments and educational settings, and says. “So many of us have done a lot of different trainings as therapists, specifically in the trauma world, and often what gets left out is ourselves. The cost of that is our own experiences, particularly when we’re working with clients with intense, complex trauma.” Tales of nagging career dissatisfaction and severe burn-out routinely bear this out.

Stefanie highlights the deeper intention of this exciting new program. “The mission of CTTC is founded around supporting therapists in their connection to these three levels of experience: the personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal.” SPACE inspires participants to find “more enjoyment, ease, and an internal sense of okayness,” she says. “Rather than learning a model and getting a certificate and saying you can do it, it’s really gonna be a certificate in yourself.” 

“I really think this is pretty unique in the psychological world,” Brad says. This program offers an immersive, heartful environment where therapists can reconnect with their humanity in relation to their clients, peers, and themselves. “We’re not coming in with all these different teachings, interventions, or protocols. We’re facilitating the exploration of people’s inner worlds,” he explains, adding, “What I’d love for participants to get out of this is ways of relating to themselves with more self-acceptance, self-compassion, less pressure, more creativity, and…more space.”  

Brad sums up the program as this: “When we think of space, we may think of exploration into outer space. What our SPACE program offers is exploration into our inner space: It’s an invitation to have a new relationship to our own inner world as a therapist.” 

Learn more about being a part of this community

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM®)

Inside Out 2

GUEST CONTACT AND BIO

Complex Trauma Training Center

Brad Kammer, LMFT, LPCC, is the Training Director and Senior Trainer for the Complex Trauma Training Center. Brad is responsible for the creation of the CTTC professional development programs, including working with Dr. Laurence Heller in developing the NARM® Therapist and NARM® Master Training Programs offered through CTTC. Brad also guides the mentorship programs involving CTTC faculty, training assistants and participants; the diversity, inclusion and belonging (DIB) efforts; and is the executive producer of the Transforming Trauma podcast. Brad has a passion for cultivating a professional learning community that provides ongoing training opportunities and mentorship to a diverse group of mental health professionals in their work with complex trauma. Brad is also the co-author of The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma.

Stefanie Klein, LCSW, is the Assistant Training Director for the Complex Trauma Training Center. Stefanie is also a NARM® Master Therapist, Consultant and Trainer. She previously taught the Level 1 NARM Online Basics Training and is involved in many aspects of supporting the development of the Center and its programs. Her focus as Assistant Training Director is co-creating and guiding CTTC’s Training Assistant Program. She is inspired by the mentorship model of supporting mental health professionals in bringing healing to individuals, groups and communities impacted by complex trauma. She also enjoys the training participants use their professional learning as a framework to create healthier and more sustainable relationships to their own lives.

Marcia Black is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and CTTC Faculty Committee member.  As a NARM® Senior Training Assistant, Marcia has a passion for mentoring students and Training Assistants, and nurturing the growth of the community of graduates committed to ongoing learning.  Marcia is also a NARM Master Therapist and has been in private practice for over 40 years in SF and the East Bay, specializing in treating complex and developmental trauma, and other psychological conditions. Coming from a background in Attachment, Relational and Intersubjective approaches, as well as experience as a Somatic Experiencing practitioner and SE Assistant, Marcia finds the NARM model offers an invaluable and inspiring contribution to understanding and approaching the psychotherapy process, not only in working with C-PTSD but also more broadly. Marcia’s mentorship is based in a relational approach that invites an exploration into the therapist’s inner experience and growth, alongside that of the client’s.  Marcia is excited about supporting ongoing training, consultation, and mentorship in her role at CTTC.

QUOTES

Brad Kammer

“So many of us, again, are going out to get knowledge, to get teaching, and what we’re really often looking for is connection to our own inner knowing and wisdom and how difficult that has been.”

“I would love people to not have to worry about ‘doing it right’ or getting all the information––or the expectations of how they’re gonna take this money they’ve spent on this new model and you know, prove that it was worth it––but that they really just get to be in a community and in these environments where they get to bring themselves and support others, and also get to receive support and enrichment for themselves as well.”

“It’s really about this invitation to have a new relationship to our own inner world as a therapist.”

Stefanie Klein

“A lot of people who are therapists, who work with complex trauma, know that the greatest resource that we have is our internal knowing and our internal wisdom, as well as our internal capacity to be with vulnerability and to be with uncertainty. At the same time, our biggest obstacles that get in the way of both our experience and our enjoyment of our work and our effectiveness are internal obstacles.”

“That’s the entree here: rather than learning a model and, you know, getting a certificate and saying you can do it, it’s really gonna be a certificate in yourself.”

Marcia Black

“We’re therapist-focused, not skill-focused. We’re looking at supporting capacity for increased complexity and intunement and personal self care in our professional and therapist role.”

“I think about, in consults that I have and in other training experiences, how students tend to leave their most authentic parts out.”

“Often, we devalue some of our most tender parts, our most vulnerable parts, or even some of our gifts.”

“We’re not going to teach a training, but we’re really working to create experiential opportunities where the way we actually bring the learning to the participants really is reflective of what we’re hoping they will learn.”

Most addiction treatment models focus on behavioral change. And yet, many of these models fail at helping people fully recover from their addiction. Perhaps it is time to try something different? Applying NARM® to addiction brings focus to areas that behavioral interventions miss, like understanding the role of trauma, attachment, relationships, and shame. Addressing these areas has a profound impact on addiction recovery. NARM-AC™(also known as NARMA™), a newly developed addiction treatment model, already provides promising answers.

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth invites James McNinch, LCSW and PhD candidate and addiction specialist, to introduce NARM-AC, the NeuroAffective Relational Model® – Addiction Centered, an approach he co-developed alongside Dr. Laurence Heller, the creator of NARM. Emily and James explore the evolution of NARM-AC and its application.

NARM-AC propels Dr. Heller’s groundbreaking work into new territory. “It’s interesting because NARM doesn’t really get into behaviors, socialization, boundaries, and things like that. So, Larry and I are really feeling this out alongside practical approaches of accountability, social support, existing things like the 12 steps, motivational interviewing, and integrating that with connection, trust, autonomy, all the pillars of NARM,” James says. “What NARM-AC does is it compliments. Right now, in our treatment centers, [they] are utilizing the social model, and they’re having an immense experience with themselves, and they’re doing a 12-step thing to work with their mind. And, it’s very useful to use all these things all together in unison.”

James discusses the clinical focus of self-agency, which NARM-AC highlights as a critical component for sustained sobriety. “NARM-AC gives patients the option of having autonomy over how much they can handle in the moment, to go away and come back. It allows them the freedom to start trusting that their experience is not gonna kill them.” James continues, “The beautiful thing (about NARM-AC) is that clients are coming to their own conclusions. [We support] them to have the choice to stay in that phenomenology, and reminding them of what’s happening.”

Using a clinical model that goes well beyond the standard behavioral and cognitive focus provides clients with new pathways to change addictive patterns. Treating the trauma underneath addiction is a new paradigm. While this depth-oriented trauma work may take longer, it often reduces the risk of repeat behavior, as people truly heal. As James says, “It gives them hope. They stay longer; they connect deeper; they feel something that’s possible versus us all staying in denial.”

Transforming Trauma is grateful to James for co-creating the NARM-AC model and we hope that this framework for treating addiction can reach many more centers for helping people recover from addiction.

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TT136: Addiction Recovery Within A Trauma-Informed Community With Laura Sorte

GUEST CONTACT AND BIO

NARM Therapy Los Angeles

James McNinch, LCSW, is an experienced addiction treatment and trauma clinician with 16 years of experience. He is a NARM-AC Co-Founder who facilitates the creation of addiction treatment programs at the world’s most elite treatment centers. James is writing the NARM-AC Workbook and Treatment Model Book with Dr. Laurence Heller for publication by North Atlantic.

Movement is medicine, but accessing its healing powers is often challenging for folks impacted by trauma. Some may have difficulty reconnecting with their bodies, while others might feel unsafe or unwelcome in traditional gym environments. Regardless of the reason, there’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that practices like weightlifting can support trauma-affected individuals on their healing journeys. How might such a shift in focus and function transform traditional fitness spaces? And how do fitness professionals gain the training they need to become trauma-informed?

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, Emily is joined by Mariah Rooney, LCSW, co-founder of Trauma-Informed Weight Lifting, the one-of-a-kind non-profit program dedicated to the training and education of trauma-informed movement practitioners as well as research on the healing potential of weight lifting. The pair discuss the program’s structure, the neuroscience behind it, and how Mariah’s extensive participation in social justice practices led to its creation. Mariah also shares some case studies that highlight the positive impact that weight lifting has on a trauma-impacted individual’s resilience, sense of agency, and interoceptive awareness.

“The slowness and mindfulness that’s asked of a person in a certain practice (think: yoga or tai chi) can feel terrifying, particularly to people who have experienced a lot of trauma,” says Mariah. While puzzling over how to combine movement and mindfulness in a less threatening manner, “I kept finding myself standing alongside people that would talk,” she recalls. Many of those casual conversations included mentions of trauma. “I thought, why not make those practices more intentionally trauma-informed, and research them to understand how they help people?” From there, Mariah began incorporating weight lifting into her own fitness routine and eventually bringing it to others.

Mariah co-created Trauma-Informed Weight Lifting to study the effects of weight lifting on healing and to offer a more trauma-focused and inclusive approach to fitness instruction. “Relationships and community are a central part of healing,” she asserts, recognizing that practitioners with a foundational knowledge of trauma are essential to communal care. Shaping a new treatment paradigm, one that combats the isolating nature of trauma while also addressing the limitations and harms perpetuated by traditional gyms, could revolutionize the fitness industry.

Transforming Trauma is grateful to Mariah for creating an innovative approach to treating complex trauma and sharing it with healing professionals.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Center For Trauma And Embodiment At JRI
Prison Yoga Project
Fitness For All Bodies
Decolonizing Fitness
School Of Social Work – Winona State University

GUEST CONTACT AND BIO
Trauma Informed Weightlifting
Instagram
Website

Mariah Rooney, MSW, LCSW (she/they) is the co-founder and co-director of Trauma Informed Weight Lifting, a program of the Center for Trauma and Embodiment. She is a licensed clinical social worker who specializes in treating the complex challenges that arise as a result of traumatic stress, attachment trauma, intergenerational trauma, and dissociation in children and adults. She is also an adjunct professor in the graduate School of Social Work at Winona State University, and a trauma-informed care consultant who supports systems change and capacity building efforts in systems of all sizes and types. As a previous Fellow at the Trauma Center at JRI she received extensive training in trauma and supported various project and research efforts.

Additionally, Mariah is a movement practitioner and somatic coach with extensive training in trauma-sensitive and culturally-informed yoga and meditation practices through Warriors at Ease, Prison Yoga Project, Insight Prison Project, Mind Body Solutions, and Trauma Sensitive Yoga. Her writing and research has explored trauma-informed considerations for personal trainers and fitness spaces, posttraumatic outcomes among combat veterans with histories of interpersonal violence, trauma-sensitive education, and inclusive practices for LGBTQIA+ clients in fitness and weight lifting.

Clinicians treating complex trauma clients already understand the value of using the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) in 1:1 settings. Imagine, then, the transformative healing that might occur when applying NARM in group recovery and transitional living environments.

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth welcomes Laura Sorte, LCSW, NARM Therapist and Executive Director at Release Recovery, to discuss her experiences creating and implementing NARM-informed programming for this New York-based outpatient addiction treatment center. Laura has incorporated NARM throughout the organization, including at the case management level, where NARM Basics Training is now an integral part of the team development track, ensuring that all staff members have a strong foundation in complex trauma care. Emily and Laura explore the synergies that exist between NARM’s compassionate, holistic approach to healing complex trauma and Release Recovery’s ethos of treating the root cause of substance abuse disorders without blame, shame, or labels that fail to acknowledge a client’s ability to change.

“When I talk about NARM, whether with a prospective family or client, or another clinician in the field, they all like the language, they like the…I’m gonna say they like the “product.” It’s what people are really looking for,” explains Laura, whose enthusiasm for this developmentally-oriented, neuroscientifically-informed model extends beyond theory. She’s also know this personally.  Using NARM, she continues to take an honest inventory of the traumas at the root of her past struggles with addiction. “It’s this deeper work around these dynamics that are so significant and sensitive and important,” Laura confirms. “They really cause a lot of suffering for a lot of our clients that are stuck in these cycles of substance use.”

Under Laura’s guidance, Release Recovery has thoroughly embraced a culture of connection, curiosity and compassion––characteristics central to the NARM Relational Model –– at the treatment and staffing levels. “I think the impact that this type of work has on one’s practice at the clinical level, the residential level, the entry-level is significant and profound. It’s happening in real-time, right here,” she marvels.

Transforming Trauma thanks Laura for her thoughtful insights and for sharing the NARM model within her addiction recovery community.

GUEST CONTACT AND BIO

Release Recovery

Laura Sorte, LCSW, is a NARM Therapist. Laura has specialized in working with families, individuals, and adolescents and thrives in helping her clients develop a deeper connection to themselves.

Laura holds the position of Executive Director at Release Recovery Centers, an outpatient treatment center in Westchester County, New York where she brings her deep understanding of the impacts of developmental trauma and addiction to the clinical programming. Release Recovery Centers is a clinically driven, client-centered, trauma informed outpatient treatment center treating substance abuse disorders. Release Recovery Centers is focused on treating the root cause of the symptoms and behaviors, without blame, shame or labels that fail to acknowledge the ability to change.

A vital tenet of the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) is that, no matter how withdrawn or isolated one becomes due to complex trauma, humans remain instinctively and spontaneously drawn towards connection, just as plants are drawn towards the sun. It’s easy, then, to trace a throughline from the organizing principles of NARM to the organic wisdom of the natural world. One clinician has taken that connection literally by embodying psychotherapy in the natural world. 

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, Emily Ruth is joined by Joseph McCaffrey, LPC, LMHC, an Arizona-based NARM therapist specializing in ecotherapy––the formal practice of incorporating nature-based experiences to facilitate healing. Joseph also offers workshops as well as preparation and integration therapy for those exploring non-ordinary states of consciousness through plant medicines, psychedelics, breathwork, and modern-day rites of passage. The pair explore Joseph’s process for applying NARM “in the wild” and his tips for identifying everyday opportunities to re-establish a personal connection to nature no matter where you live.

“Nature is the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, landscape, other features and products of earth as opposed to humans and human creatures,” says Joseph.  Although wilderness experiences played an essential role in Joseph’s early work, he often struggled to comprehend why eco-based therapies alone couldn’t “fix” clients with C-PTSD. “I thought all I needed to do was get people out on the land, have an experience, and everything would be okay,” he admits. NARM training filled in the gaps. “One of the things I’ve heard Dr. Heller [creator of NARM] say is that we are always in connection. If we’re not connected to our hearts and ourselves, how can we open up to a deeper connection with the consciousness of the planet?”  

“We are a part of [the earth], not separate from it,” Joseph shares. “But, I really believe that we’re in this state of psychological estrangement from nature—and our own wildness.”  This creates human suffering. In order to address these deep wounds of disconnection and estrangement, Joseph is excited to share about how to integrate NARM with earth-based experiences, which can be a vehicle for reconnection.

Transforming Trauma thanks Joseph for sharing his integrative trauma-informed approach with our community and introducing us to the growing field of ecotherapy.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Animas Valley Institute

Prescott College

Jon Young

Eligio Stephen Gallego

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Somatic Equine Therapy for Emotional Balance and Post-Traumatic Growth with Isabelle Shook

GUEST CONTACT AND BIO

Website

Joseph McCaffrey holds an MS in Counseling with a specialization in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Prescott College and an MA in Educational Psychology from the University of Colorado, Denver. Joseph is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Arizona as well as a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in the state of Washington and specializes in complex developmental trauma and ecotherapy. His approach is trauma-informed, influenced by Ecotherapy, spirituality, mindfulness, and somatic work, and grounded in The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM).