Therapy Tips Quotes

“We have a tendency to become detached observers rather than participants. There might also be a sense of disassembling a complex, flowing process to focus on a small part of it. If we expand our focus to include emerging, one of the first changes we may notice is the bodily sense of being in the midst of something, of constant motion, lack of clarity (in the left-hemisphere sense), and unpredictability.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“The desire to be noticed has always been an essential part of the human condition.”
― Charlotte Fox Weber, What We Want: A Journey Through Twelve of Our Deepest Desires

“Cats, tea and candles,
is all the therapy,
I will ever need.”
― Tom Althouse, The Frowny Face Cow

“Rest is not the answer
Activity and therapy help healing most”
― Joerg Teichmann

“if our attention is what we're going to do next to accomplish a specific goal (often decrease a symptom) rather than openness to what the other person is bringing to the moment, we have stepped into our left hemispheres and out of relationship- and our patient will feel that as a kind of subtle abandonment. This interchange will likely happen below the level of conscious awareness and yet lead our person to step back a bit internally, awaiting the arrival of true presence, without agenda or judgement, so that safety can arise in the space in between. At that moment, the healing power inherent in this co-organizing/co-regulating relationship arrives. We have been returning to this crucial distinction in these pages, as much as possible with ongoing compassion for the challenge we experience as we open to the right remaining consistently in the lead.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“We may find ourselves in a role similar to that of a gardener as we cultivate a space in which healing can naturally unfold.

In terms of neurobiology, this stance encourages us to lean into the reassuring awareness that our systems already contain seeds awaiting our attention.

For some examples, we humans are always seeking the warmest possible attachments we can imagine (Cozolino, Siegel), our brains are continuously yearning for the arrival of a co-organizing other (Badenoch, Cozolino, Schore), emotional regulation flows naturally from being in the presence of someone we trust (Beckes & Coan) and even our nervous systems have a preference for the social engagement circuitry that sustains connection (Porges).

With this kind of support from the biology inherent in both practitioner and patient, our bodies may begin to open into a welcoming state as others come towards us, with a sense of partnership being established rather than someone doing something to us.

However this also means letting go of the potential certainty that comes from feeling we are in charge.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Reality presents itself always in the form of a specific concrete situation, and since each life situation is unique, it follows that also the meaning of a situation must be unique. Therefore it would not even be possible for meanings to be transmitted through traditions. Only values– which might be defined as universal meanings— can be affected by the decay of traditions… to put it succinctly: the values are dead–long live the meanings.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, The Unheard Cry for Meaning

“Once a toxic thought pattern has been recognized, applying the Word of God comes next. Looking at the thoughts that batter your brain through the eyes of Scripture will lead to hope in a way that therapy alone is found wanting.”
― Julie Busler, Joyful Sorrow: Breaking Through the Darkness of Mental Illness

“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

“Anything we determine to do in advance has already separated us from being in this emerging moment with ourselves as well as the other person.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“This process of letting go of being in charge often unfolds over time as we develop greater trust in the wisdom of our patient's system as it awakens within the embrace of the relationship, so that we gradually need less and less to find our own security by taking the lead.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Struggles between our people and us over the pace of therapy can disregulate the process into a frenzy or stall it. Returning to following and responding may ease this.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“As we follow and respond, our people have the opportunity to teach us about the intricacies of our multigenerational inner world and the processes that can heal at such a deep level.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“as one who will continue to practice radical inclusiveness as I fail again and again, I can say it is quite a relief to embrace the limitations of being human.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“For all of us, there are also likely times when therapy simply doesn't seem to move forward as we imagined it would.

At this crossroads, we often question ourselves or blame our patients.

Between what our culture requires and what we have experienced in childhood, we might go either direction.

We have a particular challenge to feeling competent right now. Our left-centric society has done its best to codify the healing process, leaving us with a set of procedures and expected outcomes that don't welcome the individuality of our people of the fluidity of each person's unpredictable and unique process of recovery. This is doubly difficult, because when we follow the course culture provides, safety is already undermined to a greater or lesser extent.

I believe it wounds us when we feel we aren't helping a person because we set out with such good hearts to relieve suffering.

A well-practiced practitioner might try to guard our hearts by blaming our people's resistance.

When a wounded part of us is afraid we are inadequate, this often generates a critical protective voice to try to urge us toward a better performance.

In both instances, our ability to be present for our people gets lost in the need to protect.

How can we hold these experiences kindly, recognizing that they are part of the human experience?

Right now, we might be able to open the arms of inclusion to these parts of us.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Warm curiosity about what is happening is a different kind of experience than judgement. It can help us open to the bigger picture beyond this moment of what feels like failure. We may consider our person's history and our own. We might bring in our left-hemisphere emissary to see how we could understand where we are in the process. In this quieter internal place, sometimes an intuitive sense of trust will come even when we can't figure it out.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“The majority of research-related articles I read move automatically towards suggestions for doing something to the brain - finding new medications, applying techniques to train the brain, and other ways of treating the brain like an object that is separate from ourselves. In addition to this objectification, there is perhaps the greater danger that when we are viewing ourselves or another that way, we have already stepped away from being truly present, so the person being so scrutinized will not feel safe or have a felt sense of being heard, seen, or held. This includes our relationship with ourselves.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“neuroscience can be seen as offering metaphors that point in a general direction, but don't exactly match anyone's individual experience.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, Being a Brain-Wise Therapist: A Practical Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology

“I notice that when the other person has been in despair for a prolonged period, I begin to feel myself crumbling into discouragement internally. One of the ways my system seeks to protect both me and the other person is to activate into helpful doing. Even though it is a psuedo-engagement, the intent is to shelter both of us from being engulfed in despair.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“Therapy didn’t fix me. Therapy gave me the tools to help me fix myself, over and over again, for the rest of my life.”
― Carlee J Hansen

“Eres la suma de todas las cosas que te han pasado hasta ese último sorbo de té de la taza que acabas de dejar sobre la mesa. Cómo te abrazaron tus padres, eso que te dijo una vez tu primer novio sobre tus pantorrillas... Todo son ladrillos que te conforman desde la planta de los pies a la coronilla. Tus excentricidades, manías y cagadas son el efecto mariposa de lo que viste en la tele, de las cosas que te dijeron tus profesores y de la forma en que te miraba la gente desde el primer momento en el que abriste los ojos. Ser un detective de tu pasado -deshacer todo ese camino para llegar al punto de partida con la ayuda de un profesional- puede ser increíblemente útil y liberador.”
― Dolly Alderton, Everything I Know About Love

“It was a fairly long therapy, almost a year, but that breakthrough in the first session set the stage for success. We became a “team of two” that day. Nate became trusting, open, and ready to express, explore and resolve his horrible childhood, and my job was to provide unconditional empathy, care, a supportive presence, and to create a safe space for his beautiful work.”
― David McPhee, Get the Most From Your Therapy : A Guide For Everyone