Transforming Trauma: Episode 152

Connection and healing often happen amid our messiest, most vulnerable moments. The rawness of our experiences can create the space we need to welcome a new way of living, loving, and even learning. One clinical counselor has witnessed this truth repeatedly throughout her multifaceted career and personal life. Her ability to stay with discomfort and lend intuitive support has made her an effective NARM® Therapist and an outstanding NARM Training Assistant.

 On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth invites Lisa Gillispie LPCC-S, to share observations from her role as Lead Training Assistant for NARM Therapist Trainings run by the Complex Trauma Training Center (CTTC), and her multi-discipline career as a trauma-informed practitioner. The pair also discuss the ripple effect that NARM training has created in Lisa’s personal healing journey.

 “I was a bodyworker for over 20 years,” says Lisa, whose career in the healing arts began after an injury sidelined her dreams of becoming a professional dancer. “I specialized in cranial sacral therapy, supporting people and working with emotions causing constriction in the body. That was really fascinating to me, how emotions would be held in the body and then show up in different ways,  contributing to pain or tension patterns that they experienced.”

Lisa’s innate curiosity eventually led her to professional advancement and profound personal discovery. “Brad [Kammer, CTTC Director, and NARM® Senior Trainer] came to Columbus and taught an intro to developmental trauma and, later, an Intro to NARM. I remember just feeling these light bulbs were going off and having this realization of how much people’s developmental trauma really informed how they navigated more event-specific trauma. It really intrigued me,” she recalls, especially having experienced the effects of trauma on her clients. “We would be working with that from a bodywork perspective, and there would inevitably be something developmental that we would start bumping into.”

The workshop prompted Lisa to pursue a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. “I was lucky enough to go into graduate school with most of my NARM training,” she explains, citing Healing Developmental Trauma by NARM Creator Dr. Laurence Heller as incredibly helpful to her development in and outside of the classroom. “There was a clarity there that I found so helpful and supportive in terms of better understanding very important people to me, and also better understanding my own self and how I move through the world, how I engage in relationships with people for better or worse.”

Lisa’s experience as a dancer and bodyworker has made her an uncommonly perceptive Training Assistant within the NARM Therapist Trainings. “You start to tune into things,” she observes. “Unfortunately, so many people have experienced educational trauma, so there’s a lot that comes up when they’re starting a NARM training.” 

Lisa enjoys lending her support as students wade through the inevitable muddle of emotions. She welcomes students to trust themself and this dynamic healing process. “It’s so gratifying to see that unfolding of students and see them being able to take it in and see how that impacts them,” she says. “It’s also an incredible way for me to hone my own skills because it’s one thing to have a sense of something; it’s another to be able to articulate it and to convey it to somebody in a way that they can get it and start to connect the dots for themselves.”

Transforming Trauma is honored to have Lisa Gillispie as a community member. Her boundless empathy and natural talent for disseminating information are gifts to her students and clients.

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Lisa Gillispie is a licensed professional clinical counselor in private practice in Columbus, Ohio. Lisa came to counseling as a second career following 25 years as a trauma-informed bodyworker specializing in craniosacral therapy.

Lisa is a NARM® Master Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and Lead Training Assistant for the Complex Trauma Training Center. She is also one of the trainers who teaches the Introduction to NARM webinars offered by CTTC. Lisa loves supporting other professionals in developing their skills for working with developmental trauma.

As a single parent to two kiddos, Lisa has found NARM invaluable for helping her grow her ability to meet the challenges of parenting with humor and kindness.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences

A Chorus Line

Bernie Siegel, MD

Barbara Brennan

Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship