396: Complex Trauma, The Freeze Response + Somatic Therapy - With Dr. Arielle Schwartz

Welcome back to Therapy Chat! As a follow up to last week's episode with Dr. Arielle Schwartz, we're revisiting a previous conversation with her from 2021. In our conversation, you'll hear Arielle talk about how adverse experiences from childhood can show up in our adult lives. She explains why it's hard for us to reconcile the moments when our parents didn't meet our needs back then to our perception of them and ourselves as adults. You'll hear HOW dissociation protects us and helps us create fantasies about our family relationships which make them feel safer and more trustworthy than they felt to us during childhood. She describes why this is needed and how resilience-focused somatic therapies can help us come out of a "functional freeze" state to be present in the here and now, with autonomy and agency. This conversation is all about understanding why we need the adaptive skill of dissociation and challenges the stigma about dissociation, trauma and mental health that is common in popular culture.Arielle Schwartz, PhD, is a psychologist, internationally sought-out teacher, yoga instructor, and leading voice in the healing of PTSD and complex trauma. She is the author of many books, including The Complex PTSD Workbook, EMDR Therapy and Somatic Psychology, The Post Traumatic Growth Guidebook. and Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery, as well as her newest publication, the Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery Flip Chart, which can be used by clinicians and anyone who wants to learn these skills. Dr. Schwartz is an accomplished teacher who guides therapists in the application of EMDR, somatic psychology, parts work therapy, and mindfulness-based interventions for the treatment of trauma and complex PTSD. She has a depth of understanding, passion, kindness, compassion, joy, and a succinct way of speaking about very complex topics. She is the founder of the Center for Resilience Informed Therapy in Boulder, Colorado where she maintains a private practice providing psychotherapy, supervision, and consultation. With over twenty years as a therapeutic yoga teacher, Dr. Schwartz believes that the journey of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart. Find Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery Flip Chart on Amazon here.Find the accompanying book, Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery, on Amazon here.Visit Arielle Schwartz's website for all of her amazing offerings, including her donation based Vagus Nerve Yoga classes.Listen to Dr. Arielle Schwartz's 2023 Therapy Chat interview here! My friend Dr. Elizabeth Guthrie's course,Polyvagal Theory & Plant Allies, is now being offered on a different platform at a lower price. Learn more and register here:  https://bit.ly/PTPlantsMy friend Dr. Jamie+ Marich's free webinar recording and link to learn about their course are found here: Not Faking: Dispelling the Myths & Misunderstandings Of DissociationJamie+ also has a new course on Trauma & the 12 Steps. Click the link to learn more and register!Get 50% off when you try HelloFresh using our coupon code! Go to https://hellofresh.com/chat50 and use code chat50 for 50% off PLUS free shipping!Thank you to TherapyNotes for sponsoring this week's episode! TherapyNotes makes billing, schedulin