Category: Transforming Trauma Podcast

We often discuss the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) as it relates to the adult journey of healing from complex trauma, but what about younger clients? How responsive are teens to NARM’s trauma-informed approach? And how receptive are families to the evolving nature of their child’s agency, capacity for connection, and self-regulation?

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth is joined by Kami Black, LCSW, founder of ROOTs Transitions, a program that supports adolescent females ages 15 to 18 and their families by blending elements of outdoor therapy and residential treatment in Park City, Utah. The pair explore ROOTs’ commitment to utilizing NARM as both a therapeutic modality and a rubric for staff engagement. They also discuss the program’s assessment, treatment, and reintegration phases, plus the value of embracing and navigating dysregulation within the safety of the on-site therapeutic environment.

“I definitely fell in love with NARM. I’m trying to embody it as much as possible, and it informs how I show up with my staff and clients.” Kami’s appreciation for NARM inspired her, in part, to create a residential space that focuses on the attachment, relational, and/or developmental traumas of teenage girls. “Through my years of working in residential [settings],..I didn’t feel super creative,” admits Kami. “When I found NARM, I realized something [that] the residential treatment industry had been missing out on, so I was excited to bring that into ROOTs.”

ROOTs – which stands for Reclaiming Our Original Truths – is grounded in a relational and flexible approach to treatment depending on each girl’s needs: six-to-nine months’ residency as opposed to 12+ months of traditional programs. Kami credits NARM for providing a therapeutic container in which families can safely navigate the discomfort of healing from C-PTSD and create better strategies for emotional development in real time rather than leaving the family to struggle once the client returns home.

Kami and her team receive ongoing training and support from CTTC Faculty in their integration of NARM into ROOTs. Kami appreciates the humanistic approach of NARM and its emphasis on the intersubjective process (human to human relationships), including the relationships the clients create with their staff. Additionally, they engage the parents as active participants in their own healing in support of their child’s healing process. Kami says, “It’s so important that parents start to address their own trauma around what they’ve been through with their children and, maybe, how that reminds them of their childhood.”

Transforming Trauma is grateful to Kami for creating such a welcoming and safe haven in support of meaningful healing for adolescent females and their families.

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ROOTs Transition

As a young adult, Kami Black, LCSW, knew that she wanted to be a therapist and help give back to a community that once served her and address the trauma impacting others. After completing her schooling, she began working with adolescents and their families, as well as signing up for any trauma training that she could find. This included EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, Brainspotting, and many others. About five years ago, Kami came across NARM at a conference. She was intrigued by the language, and specifically the way it articulated complex trauma healing through a deeply interpersonal process. She trained in NARM and hoped that one day this healing modality would be at the foundation of a program she was envisioning.  ROOTs Transition emerged from her vision, and has been open for almost three years now.  And, NARM is now the foundation of their clinical approach and how they train their therapists, guides and staff.  The principles of NARM also inspire and challenges them each day to stay curious and provide agency to those around them.

Many therapists are conflicted about how to show up with their clients. While there is lots of training to be highly emotionally engaged with clients, there is also training that therapists should be more distant in sessions to avoid possible countertransference––which is the evoking of emotions and reactions within the therapist. What if, instead of attempting to be overly engaged or maintaining a distancing demeanor, therapists learned how to honor their humanness within their therapeutic role? What if therapists permitted their emotional sensitivity to balance with their curiosity and learning? How might a therapist’s self-inquiry transform the therapeutic relationship?

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth welcomes Karen J. Maroda, PhD., noted psychoanalyst and author, to discuss her fascinating research on countertransference. In addition to maintaining her Milwaukee-based private practice, Dr. Maroda is an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Medical College of Wisconsin and sits on the editorial boards of several psychoanalytic journals. Her most recent book, The Analyst’s Vulnerability: Impact On Theory And Practice, has received wide recognition across theoretical originations for its focus on the early childhood experiences of all psychotherapists.

“No one develops perfectly,” concedes Dr. Maroda. “To some extent, we all have some degree of issues.” Her research bares this out. “In the last ten years (of treating and supervising therapists), I’ve observed that therapists have a commonality in their early experiences: a history of being a parentified child.” The emotional fallout can be tricky to navigate, professionally. “We’re mostly aware of these feelings as human beings, but we don’t know what to do with them in the session.” These often-unconscious emotions are evoked within therapy and are referred to as countertransference.

Therapists who’ve experienced the parentified child dynamic often retain a professional inclination towards conflict avoidance and timid attitudes around self-disclosure. Dr. Maroda asserts that their decision-making in these areas is rooted in childhood fear rather than sound clinical judgment. “The advice I give to therapists who have strong feelings toward a client is don’t just start talking about your feelings!” Instead, she urges folks to bookmark the emotions until they have space to investigate the source of activation. “Go home and think about it,” she counsels, in addition to seeking clinical consultation and one’s own personal therapy. If a therapist is able to attend to their own feelings and reactions, they are able to become more present and effective clinically. Dr. Maroda declares: “Be curious about everything that’s happening.”

Transforming Trauma thanks Dr. Maroda for her compassionate insights and commitment to enriching the therapist-client relationship.

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Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association

Psychoanalytic Psychology and Contemporary Psychoanalysis

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Karen J. Maroda, PhD., is a psychologist/psychoanalyst practicing in Milwaukee, WI. She is also an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and sits on the editorial boards of The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Psychology, and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. The author of four books, her most recent one, titled “The Analyst’s Vulnerability: Impact on theory and practice,” has received wide recognition across theoretical originations because it focuses on the early childhood experiences of all psychotherapists.

Dr. Maroda discusses how therapists share having been the sensitive, empathic child who was subsequently tapped to serve the emotional needs of family members, especially depressed mothers. Although the history of therapists having a depressed mother is not a new idea, Maroda’s presentation goes far beyond this reason for our vocational choice, outlining the resultant guilt and shame that therapists often feel for failing to rescue and restore family members. They then carry the need to rescue and be rescued into their work with clients.

She also outlines how the persona of the perfect mother, who sacrifices endlessly, does not serve us in our work. Having had little to no power as children, the parentified child seeks to soothe, comfort and restore. Although these capacities can serve us well in our work, the accompanying passivity, conflict avoidance, and guilt and shame over failing to rescue, do not. Seeking to remove this residue of guilt, shame repressed anger over their own lost childhood and conflict avoidance, she emphasizes the need for healthy narcissism, gratification and the facilitation of constructive conflict as an alternative to passive unconditional acceptance.

Telling our story––to a trusted friend, a therapist, or ourselves––is a continuous unfolding. Each layer shed is an opportunity to re-engage with the past and assess its significance on the present. If the subject matter includes trauma, the process of exposure requires extra care. One writer invites us to establish a practice of dipping into and out of our story’s muck, building the capacity to tolerate what’s buried underneath, and reconnecting with what is true, whether or not we even intend to put pen to paper.

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth is joined by the inimitable writer and writing coach Jeanette LeBlanc. The pair explore what it means to “write your way through” trauma by examining the narratives we create. Jeanette’s profound, sensory-rich prose has been a fixture in the blogosphere for decades. She’s gained legions of new fans via her Substack newsletter and latest self-published work, You Are Not Too Much: Love Notes Of Heartache, Redemption, And Reclamation. Her considered, heart-centered approach to coaching provides writers and would-be writers with the support and, more importantly, permission they crave to “reclaim sovereignty, truth, and bravery, using the stories of their lived experiences as the vehicle to expand into authenticity, courage, and expression.”

“For me, the starting point of writing, no matter where it ends up, is always a dismantling of all of these disparate pieces,” says Jeanette, who describes her craft as an endless exercise in excavation and revaluation. “It can be a messy and really raw process,” she confides. But rather than abandoning that difficult work altogether, Jeanette approaches her writing with the same deliberate awareness that a NARM client uses in therapy. She checks in with her body’s responses and remains inquisitive rather than trying to force a specific outcome. “There is a voice under that high-activation, danger-zone, red-lights-flashing space”, she confides. “There is always a space underneath that. It’s really, really hard to get to sometimes.”  In order to get there, she writes about the trauma voices that are “important to hear [and] to discern the voice of my heart and turn its volume up a little bit louder.”

Transforming Trauma is grateful to Jeanette for sharing her practice with our community and reminding us that sharing our story is part of the healing journey.

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Joan Didion

Lidia Yuknavitch

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Jeanette LeBlanc is a writer, self-published author, teacher, and motivational speaker. She guides humans seeking permission to stop seeking permission along their journeys to increased sovereignty, truth, and bravery, using their stories of lived experiences as vehicles to expand into authenticity, courage, and expression. As a facilitator, coach, and guide, she has directly led over 800 brave humans (thousands more via her social media presence) on the journey toward a life of exploration and fulfillment. Jeanette, queer and single mama to two delightfully unruly grown daughters, is the author of  You Are Not Too Much | Love Notes On Heartache, Redemption, and Reclamation.

You know those early days of an exciting new romance? That initial passion usually dies down to make space for genuine intimacy and commitment. In some cases, a partner’s charm burns so intensely––and falsely––that it fuels a cyclical pattern of obfuscation and abuse followed by periods of whiplash-like positive reinforcement. The resulting “trauma bond” can be challenging to break free from without professional support.

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth welcomes back trauma bond expert and author Nadine Macaluso, LMFT, Ph.D., to introduce her latest book, Run Like Hell, A Therapist’s Guide To Recognizing, Escaping, Healing From Trauma Bonds. The pair also discuss the markers of a trauma-bonded relationship and how to use NARM to address the Complex-PTSD that routinely develops as a result of these abusive unions. 

Dr. Nae, as she’s known on social media, has harrowing personal experience with the phenomena of trauma bonding. At 22, she married Jordan Balfort, the infamous stockbroker immortalized in The Wolf Of Wall Street. Once Jordan dropped his “mask” the fairytale romance devolved into a nightmare of infidelity, narcissistic abuse, greed, and addiction. Fueled by her determination to help others facing similar struggles. Dr. Nae received her master’s degree in counseling, a Ph.D. in somatic psychotherapy, and trained to become a NARM Master Therapist. 

“We hear the word trauma bond thrown around so much in the zeitgeist,” Dr. Nae begins. “I want folks to understand what it is, the seriousness of it, and how many people it affects.” While trauma bonding is most often associated with romantic couplings, the phenomena can exist in any relationship (be it familial, social, or professional) where intermittent abuse reinforces the imbalance of power. 

Dr. Nae credits the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) for creating a collaborative container where her clients can reconnect to and trust their authentic selves. ”A lot of people fear falling in love again. I know I did,” she admits. “But you can if you want to learn from this and about yourself. That doesn’t dismiss the pain and the horrible suffering, but there is hope on the other side, and I’m proof of it.”

Transforming Trauma is grateful to Dr. Nae for sharing her story, educating our community on trauma-bonded relationships, and offering hope to survivors.

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The Wolf Of Wall Street

Women Who Love Psychopaths: Inside the Relationships of Inevitable Harm With Psychopaths, Sociopaths & Narcissists 

Christopher Gerner, PhD.

Kristin Neff, PhD.

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At age twenty-two, Nadine Macaluso married Jordan Belfort, the nefarious stockbroker portrayed in the Hollywood blockbuster “The Wolf of Wall Street”. Their marriage began as a fairytale, but once they were bonded, Jordan’s “mask” began to slip, and acts of infidelity, narcissistic abuse, insatiable greed, and uncontrollable drug addiction became Nadine’s nightmare.

The horrific relationship inspired Nadine to become a psychotherapist specializing in narcissistic abuse, trauma bonds, and Complex-PTSD. Her private practice quickly flooded with clients, predominantly women, recounting an all-too-familiar story of abuse with a pathological partner. Perhaps this scenario resonates with you.

In Run Like Hell, Nadine brings you her personal experience and years of expertise to explain the mental health of the narcissistic pathological lover, the traits of people who are the perfect “victims” of these PLs, how you can leave a trauma bond safely, and how you can heal.

Context is crucial to understanding the challenges faced by those in recovery from complex trauma perpetuated by religious leaders and authoritarian systems of spirituality. That’s especially true regarding former members of Black Christian communities where the church represents more than just a home for shared worship. How do we support folks extricating themselves from patriarchal traditions, initially adopted as a survival mechanism, so that they may reclaim a life and spiritual practice based on agency?

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth invites Vanessa R. Brooks, MA, a doctoral candidate studying the efficacy of mental health training intervention for African American clergy, to reflect on her experiences in and out of the Black church. The pair also discuss the stigma and disparities that marginalized communities must navigate to access culturally competent mental health resources. 

“Institutionally and systemically, Black people don’t have anywhere else to go,” Vanessa explains. “We have the church; it’s the one place where we feel like we are not the minority, where our culture is embraced, and we can be ourselves.” The generational ties that bind Black communities to mostly Evangelical Christian traditions go back to the earliest days of slavery in America. Enslaved people took the religion forced upon them by enslavers and reshaped it into an outlet for their own unspeakable trauma. 

While Christianity provided some solace, Vanassa points out that enslaved people were still worshiping within an authoritarian framework. “As African American believers, we still have that trauma in our DNA that makes us more inclined to focus on oppression to where it’s almost glorified.” Deliverance ministry and prosperity gospel are two such principles within the Black church, says Vanessa, that preach fault with zeal rather than compassion and mental well-being. “I’m trying to stop the cycle.”

Fortunately, Vanessa has witnessed a gradual shift towards mental health support. “The stigma is so deeply ingrained within us as African American people.” She remains hopeful as more folks recoup their agency from patriarchal congregations and embark on journeys of self-realization. “I don’t think people understand the importance of just being able to make decisions for yourself, using your intuition, autonomy, and self-governance. It’s so rewarding!”

Transforming Trauma appreciates Vanessa’s role in reconnecting folks to their divine.

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Darren M. Slade, PhD

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Vanessa R. Brooks, MA, is a Doctoral Candidate completing a research study on mental health & the Black Church and the lack of evidence-based mental health counseling methods that can be integrated with biblical counseling.