Therapy Skills Quotes

“One gift of nonjudgmental, agendaless presence is that a wide road of acceptance opens, so that the inner world of our people gradually begins to sense, experience and trust that every part is equally valued and equally welcome.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“If we focus on the means to change a person's state in the direction of what we believe is greater health, we are also stepping out of empathic connection. This is a violation of our innate expectation, at every biological level, that we are meant to be embedded in a nest of warm relationships.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Relational neuroscience increasingly assures us that we are continually shaping one another's embodied brains, and that the safety provided by deep listening offerings a unique support for engagement. However it is one thing to believe it cognitively and quite another to grow into the practice of this belief.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Pause for reflection

Let's take a moment to see if we remember a time when a process that had begun simply stopped, faded away, or became unavailable in some other way. It could be in our own therapy work or with our patients.

What as our experience of this?

We might check in with muscles, belly, heart, and breath as a beginning place.

Then we can move to the feelings and thoughts that arose from these sensations.

Do we feel at ease with these kinds of experiences, or does it feel as if something is wrong?

We may find that other examples come to our awareness as well, bringing similar or different cascades of sensation, feeling and thought.

As best we can, we may offer all of them welcome with warmth and kindness.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Protocols we have learned have the opportunity to become supplies when they encounter the solvent of this moment's need, softening to become flexible and adaptive.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships