Category: Transforming Trauma Podcast

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, NARM Senior Trainer Brad Kammer welcomes Michael Niconchuk, a neuroscience researcher, practitioner, and author working at the intersection of forced migration, trauma recovery, and peacebuilding. The pair discuss the critical shortage of culturally competent mental health care in conflict areas, using laypeople to close that gap, and addressing power dynamics in the client-caregiver relationship. They also explore tensions between the gatekeeping of trauma-informed language by professionals and its overuse by social media influencers and underskilled providers.

Michael and Brad reflect on and discuss their experiences working in humanitarian efforts around the world.  “I’ve been slapped in the face with the cold hand of humility quite a few times,” admits Michael, describing the challenges he’s faced while advocating for increased accessibility to culturally aware trauma-focused care for persons affected by violent conflicts in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkans. “The depth of difference between how a young Muslim refugee understands the self, the soul, the heart, and suffering compared to the average secular American therapist,” he says, “is really significant.”

Michael and Brad challenge the Western and American-centric perspectives that often permeate international aid, and how in their work they both focused on human to human relationships, as opposed to imposing principles and methods that may not be aligned with the local people they are in relationship with.  Michael expresses dissatisfaction over the reluctance of aid groups to utilize local laypeople in some circumstances as a way to alleviate the provider shortage. “I understand the deep ethical obligation of rigorous training, but even the WHO is moving towards adequate training of lay providers to provide certain subclinical interventions in environments where there’s a scarcity of professionals,” he says––a sentiment that closely mirrors NARM’s commitment to expanding trauma-informed training access.

After spending years on the frontline, Michael is transitioning to a more strategic role, shaping global trauma care policy on a larger scale. “I’m deeply committed to how we understand what healing means,” he says, noting that the generational effects of conflict are significant and must be identified and addressed. Members of his family suffered under guerrilla intimidation during the Guatemalan Civil War. Years later, Michael worked with folks who identified as combatants in that conflict, activating familial triggers while galvanizing his professional focus. “That experience confirmed that I wanted to work on the long-term political, social, and personal implications of conflict-related trauma.”

Transforming Trauma is inspired by Michael’s dedication to providing effective trauma-informed support to those affected by violent conflict, extremism, and displacement. We thank him for chronicling the challenges of treating complex trauma within conflict zones and championing the training of culturally aware lay persons.

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Beyond Conflict

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The Field Guide For Barefoot Psychology

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Michael Niconchuk is a researcher and practitioner at the intersection of psychological trauma recovery, migration, and violence prevention. Trained in security studies, international relations, and social cognition, Michael has worked for more than a decade in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Balkans to support local capacities to offer evidence-based care for persons affected by violent conflict, extremism, and displacement. This includes extensive work on innovative community programs and policy to support the healing and wholeness of folks affected by the Syrian conflict as well as the return and rehabilitation of the families of foreign terrorist fighters in the Middle East. He is the author of The Field Guide for Barefoot Psychology and numerous publications on mental health, identity-based violence, and migration.

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Former NFL player and speaker Gaelin Elmore believes that childhood trauma changes the rules of the game for youth, making interaction with well-intentioned adults difficult. While teachers, therapists, and caregivers of all sorts are poised to provide the most enduring assistance, the prospect of building sincere, purposeful relationships with children and teens can challenge even the most dedicated professionals. 

In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Gaelin and Emily Ruth reflect on ways adults can foster atmospheres of belonging thereby positively influencing the lives of young people. Using his own life as a case study, Gaelin shares his personal history with complex childhood trauma and honors the adults who changed the trajectory of his life for good. The pair also explore parallels between Gaelin’s work and the heart-centered approach NARM employs to reignite one’s capacity for self-love and strengthen interpersonal connections. 

“The neuroscience of trauma lessons are: it lowers our brain’s ability to think of an extended future; it changes how we process and understand the things happening right in front of us.” Gaelin experienced complex trauma for much of his childhood. Despite this extreme adversity, he went on to play college football, graduated early with honors, and signed an NFL contract. Today, Gaelin is a national keynote speaker, trainer, and advocate working with adults and professionals who want to help children overcome trauma and unleash their potential through belonging. 

As Gaelin explains, belonging is the central driver of transformational healing, a fundamental need in all humans to find acceptance, and a portal through which we discover meaning. “Football became a primary pathway for me to experience belonging,” Gaelin says. But smaller everyday interactions with teachers, janitors, and bus drivers also had an effect on his development. Unfortunately, too many adults give up on children before ever forging that connection, becoming reactive to and discouraged by layers of protection that a child with C-PTSD might assume to keep themselves safe. Gaelin helps adults understand the child’s perspective and encourages environments where all parties can co-define what it means to belong.

Transforming Trauma is grateful to Gaelin for his openness and commitment to educating those who serve children with C-PTSD. 

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Gaelin Elmore experienced complex trauma for most, if not all, of his childhood. Despite extreme childhood adversity, Gaelin played college football, graduated early, with honors, and signed an NFL contract. Now, as a national keynote speaker, trainer, and advocate, Gaelin works with adults and professionals who want to help children overcome trauma and unleash their potential through belonging.

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In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Emily speaks with Jac O’Keeffe, President and founding member of the Association for Spiritual Integrity (ASI), an organization committed to bringing higher levels of integrity to the culture of spiritual leadership. The pair discuss Jac’s educational and spiritual evolution, the role of empathy and accountability within ASI’s anti-authoritarian model, spiritual bypass, and the link between agency, trauma healing, and personal divinity. 

The impact of any religious or spiritual practice usually rests on the self-knowledge and integrity of its leaders. Jac is passionate about supporting those spiritual leaders who’ve failed to address complex trauma in their personal histories. This omission prevents many leaders from effectively supporting their students, or worse, leads them to perpetuate spiritual misconduct and outright abuse. 

“I want to help spiritual leaders do better,” affirms Jac, who’s been on her quest for continual improvement as an independent spiritual teacher for over 15 years. Her work––which includes teachings, talks, retreats, and the books Born To Be Free and How To Be A Spiritual Rebel––empowers individuals who are done outsourcing their spiritual awakening. Jac envisions a future where spiritual leaders, regardless of tradition or affiliation, hold trauma work as part of their spiritual practice rather than antithetical to achieving enlightenment. “It’s about the inclusion of all aspects of our experience. The inclusion of everything is what brings us towards the divine oneness,” she says, adding, “There’s no part of ourselves that can be shunned.”

With its compassionate code of ethics and inclusive peer support, ASI invites spiritual leaders to learn more about trauma and specifically address their own unresolved trauma. This includes a greater understanding of spiritual bypass and the way this leads to acting-out. “The disconnection from our body – which can happen through extensive spiritual practice – leads us to denying, to having our own traumatic experiences in the shadows,” warns Jac. She says spiritual leaders, teachers, and guides must visit these “enclaves of humanness” so that their spiritual integration becomes a process of maturation that they can then extend to their students.

Transforming Trauma is galvanized by Jac O’Keeffe’s work with ASI to promote accountability, robust ethical principles, and trauma healing among spiritual leaders and their communities.

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Jac O’Keeffe is a theology graduate from the Pontificate University of Ireland with postgraduate studies in adult education. Working as an independent spiritual teacher for more than 15 years, she guides people in the unfoldment of their own spiritual journey. In her books, teachings, talks and retreats, she supports the empowerment of individuals who are done with bypassing, done with hiding, done with outsourcing their spiritual awakening to gurus. Her books include Born to Be Free and How to Be a Spiritual Rebel.

Jac is the President and founding member of the Association for Spiritual Integrity (ASI), an organization with a mission to bring high levels of integrity to the culture of spiritual leadership.

In medical terminology, “evidenced-based” is a gold star endorsement awarded to recurrent standards of proof that arise from comparison studies of a specific treatment protocol or prevention. Is it possible to validate NARM’s efficacy using those same evidence-based standards? Should we? In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Emily is joined by Salman Alawadi, a NARM practitioner and Ph.D. candidate in Research, Measurement, and Evaluation at the University of Miami, for a fascinating discussion about the challenges of developing an evidence-based standard for NARM and distilling that research into accessible data. 

Clients with Complex-PTSD present with psychological conditions that pose unique limitations for establishing efficacy under the current medical parameter. “The difficulty with NARM establishing itself as an evidence-based treatment lies also in the challenge that is related to conducting any research on complex PTSD.”  Salman explains that “the problem is not with pushing toward evidence-based approaches. It’s important that there’s a continuous push for evidence because, through evidence, we know what works.” Instead, he calls out psychology’s fixation with the medical model. 

Salman argues that applying the same linear methodology used in, say, cancer research to a study of clients with C-PTSD misses the nuances intrinsic to the human brain. “Mental health disorders are not called mental health diseases. When we talk about a disorder, we don’t understand the mechanism of it. When we talk about a disease, we know what’s going on. A disorder describes the manifestation of a disease that is unknown.” He advocates for creating more rigorous criteria to understand a psychological intervention like NARM than the current evidence-based model. “The role of NARM is to help validate the construct because, as experts in that area, we are the most capable of validating that concept.” To that end, he says NARM practitioners already have the data sitting in front of them in the form of patients. Now, all the NARM community has to do is develop a strategy for collecting that information, conducting a thorough analysis, and disseminating those findings. 

We appreciate Salman for sharing his exciting work with us and championing the drive to standardize NARM efficacy research and make it more accessible to all. We invite the Transforming Trauma audience to learn more about Salman’s approach to analyzing NARM outcomes by listening to the entire episode.

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Forgiveness can transform lives. In this episode of Transforming Trauma, Emily explores the holistic practice of restorative justice with Dr. Elaine Leeder, a professor and prolific writer who’s worked in mental hospitals, gerontology, foster care, domestic violence, and drug and alcohol counseling as a social worker and psychotherapist. As Emily discovers, Elaine’s current pro bono work with incarcerated individuals and those they’ve harmed is remarkable for its progressive approach to redemption. 

In her 28 years working with prisoners, Elaine has witnessed the devastating effects of early childhood trauma compounded by the consequences of institutionalized mistreatment. She has also experienced the power of collective healing. While the journey forward is often painful, Elaine believes this path offers an intentional alternative to traditional incarceration.  

“People are not the worst things they’ve done,” Elaine insists. Her empathetic statement complements the NARM principle that humans can repair persistent, outdated adaptive survival strategies through connection, attunement, trust, and autonomy. These core capacities are difficult to access in prison, however. In her opinion, what generally happens inside prisons is retribution, not rehabilitation. “There’s no healing if you’re locked into a cell the size of a cage.”

Elaine calls upon various spiritual themes to facilitate healing between participants, a technique that’s familiar to NARM practitioners as well. Teshuva, the Jewish tradition of repentance, invites a return to the pure self, while ahimsa, invokes the ancient Indian principle of nonviolence. “It’s a very spiritual experience that I engage in with these people. I see it as a form of healing the world, of mending the harm that has been done to both victim and offender,” she says, adding, “I feel enormously privileged to be present to watch the transformation that takes place with these folks.”

We feel enormously privileged to share Elaine’s work with Transforming Trauma listeners. Her ability to hold compassion for both incarcerated people and the victims of their crime is inspiring, and we’re grateful to her for facilitating opportunities in which collaborative healing can take root. We invite you to learn more about Elaine’s commitment to trauma care and restorative justice by engaging with the full episode.

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