Transforming Trauma: Episode 162

While most clinicians are seeking effective clinical skills to bring back to their clients, NARM® therapists are often surprised to experience such profound personal transformation for themselves through training in NARM. In learning more about themselves and their own healing process, the result is a better understanding of their client’s healing process. Self-discovery can be a vehicle toward personal and relational change.

On this episode of Transforming Trauma, host Emily Ruth invites NARM Master Therapists Alex White and Sabrena Ness to share their professional experiences as members of the NARM training community and personal journeys of self-discovery. The trio also discusses the mentorship programs that support ongoing professional development and personal growth hosted by the Complex Trauma Training Center, as well as opportunities for stronger community engagement and support.

“I think that’s something that I’ve always valued about this community is not just the work and the model, but the people who are in it,” says Alex, who has been in the field for fifteen years but didn’t begin exploring the NeuroAffective Relational Model® until 2020, just as the pandemic forced everyone to evaluate long-standing coping strategies and support structures. “I was newly licensed and still felt like I was sort of throwing things at a wall when it came to doing therapy.” While Alex continued to provide clients with critical behavioral skill sets and worksheets, he craved more depth. “I felt most effective…when we were able to sort of be human together,” he recalls, “even if I didn’t really have a concept of the intentionality in that.” 

Later that same year, Alex joined an online NARM Training. “I found concepts and understanding and intentionality to a lot of the things that I’d started to connect to,” he says, “bringing together these different ideas that had resonated for me but weren’t held together in any kind of holistic way.”

Sabrena, the Clinical Director at LifeStance Health in Utah, encountered her frustrations working with behavioral models early in her career. The search for a more meaningful therapeutic approach was the basis for many conversations with Alex, as well as CTTC Faculty Marcia Black. “It wasn’t until I started understanding more about complex trauma that I realized this is exactly what I have been looking for,” she says. “And then I was hooked!” 

Alex and Sabrena credit their extensive NARM training with creating a support framework that encourages exploration into personal behavior patterns. Not only did they both develop greater empathy for their clients, as a result, they also fostered more empathy toward themselves. “There were these things that I did in life that I didn’t quite understand, and it started to make sense,” says Sabrena. “when I started the NARM training, I didn’t even realize how much healing I had not done!”

Once they completed the NARM Master Therapist Training, they both felt like they were still at the beginning of their self-discovery, so they both signed up for the first SPACE Program through CTTC. This inner development program for therapists was the perfect next step. “Looking back, it’s evident the extent to which there was all of this personal healing that I just didn’t have the wording or bandwidth to do,” marvels Alex. “It feels really special the extent to which within these kinds of trainings, and the community more broadly, there’s an acknowledgment and holding of those kinds of things in a way that I don’t think I’ve really experienced in a lot of other years of my life or areas of my life.”

Transformation happens as we engage in an authentic process of self-discovery. Both Alex and Sabrena have found that supporting clients, while also supporting themselves, leads to profound personal and interpersonal healing. Sabrena reflects, “I realized I had so much more healing to do, and I still do…We can be messy, and we’re still growing. That’s part of the process…I always talk about it as, like, a coming home.”

Transforming Trauma thanks Alex and Sabrena for sharing their personal and professional development journeys with our community. We appreciate their invitation to explore NARM® Therapist Trainings and meet this moment of social transformation.

RECOMMENDED EPISODE

Creating SPACE for Self-Discovery and Community Support for Therapists

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

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

The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma: Using the NeuroAffective Relational Model to Address Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resolve Complex Trauma

GUEST CONTACT & BIOS

Lifestance Health

Sabrena Ness is a Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CMHC) in Utah and a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Colorado. She earned her Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of Wyoming. Sabrena is the Clinical Director at LifeStance Health in Utah and has been with LifeStance since 2021. She also serves as a Co-Chair for the Pacific Northwest region of LifeStance’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and

Belonging (DEIB) chapter, where she focuses on fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace culture. She has a deep passion for supervision, mentoring clinicians in their professional growth, and ensuring high-quality care delivery.

Sabrena specializes in complex developmental trauma and complex PTSD, working with individuals and couples across the lifespan. She is particularly dedicated to supporting LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent populations, creating affirming and effective therapeutic spaces. She is a NARM Therapist and participates as a Training Assistant in NARM Trainings, reinforcing her commitment to advancing trauma-informed care. Her work emphasizes innovative leadership, continuous improvement, and a deep dedication to mental health advocacy.

Alex White Counseling & Consulting

Alex White’s career spans more than 15 years in the mental health field, throughout which he has been continually inspired by the transformative power of the therapeutic process. A NARM Master Therapist, Alex first joined the NARM community in 2020 and has served as a Training Assistant in NARM Trainings since 2022.

Alex has worked with diverse populations across various settings, with a particular focus on the unique complexities of trauma work with adults (18+). He currently runs a private practice in Salt Lake City, Utah, focusing on issues such as religious trauma, LGBTQ+ issues, compassion fatigue, burnout, shame, relationship difficulties, and masculinity. He is also an adjunct faculty in the MS Counseling Program at Westminster University.