Trauma Therapy Explained: Healing with IFS, EMDR, and Somatic Therapy
Trauma Therapy Explained: Healing with IFS, EMDR, and Somatic Therapy
In this solo episode of Going Inside: Healing Trauma From the Inside Out, I share my evolving understanding of trauma therapy, exploring how Internal Family Systems (IFS), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and somatic work contribute to healing. I reflect on my personal journey with these modalities and share insights on how each approach uniquely addresses trauma.
Key Topics Discussed:
Integration of Modalities:
Combining IFS, EMDR, and somatic therapy offers a comprehensive approach to trauma treatment, each addressing different aspects of the healing process.
Self Energy and Empowerment:
I highlight the role of IFS in connecting clients to their core self and intuition.
EMDR for Memory Processing:
I share how EMDR is an effective tool for reducing the impact of traumatic memories by facilitating proper memory consolidation.
Somatic Work and Nervous System:
I dive into how somatic therapy helps clients renegotiate trauma by addressing the nervous system’s response.
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Interview Transcript:
[00:00:00] John: Going Inside is a podcast on a mission to help people heal from trauma and reconnect with their authentic self. Join me, Trauma Therapist John Clarke, for guest interviews, real life therapy sessions, and soothing guided meditations. Whether you're navigating your own trauma, helping others heal from trauma, or simply yearning for a deeper understanding of yourself, Going Inside is your companion on the path to healing and self discovery.
[00:00:30] John: Download free guided meditations and apply to work with me one on one at johnclarketherapy.com. Thanks for being here. Let's dive in.
[00:00:38] John: Welcome back to the show. Today is a solo episode. It's been quite a while since I've done this and kind of checked in with you all my listeners and viewers. And first of all, I just want to say, if you're new here, a tad about me, my name is John Clarke.
[00:00:55] John: I'm the host of this show. I'm a licensed therapist. At some point [00:01:00] throughout my career as a therapist, I realized that trauma was everywhere and therapists were by and large ill equipped to treat it. And so I sought out some specialty training and that was starting with EMDR. And I started using EMDR the Monday after I got trained in it.
[00:01:19] John: And Saw results and thought that I must be on the right track. And out of all the things that I've helped people with as a therapist, trauma was the most impactful, the most significant, the, the trickiest to treat in a way can be the most finicky, the most heavy hitting and scary at times. But. The, the, the biggest opportunity that I had to really have an impact on people's lives and on the world.
[00:01:46] John: And so that's when I started to really double down on my focus on trauma. Fast forward some years later, and here I am, I live in San Francisco. Currently I run a trauma practice in San Francisco. It's a [00:02:00] group practice called calm again, counseling, and it's a training practice for residents who are getting their hours for the board.
[00:02:07] John: So it's a training practice and we're all growing as trauma therapists and I provide their supervision during the residency. And yeah, it's a really meaningful way to integrate what I've learned, to share what I've learned, to be a mentor to the next generation of therapists and to be in a constant learning culture, which I really love.
[00:02:27] John: So I wanted to just kind of. Yeah. Check in with. You all about how the show is going. I wanted to share some thoughts I've had along the way in my developing understanding of trauma, the things I'm interested in right now, the things that are working for me in session with clients, and we'll just see where this episode goes.
[00:02:48] John: I hope you've enjoyed the guests so far. We've had some really amazing guests. A lot of them are IFS focus, but followed by EMDR somatic work. We've had folks coming and talking about [00:03:00] addiction. We've had all sorts of great topics. We had payam come and talk about psychedelics and plant medicine.
[00:03:06] John: We had Bob Falconer come and talk about unattached burdens or entities. We had Michael Hunter coming and talking about finding spirit guides. So It's just been a wonderful ride so far and the feedback has generally been been great on the show. A little more for me and some things I want to share about my ideas of trauma.
[00:03:25] John: So far, the three pronged approach that I generally take in my work with trauma clients is IFS, EMDR, and somatic work. And in a nutshell, and IFS We're doing parts work where there are parts that hold the pain and parts that protect the pain. You could think of it like inner child work. And really the model is kind of like reparenting your inner child.
[00:03:52] John: So going inside and being there with parts and four parts, the way that they needed someone to be at that [00:04:00] time creating what we call a corrective emotional experience with our parts by being there. For them, like they needed someone to be at that time. IFS has this beautiful unburdening sequence where we go back in time and we retrieve the part, or we do a do over back then.
[00:04:17] John: Then we retrieve it, we bring it into the present. We help it release whatever it's carrying. Thoughts, feelings, beliefs, like I'm a burden. I'm too much for people. I'm broken. We help release them, release that using one of the elements, and then we help them install new. Qualities and help integrate them into the system and bring them out of their painful positions, whether it's an exile, just holding pain or a, a burned out protector who's been polarized inside the system.
[00:04:45] John: So that model really centers around the idea of self or self energy at the middle, which self is defined by. Things like compassion, curiosity courage, connectedness, creativity. The idea [00:05:00] is we all have this core authentic self, this wise knowing self, and that we struggle because it gets obscured by our parts.
[00:05:08] John: We get blended with parts. The model is a. Beautiful model. It's a, I would consider a spiritual model or a psycho spiritual model. In a way, I just keep going back to this idea of compassion and curiosity when people in session, aren't sure what to do or where to turn or the pain feels like too much a lot of times.
[00:05:32] John: What we try to do and what I try to help them do is basically connect them to their self energy, which is basically at your core, your your life energy, your life force. You could even say it's like your chi. There's a lot of different ways to look at it in a way. I think of it like connecting people to their intuition and instead of the therapist knowing what to do, Or guiding the client in their life.[00:06:00]
[00:06:00] John: A lot of the work is really about connecting the client to their intuition so that they can then move meaningfully forward in their life. And ultimately that's the best case scenario is they get reconnected to their intuition and. can be their own guide. Essentially. This also avoids fostering dependence on the therapist, which can be an issue. And this word has kind of lost its meaning, but it truly empowers people to take control of their lives again and take control of their healing. And it helps them believe that I can do it. I can heal. I can overcome this. I can break free from trauma and I can. Become my authentic self. So it's really a beautiful model and an incredible journey to help people along.
[00:06:48] John: And this idea that we all have a core self that is wise and knowing and loving is a really reassuring stance to take with clients. They're relieved to hear that, that [00:07:00] everything you need to heal is actually already within you. It's a really powerful stance. So IFS is great for everything from like dealing with your perfectionist parts and trying to reduce anxiety by helping unblend from your perfectionist part or your inner critic to the deeper trauma work in helping people through complex trauma and years of severe child abuse and et cetera.
[00:07:24] John: The EMDR piece is interesting. The EMDR piece basically in my. Opinion is best for helping to take the sting out of the painful traumatic memories. So if you have, for instance, a specific memory, a specific trauma that is sticking with you and you're having flashbacks and you have this nervous system response, you have nightmares, you try to not think about it.
[00:07:48] John: So you have this degree of psychological avoidance. Then EMDR is great for basically taking that memory that at the time memory consolidation stopped in the middle of the trauma. Okay. And never [00:08:00] resumed. So we go back and access that memory while stimulating both sides of the brain by tapping or moving the eyes, et cetera.
[00:08:08] John: And that helps the memory consolidate and go into long term storage where it belongs. So that can really help take the sting out of it. And. Get people out of this nervous system activation or over activation or out of their freeze response or flight response. Whatever it might be. So you're really addressing the brain, the memory part of trauma, which.
[00:08:30] John: Is an important prong of the whole treatment. Lastly, and I guess the avenue that I'm most developing right now in my own work in my own training is somatic work, somatic therapy or somatic experiencing. A lot of that coming from Peter Levine. I got to. Train with him recently in person, see him do the model.
[00:08:51] John: And what I took from that is it's an incredibly gentle model that all has to do with renegotiating trauma with the nervous system. So similar to how an [00:09:00] EMDR, the brain stops processing trauma in somatic experiencing, the nervous system stops processing trauma. Doing its thing during trauma. It doesn't complete the response.
[00:09:13] John: On the other hand if you look at the example of a gazelle in the wild that was just attacked, but survived a near death attack from a lion after the threat is gone, the gazelle finishes the nervous system response and it usually looks very physical. twitching, shaking their legs sweating, just kind of shaking it out, shaking that excess energy out and completing that nervous system response.
[00:09:36] John: You might even see their legs twitching as if they're running and finishing that running response instead of the freeze response. So the idea is a lot of. The the suffering we have from trauma is we're stuck in that freeze response or in the flight response or fight response. That shutdown response is a really powerful one.
[00:09:56] John: Shutting down being immobilized. Unable to [00:10:00] move, unable to fight back. One thing that's interesting about this model is it is not a very cognitive model, not cognitive at all. I should say. The idea is that the trauma really is not a cognitive process. And actually you don't have to revisit the memories in order to heal from trauma, which is an alternate stance from the other models of kind of going there, going back there. I think there's a lot of validity. to the model. There's research to support all three models, but they all have different stances on how trauma healing actually happens. The somatic work, like I said, I find really interesting. I think also people can renegotiate trauma serendipitously through things like running, yoga, surfing, playing drums, moving your body, dancing.
[00:10:54] John: I think yoga can be a big one in, in, in renegotiating this safety piece with the nervous [00:11:00] system. So I think some of that does happen spontaneously. I think the relief is the clients again, don't have to go back there and they don't have to really think their way out of trauma because guess what?
[00:11:10] John: We didn't think our way into trauma. So we're not going to really think our way out of it, right. Or ration, rationalize our way out of it or through it. So My guess would be the somatic work is going to be one of the biggest areas that's going to keep growing or an approach that's going to get more and more popular over the next few years.
[00:11:30] John: All three have been gaining popularity. Um, what can people do outside of therapy to heal from trauma? I'm also really interested, like I said, in other Other things that people can do everything from plant medicine, psychedelics, ketamine. I'm not endorsing those things on this podcast, but I'm saying there are many ways to heal and each person should take their healing into their own hands [00:12:00] and find the things that can be healing.
[00:12:02] John: There are methods. Like those that do traditional plant medicine work that are so much more ancient than psychology in a way of psychology is brand new. And it wasn't that long ago that Freud was putting people on a couch and saying, you're messed up because you want to have sex with your mom. That's that was not that long ago, so I am in, I am aware of that just to really respect and try to have humility around how new our field is.
[00:12:30] John: We've learned a lot. There's a lot we know about what works and there's also a lot we don't know about what works. Even EMDR, only a few decades. Old, right? Same thing with, with IFS or Peter Levine's work. I mean, these folks are still developing the model as we speak. And so that shows you just how new it is.
[00:12:49] John: That being said, indigenous cultures have their own perspectives on trauma, which people like Bob Falconer do a great job talking about and going back to shamans of the world and [00:13:00] seeing how they help people in their communities heal from trauma, often a very. spiritual experience, often a very physical experience, the release of trauma, often including things like plant medicine.
[00:13:12] John: So I think There's a lot to be said about this work already being done for many, many, many generations before us. Other things I think you can do along the way and that I have a lot of interest in things like energy work. Again, this is outside of therapy or what a typical licensed therapist would do, but maybe you could refer your clients or if you're a client, refer yourself to someone who's reputable.
[00:13:42] John: As an energy worker doing things like Reiki Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Qi Gong is something I've done almost every morning for the better part of the last year. And it's helped me tremendously going back to that idea of self energy or working with your source energy or [00:14:00] Chi. Qi Gong is a great way to work with that energy.
[00:14:02] John: First thing in the morning, or before you start your day or halfway through your day, or before the client walks in the door or after they walk through the door. There's really no bad time to, to, to do that and to work with your own energy. There's also something to be said about protecting your energy and with things like Reiki and understanding that we all have an energy field that can be observed with a medical scanner and people can, people have a permeable energy field around them.
[00:14:33] John: That is emanating energy and also tends to absorb energy. People with trauma tend to be extra sensitive to absorbing people's energies. So it's important to work on that, that barrier. There's a visualization exercise I do with my clients where you essentially imagine light coming in either through the top of your head or the bottoms of your feet, and it's a white or golden light that kind of envelops you [00:15:00] in a soft bubble and You can work with that bubble that that light field around you to create an energetic barrier or boundary.
[00:15:12] John: A lot of people are really into talking about boundaries these days and all the tick tock therapists of the world are talking about boundaries and that's a good thing. And boundaries are often misunderstood. Boundaries are not just putting your hand up and Telling someone, no, that could be a boundary, but thinking about your energetic boundary is a really important part of the work as well, especially in the realm of, of trauma.
[00:15:36] John: So I think pulling in things like that is really helpful. Connecting to your faith and spirituality is incredibly helpful and would only boost your resilience. So I think going through. Trauma is a spiritual experience and therefore healing trauma has to be a spiritual experience, whatever that means for you, whether it's working with Reiki or working with a shaman or going to [00:16:00] church and working with your pastor or whomever whether it's just connecting with nature and using nature and trees and water to help ground you and cleanse you, or whether it's just putting your bare feet on the earth every morning for 20 minutes and getting some sun, you know, In your, your eyes I think all that counts, all that adds up and we have to be doing everything we can to heal from trauma in an integrative way and not just in isolation or just do a little EMDR and hope that you're done.
[00:16:31] John: It's a journey and has to be looked at more holistically than we're currently looking at it. So that's. We have a long way to go in that regard. Um, these are just some thoughts for now. So like I said, I really hope you've been enjoying, been enjoying the podcasts. We'll continue to do what we've been doing with great guests.
[00:16:52] John: If you would like to be a guest, please reach out john at johnclarketherapy. com is my email or go to my site, johnclarketherapy. [00:17:00] com to. Learn more to get my info. We've also done a lot of demos now of me doing IFS live with people who have volunteered to do sessions with me. So I hope you've enjoyed those.
[00:17:10] John: You can get a glimpse of my work and how I kind of do the model. Certainly not doing it perfectly doing as best I can. With within my capacities, and I hope it's helpful for you to see the model in action, especially if you're new to it. It's great to see it in action and even better to experience it yourself.
[00:17:30] John: So I highly recommend experiencing it yourself as a way of learning it. So yeah, I just. I want to thank you again for being here along this ride and we'll continue to push on with the podcast. We've got some interesting episodes coming up and I'm also really grateful for the community. It's helping me build with the interesting guests and people and new connections.
[00:17:52] John: Yeah. Thank you for being along for that. If you want to work with me, if you're a practitioner, like a therapist or coach, and you want to improve your [00:18:00] work and improve your trauma work, reach out to me. If you're a client looking for trauma therapy, reach out and then we can talk about working together.
[00:18:08] John: So yeah, that's it for now. If you like these solo episodes, let me know and I'll do more of them along the way. And otherwise thanks again for being here. And I'll See you in the next one. Take care. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to another episode of Going Inside. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe wherever you're listening or watching and share your favorite episode with a friend.
[00:18:30] John: You can follow me on Instagram, @johnclarketherapy and apply to work with me one on one at johnclarketherapy.com. See you next time.
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