I have had many patients come to therapy with me and say that talk therapy has not been helpful for them. Specifically, I hear the same complaint over and over: I felt like all I did was talk and open up, and I didn’t feel like there was a direction to therapy. When I hear complaints like this, I always want to start with some education about what trauma therapy looks like. Let's dive in.

For many people with PTSD and trauma-related disorders, “dissociation” is a term that can seem scary and stigmatized. It can be important to demystify and educate ourselves on dissociation to better understand and validate our experiences.

Many people are familiar with the idea of intersectionality, or how different aspects of our identities intersect with one another to make us who we are as people. What are the different ways that racial trauma shows up in our lives? Let’s dive in.

Microaggressive trauma describes the excessive and continuous exposure to subtle interpersonal and systemic discrimination that lead to trauma symptoms like sensitivity to threat, anxiety, and hyperarousal.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “I felt like my White therapist just didn’t get it” or “I quit therapy when my therapist told me to just set boundaries with my immigrant parents.” Don’t get me wrong, I think any therapist of any race can be culturally inclusive with the right training, consideration, and sensitivity. For example, I trust the diverse team here at Woven to be thoughtful of issues of (de)colonization, Asian American frame switching, and being flexible with interventions to consider unique aspects of identity.

How does racism show up in our body, thoughts, and emotions? People who are familiar with racism may know that it is acknowledged as a public health crisis by the American Public Health Association. But how do daily experiences of racism, discrimination, and microaggressions affect us psychologically and in our trauma symptoms? How does it show up in our bodies, thoughts, and emotions? Let’s dive in.