479: Yoga Therapy + Clinical Practice with Nityda Gessel

Summary

Therapy Chat Podcast, Episode 479

"Yoga Therapy + Clinical Practice with Nityda Gessel"

Host: Laura Reagan, LCSW-C
Guest: Nityda Gessel, LCSW, C-IAYT, Creator of the Trauma Conscious Yoga Method
Date: April 21, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Laura Reagan returns to a crucial conversation with Nityda Gessel, a psychotherapist, yoga teacher, and creator of the Trauma Conscious Yoga Method. They explore the intersections between trauma-informed yoga, yoga therapy, and clinical psychotherapy practices. A central theme is understanding trauma, its profound impact, and the responsibilities practitioners hold to ensure safety, prevent retraumatization, and work within their professional scope. They discuss the complexity of trauma, how it presents, and offer practical insights for therapists, yoga teachers, and all healing professionals.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining the Scope of Practice

• Nityda’s Background ([05:01])

  • Nityda practiced yoga and therapy in NYC before moving to Austin, where she runs Mind Body Psychotherapy.
  • Developed the Trauma Conscious Yoga Method: a 25-hour clinical trauma-informed yoga teacher training integrating somatic psychotherapy principles (EMDR, IFS, Somatic Experiencing).
  • Trains a diverse group: mental health clinicians, yoga teachers, health coaches, and body workers.
  • Believes yoga and therapy are complementary, not replacements for each other.

• Laura’s Reflection ([07:17])

  • Points out the confusion even among professionals about what therapy, coaching, and different healing modalities entail.

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2. Trauma-Informed Care:

• The Four R’s of Trauma-Informed Care (per National Center for Trauma Informed Care) ([08:00])

  1. Realize the widespread impact of trauma and understand paths for recovery.
  2. Recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, staff, and others.
  3. Respond by integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices.
  4. Resist retraumatization.

Detailed Discussion on "Resist Retraumatization" ([10:12])

• Laura:
  "It's so crucial. And this is something I think whether you are a person who has experienced trauma ... we all need to understand this about re-traumatization because this is the part that I think is the hardest to see and notice." ([10:28])

• Nityda:
  "We could probably talk about this point alone for three hours." ([10:56])

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3. Understanding Trauma: Big T and Little t

• Nityda’s Explanation ([13:55])

  • Big T: War, natural disasters, rape, physical abuse, accidents—typically recognized as traumatic.
  • Little t: Ongoing, often overlooked experiences—discrimination, emotional neglect, growing up with a depressed or alcoholic parent, childhood invalidation.
  • "Emotional neglect has an incredible, incredible impact... little T traumas... impact one's nervous system the same way as the big T traumas." ([16:06])

• Shame and Lack of Recognition

  • Many clients don’t realize their experience is trauma, especially regarding consent, sexual assault, or childhood neglect.
  • "Information and education is so important and is another big part of trauma informed care. We cannot inform people enough." ([21:01])

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4. Preventing Retraumatization in Practice

Vulnerability & Boundaries ([23:55])

• Nityda:
  Describes managing vulnerability: "Laura, you and I have the luxury of choosing when we want to get vulnerable and how... Trauma survivors, acute trauma... are getting vulnerable outside of their volition." ([24:30])

• Yoga Teachers and Trauma Narratives ([25:59])

  • Students may divulge trauma stories in class due to activated vulnerability.

  • "But to try to offer counseling to a person right then and there on the spot would be a very possible way to ... support someone's retraumatization." ([28:39])

  • Yoga teachers should know local trauma therapists and be ready to refer.

  • Skill Highlighted:
    Spotting dissociation and gently interrupting, creating safety, and helping students contain emotion without invalidation.

• Laura on Clinical Containment:

  • Trauma therapists structure sharing, avoid inviting full reliving, build skills like containment and grounding before any narrative work.
  • "We're never... inviting people to relive it. We might be allowing pieces... to come into the present moment and always have that knowledge that we're in the present ..." ([32:12])

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5. Recognizing Trauma Activation

• Urgency to “do the trauma work” often signals activation, not readiness.
  "I've heard trauma survivors describe this sense of urgency to 'let's do the trauma work'... it feels like having your pedal to the floor in your car... out of control, gotta go..." ([35:17])

• Nityda:
  "That parallels the traumatic experience wholeheartedly... you go from fight or flight, and then most trauma occurs ... in immobilization." ([36:13])

6. Practitioner Responsibilities: Do Your Own Work

• Nityda Advice:
  "I don't think anybody should be working with trauma survivors who hasn't done their own work. And I mean, trauma work ... because we've all been traumatized to some degree." ([37:43])

• Laura Adds:
  "Do your own work and continue doing your own work... it's not just like, yeah, get that taken care of and get that out of the way." ([40:04])

• Dangers of “guru” status and power differentials are highlighted; true trauma-informed care is ongoing, self-reflective for practitioners.

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7. Trauma-Informed Principles for All

• Laura quickly reviews the Six Principles of Trauma-Informed Care (SAMHSA) ([41:52]):

  1. Safety
  2. Trustworthiness and transparency
  3. Peer support and mutual self-help
  4. Collaboration and mutuality
  5. Empowerment, voice, and choice
  6. Cultural, historical, and gender issues

• “Everybody benefits from being trauma informed, no matter what field you’re in, just as a human being.” ([42:49])

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8. Limitations of Diagnostic Criteria

• Nityda and Laura discuss how statistics for PTSD are misleading because many suffering trauma don’t fit the narrow, time-based criteria but are “suffering all the same.” ([44:06])

• "Who cares if it's a two or a four or whatever? ... Any flashback at all being drawn out of one's present moment experience is not something anybody wants for their life." ([45:02])

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• "They're not replacements for one another [yoga & therapy], but they are a beautiful balance to one another in helping support someone's healing and growth."
  —Nityda Gessel ([06:35])

• "The last part is ... the hardest to see and notice."
  —Laura Reagan, referring to the risk of retraumatization ([10:28])

• "If you decide that it was rape or sexual assault, then you admit that it happened. So ... there's a protective function of keeping you unaware, but then it's still affecting you."
  —Laura Reagan ([20:48])

• "If you think it couldn't happen to you ... that's when you're at the highest risk to do it because then you don't think you need to do the work."
  —Nityda Gessel ([41:12])

• "Everybody benefits from being trauma informed, no matter what field you're in, just as a human being. Because we've all experienced trauma to some degree..."
  —Nityda Gessel ([42:49])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------|------------| | Introduction and confusion about modalities | 01:23–03:11 | | Nityda’s background & Trauma Conscious Yoga Method | 05:01–07:17 | | Four R’s of Trauma-Informed Care | 08:00–10:12 | | Importance of not re-traumatizing | 10:12–11:04 | | Defining trauma: big T / little t | 13:55–17:45 | | Issues of consent and sexual trauma | 20:17–21:01 | | How yoga can activate trauma and teacher responsibilities| 25:59–31:06| | Containing trauma narrative and clinical safety | 32:12–34:45 | | Urgency to do trauma work as a symptom of activation| 35:17–37:13 | | Practitioner’s ongoing self-work | 37:43–41:34 | | Review of SAMHSA’s Six Principles | 41:52–42:40 | | Limits of PTSD criteria/statistics | 44:06–45:25 | | Closing remarks and where to find Nityda | 46:08–46:24 |

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Resources & Further Information

• Trauma Conscious Yoga Method: traumaconsciousyoga.com
• SAMHSA’s Trauma-Informed Care Principles: samhsa.gov

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Summary & Takeaway

This episode offers an in-depth, accessible exploration of trauma-informed care at the intersection of psychotherapy and yoga practice. Both Laura and Nityda stress the importance of understanding trauma’s complexity, the need for practitioner self-awareness and continuous self-work, and the ethical imperative to prevent retraumatization. Yoga, when approached from an informed, ethical, and collaborative stance, can be a powerful adjunct to therapy, but always within the limits of professional boundaries and responsibilities. The overarching message: Everyone, in every field, benefits from adopting a trauma-informed lens.

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For more from Nityda Gessel: Visit traumaconsciousyoga.com
For more Therapy Chat episodes: therapychatpodcast.com

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Chat.

[A]

See why TherapyNotes is the most trusted EHR for behavioral health professionals today. Therapy Chat Podcast Episode 479 this is.

[B]

The therapy chat podcast with Laura Reagan, LCSWC. The information shared in this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health professional. And now here's your host, Laura Reagan, lcswc.

[A]

Hi welcome back to Therapy Chat. I'm your host Laura Reagan and and I recently returned from training in the trauma Conscious Yoga method with Natita Cassel and I wanted to share with you the first interview we did at least eight years ago where she talked about yoga in psychotherapy and yoga therapy and the difference between psychotherapy incorporating yoga in clinical practice and yoga therapy. I think this is really interesting and important information and and it's always good to know that there are many paths to healing, but it's also important to understand what the scope of practice is in the various methods of healing arts that are out there. I know I've had even people I in my family who are in the medical profession have said oh, my friend is a therapist. And I said oh, what kind of therapy do they do where they practice? And they go oh, let me look at the card and then they come back and go oh, they're actually a coach. And so even in the medical profession there can be a lot of confusion about what's coaching, what's therapy, what's other types of healing, and what happens in each of those approaches. So although we're not specifically talking about coaching in this episode, that is another area where it can be confusing to understand what to expect and what is the method and outcome to to be anticipating when you work with different types of healing modalities. So I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Natina Cassel and as always, thank you for listening.

[B]

Hi, welcome back to Therapy Chat. Today I am really happy that I'm talking with someone who was a recent guest on Therapy Chat and we are coming back together to go deeper into some topics that came up last. Time. So welcome back to Nitita Gaso Natida. Thanks so much for coming back to Therapy Chat today.

[C]

Of course, Laura, thank you for having me back.

[B]

Yeah, I'm so glad we could do this. You know, when we were talking before about trauma informed Yoga and your method, the trauma conscious yoga method, you know, we, we kind of a little bit in our conversation and a lot before and after, we talked about like trauma informed practice as mental health clinicians and as in the work doing yoga therapy and for you as a yoga teacher. And we talked about the scope of practice and how those things can be kind of confusing. So I thought it would be great to kind of just talk more about that on the podcast and let our audience kind of consider some of the things that we were percolating.

[C]

Yeah, that sounds great. I'd love to dive deeper today. And you know, it's a really rich subject and trauma is very complex, so it's. I think it's valuable to have a second session related to this today.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. So let's just start off though, for anybody who might have missed our first episode and I'll be sure to post a link to that with this. Let's have you talk a little bit about yourself and just kind of introduce yourself to our audience again for anyone who didn't get it the first time.

[C]

Sure. Yeah. So my name's Natita Gassell, as you shared. I'm located in Austin, Texas. I've been here for coming up on three years and before that I taught yoga and practiced as a therapist in New York City where I lived for nine years. So it was a big shift. I am loving Austin. The weather is so much nicer. Yeah. And so I have a private practice here called Mind Body Psychotherapy. And my, my specialty is integrating psychotherapeutic yoga and more specifically trauma conscious yoga into talk therapy and other more somatic based psychotherapies. And so I specialize in working with trauma survivors. And then the other thing I do with my time professionally is that I lead trauma conscious yoga teacher training. So I developed something called the Trauma Conscious Yoga method, which, which is a style of trauma informed yoga that integrates trauma informed yoga with more somatic psychotherapy principles borrowed from emdr, Internal family systems, somatic experiencing. And so it's a very clinical focused trauma informed yoga teacher training that's 25 hours. And it's Geared towards mental health clinicians, but also yoga teachers attend, health coaches and life coaches attend, body workers attend. And we'll get into this, but because of the nature of these trainings, I'm talking to a diverse group of people who have varying scopes of practice. So that's something that comes up that we'll get into scope of practice and trauma informed work. But yeah, that's how I spend the other part of my time is leading those trainings. Been teaching yoga for 13 years and taught yoga first before becoming a therapist, but always knew I wanted to take the therapy path. So I find that therapy and yoga really complement one another. They're not replacements for one another, but they are a beautiful balance to one another and helping support someone's healing and growth.

[B]

Yeah. So thank you so much for explaining that. And I have to shout out how we both attended Old Dominion University in Virginia and probably were almost overlapping at some point, but we didn't know each other then, but we made that connection now. So. Yeah, so I was, I was thinking it would be great for us to kind of touch on the two perspectives about what trauma informed work can be. You have the four Rs and then there's another list that's six principles of, of trauma informed practice. So can you kind of go over the four R's first?

[C]

Sure, yeah. So the four R's I have here as outlined by the national center for Trauma Informed Care. And this is going to be a summary not written exactly as they have it on their website, but one is that trauma informed care realizes the broad impact of trauma and the process of recovery. So basically that alludes to there being care where there is an in depth understanding of what trauma is, the various experiences that constitute trauma, how it manifests in the mind, body and spirit, and what is most supportive to helping someone resolve their trauma. That was one. The second one is that trauma informed care recognizes the signs and symptoms. And so a lot of the times the signs and symptoms of someone who might be experiencing trauma, they're, you know, they're not so explicit or obvious, especially if you're looking at a child. You know, a lot of these things might go undetected. So we'll get into that more, I'm sure. But you know, care that really understands how to detect and notice the nuances of things that could be clues or hints that trauma could be going on. Thirdly, trauma informed care responds by creating and integrating practices and policies. So it's not just that we have this knowledge, but we're proactively doing something to support the recovery of trauma survivors. We're creating programs and trainings and new methods of therapy, for example. And then lastly, and this one's super important, Trauma informed care seeks to actively resist re traumatization. So there's an understanding of the potentiality to do harm while working with trauma survivors, and there's an understanding of what practices we can adopt as professionals to really minimize the likelihood that we will re traumatize someone.

[B]

Okay, so thank you so much for going over that because that there is a mouthful. And I mean, it's. The last part is. I think we should start with the last part.

[C]

Sure. Yeah.

[B]

It's so crucial. And this is something that I think whether you are a person who has experienced trauma and you may be in therapy at some point, or if you're a therapist, or if you're a yoga teacher or a yoga practice, know, yoga practitioner, a yogi, we all need to understand this about re traumatization because this is the part that I think is the hardest to see and notice.

[C]

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I mean, we could probably talk about this point alone for three hours.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

So you just tell me when to stop. But yeah, I'd love to go into this further.

[B]

Yeah. So I think, I mean, first of all, I think what people. Everything about the list that you just read is really helpful because understanding when trauma is activated is something that a well trained trauma clinician or a person who has, maybe a yoga teacher who has experience in recognizing the symptoms of trauma would know that the person who's experiencing the trauma may not recognize in the moment because they, they are their traumas activated. And so they're thinking. And you know, observing self is kind of not online depending on, you know, how triggered they are. So, you know, and I've felt that myself, so I know what it's like when you're reacting and it feels right in the moment. But later you're like, why did I react that way?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And then you look back and you go, oh my gosh, I was triggered. That's what was happening there.

[C]

Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, if. If one doesn't know that that's happening, if the person who it's happening to doesn't know and the professional who is working with them doesn't know, there's a lot of harm that could come from continuing to work with that person in their emotional process while their trauma is activated.

[C]

Definitely, definitely. And you know, even to add on to that, you know, sometimes people don't even know that they've experienced trauma I think in the general population, there still isn't the ideal. What I would say would be the ideal amount of knowledge circulating around what constitutes trauma. So I have clients, you know, I. It's up there on my website for my private practice that I specialize in trauma. And so I'm having clients come in who I'm thinking they know that they have trauma, but then when I talk, you know, they actually just came for another reason. And then, you know, I'm calling what they're telling me trauma, and they're like, trauma. I didn't know I had trauma. So why is that? People, you know, need to be trauma informed so that they even have an understanding of what trauma is. And, you know, if a client or a yoga student or whatever doesn't necessarily know that they're triggered, or they might also not even know that they're having a trauma reaction at all.

[B]

Yes. And so the person who might be working with them, whether it's a yoga teacher or clinician or a coach or energy worker, may have asked the person, have you experienced any trauma? And many of us think as clinicians. Well, I asked them if there was any history of trauma, and they said, no, it's not that simple.

[C]

No. Yeah. So maybe we should go over what trauma is and not assume. Because I know there's a diverse audience that listens to your podcast, and we shouldn't assume that people know what trauma is. Maybe we should just go into it briefly. Yeah, okay. Yeah. You know, so sure. And I'll try to make it brief, you know, but sometimes we'll call these big T versus little T trauma. And I find that when the things that we consider to be big T trauma are the experiences that most people do recognize as traumatic. So most people understand that war constitutes a traumatic experience, that natural disaster, earthquakes and things like that, fires constitute a traumatic experience. And, you know, trigger. I forgot to give the trigger warning. So let me just pause for a moment because I always feel like it's important to give the trigger warning. Trigger warning. Better late than never, you know, and when talking about trauma, there is the potential to be triggered for conscious material or unconscious material to come up to the surface and for wanting to experience an immense amount of discomfort. So to the listeners out there, I really encourage you to take care of yourselves and even take a break from listening if you need to, in order to really support your emotional needs. So that. That's the trigger warning. So back to big T trauma again. Incidents like rape, you know, being held up at gunpoint, most people Recognize. Okay, those are traumatic experiences.

[B]

Car accident, plane crash.

[C]

Physical abuse, childhood sexual abuse. Yeah, there's things that, you know, they're not necessarily single incident, but there's things that have a kind of a more definitive beginning and end. Those are the big T traumas. And what most people recognize as. Okay, that's traumatic. Now, little T traumas are things that oftentimes go undetected under the radar that most people don't necessarily know are trauma. So these are ongoing experiences like discrimination based on one's race, ethnicity, or sexual preference or even like religion. Yeah. Gender. Growing up in a family where you were the middle child and so you didn't get attention. You know, you. You felt left out and like you didn't have a safe support from your caregivers. And emotional neglect has an incredible, incredible impact. You know, a lot of people will say, I had a great childhood. My parents were amazing. They gave me everything I needed. We went on trips and I played sports. Sports and all these things. But you. You dive a little bit deeper and you. You learn that their parents didn't really allow them to feel their feelings. They were called dramatic for having feelings. Or, you know, they weren't allowed to cry or, you know, they were only given attention and praise if they, quote, end quote, did something good. Right. So they had to earn the love by getting an A or earn the love by being chosen to be the lead in the school play. They had to do something. And it's really important for a child to. To be. To sense that they are unconditionally loved and accepted simply for being the child that they are. So when that doesn't happen, there's a lot of shame that children experience that carries on out into adulthood. And that's what I see really, you know, very often in my practice is these little T traumas, this emotional neglect that people don't realize is trauma that impacts one's nervous system the same way as the big T traumas.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also having a parent who is an alcoholic.

[C]

Yes.

[B]

Having one. One parent be abused by the other parent, even if you weren't seeing the abuse happen or you were not being threatened with the abuse, just having that environment. And also if your parent was depressed, many things like that, losing a parent, that would be big T, Right?

[C]

Losing the parent would be big T. Yeah. You know, traumatic events can be directly experienced. Like it happens to you. It can be witnessed. So you witness the traumatic experience happening to someone else, but it's still impacting your nervous system just the same. Or you learn about, you know, especially if you learn about a loved one experiencing a traumatic event that can create trauma in your nervous system. And then for a lot of us who are listening to this podcast, vicarious trauma. So being so closely connected to the details of a traumatic incident, either because you're a therapist or you're a first responder or whatever the case may be, that you actually take on that trauma in your own mind, body and spirit. So. So, yeah, so that's like an overview of. So again, it's. It's really complex, and it's more than, like, natural disaster and war that we're talking about.

[B]

And I must add that I speak with many, many, many, many people who have experienced some type of sexual assault or rape that they don't know would fit under that definition. So they don't think that they've experienced anything traumatic. And so it's not just that they don't. That they know that rape is traumatic, but they think they haven't been raped. But when they tell you that there was an unwanted sexual experience, that does fall under the definition of rape. And they're having this trauma response that matches up with that traumatic experience, you know, so someone may not recognize it, and they'll say, well, I knew that happened and I didn't want it, and it was awful, and I was in a very bad place for a long time after it happened, and I still think about it all the time, but I didn't know that was a trauma. So.

[C]

Right. Yeah. Thank you for adding that. That's really important. And I think part of that, too, is that there's lack of understanding around what. What is consent? You know?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And consent has to be, you know, consistent. So not just a once, but consistent and enthusiastic. Yes. You know.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Freely given.

[C]

Yes, freely given. Without coercion. Yeah. And again, that's a whole nother topic. But, yeah, thank you for. For adding that one because that's. That's very common in my practice, too. And also, you know, part of it is protective. Right. If you decide that it was rape or sexual assault, then you admit that it happened. So. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So if you. If you admit that to yourself, then that feels worse somehow. So there's a protective function of keeping you unaware, but then it's still affecting you. And so that's why.

[C]

And that can lead to a lot of shame. Why am I. People think they're going crazy. You know, they use that like, they use that language, why am I going crazy? Why can't I get it together? Right. Because you've experienced something that was highly traumatic for your mind and body, but you're just not connected to it because you know there's a part of you that's protecting you from that. So information, I feel like information and education is so important and is another big part of trauma informed care. We cannot inform people enough. If we have the information, we can't be the secret holders of it. We've got to give that information out because, you know, we've all heard that knowledge is power, right? But it really, it truly is. It's really empowering to give people the information and then that also helps to minimize the power differential, which is another big thing in trauma informed care. So should we go to resist re traumatization?

[B]

Yes. Yes.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Today's episode is sponsored by Psychotherapy Networker and pesi. If you're a therapist, be sure to check out the Partner page, which is linked in the Show Notes where you can get discounted trainings with previous Therapy Chat guests like Courtney Armstrong, Dr. Leslie Korn, Dr. Arielle Schwartz, Dr. Tammy Nelson, Dr. Janina Fisher, Rebecca Case, Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Lindsay Gibson, Deb Dana, Lori Gottlieb, and many, many others. You'll find the link in the Show Notes to my Partner page with PESSI and Psychotherapy Networker where you can find all these discounted training.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

So once you who are listening understand that even if someone doesn't identify as having trauma doesn't mean that it that they haven't experienced trauma, they're not affected by it, then how do you actively resist re traumatizing that person? When you're Working with them.

[C]

Yeah. So now everybody who's listening has some more information if they didn't already. So that's one step working for them against resisting retraumatization. But I think we should talk about vulnerability a little bit and how vulnerability relates to trauma, especially acute trauma, in a very specific way. So for example, Laura, like you and I, have the luxury of choosing when we want to get vulnerable and how we want to get vulnerable and open up and with who we want to get vulnerable. And we can create boundaries because of the inner work we've done and the training we have to know how to not get vulnerable with people who aren't safe to be vulnerable with. So that, that is an amazing powerful thing to have Trauma survivors, acute trauma, meaning it happened in the very recent past. And they're experiencing what we call the re experiencing symptoms, which are things like flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive thoughts and intrusive images. When one has these re experiencing symptoms, which are very common to the trauma survivor experience, one is getting vulnerable outside of their volition. So it's like the body is being hijacked and brought back into that experience. And when one is re experiencing and having the flashback or having the intrusive image, it's really felt like it's happening again in the present. People believe it's really happening again. So you can imagine how uncomfortable and how terrifying that can be. And so people who have re experiencing symptoms, they don't have that luxury of choosing when they're going to get vulnerable. And I'm going to put this in the context of an example with I'm going to use yoga teachers as an example.

[B]

Perfect.

[C]

Great. So I love yoga teachers. Those are my people. And you know, a lot of yoga teachers have this beautiful gift of just being these lovely bright radiance souls that draw other people in despite the nature of who they are. You know, they're like these bright shining lights and they teach these beautifully sequenced and articulated yoga classes and offer words that are very healing and help to create aha. Moments in their students minds. And you know, there's some yoga teachers that are just absolutely incredible at what they do. And you know, yoga can feel like therapy sometimes for a lot of people because there's this very radiant being up there leading the class who is offering kind of psychotherapeutic feeling advice or insight. And so it's not uncommon for yoga teachers like this to develop this guru status with their students, either, you know, unintentionally or intentionally. Right. You're, you have a Wide audience. You have a huge audience as a popular yoga teacher, and you're going doing some deep stuff with people. You're getting them into their bodies where our emotions and trauma live. And so people are getting really vulnerable in yoga classes. And so it's not uncommon. It's happened to me as a yoga teacher, and it's happened to me, many other teachers. I know for a yoga student who's in this very vulnerable place to come up to the teacher after class when everybody else has cleared out or maybe when other people are still there, this yoga student will want to offer gratitude for the class. And before you know it, the student might have spilled half or all of their trauma narrative to the yoga teacher. Because a lot of the times in the aftermath of trauma, people don't have the best boundaries or the ability to contain because their own boundaries were violated.

[B]

If I can interrupt for a second, I just. I want to say that when someone's trauma narrative has started, you don't always know that that's what's happening. But for the person, it's almost like they have to say it all before they can say stop. And. And they're really not feeling in control of what they're saying, but they're just almost like in a trance of just. So that means their trauma has been activated.

[C]

Yes. Right. And so yoga can really activate one's trauma. I mean, there's a reason why we might use it in a very ethical and educated, intelligent way in a therapy session, because it does help to bring up what does need to be discharged and released. But, you know, yoga teachers aren't licensed mental health professionals. So. And yoga teachers find themselves in this situation sometimes where they've just gotten someone's trauma narrative all of a sudden, and now what do they do with that, you know? And you know, yoga teachers really want to help other people, typically, like, that's why they do it, you know, and they're really good at helping others, and. And that's why they're so good at their craft. But. But to try to offer counseling to a person right then and there on the spot would be a very possible way to re. To support someone's re. Traumatization. So that's where I was going with that. Right. Because if you don't have the education and the therapy, the specific trauma therapy training and the licensure, that actually protects the client to do counseling, you know, it's not the place to then do counseling in a public yoga studio, in a room where there's other people around. And you know, someone's already activated. So, you know, that's why I feel like. I feel like all yoga teachers really need to have trauma informed training because it's just way too common. Trauma is just so prevalent, and yoga brings up vulnerability in the body. So I always recommend yoga teachers know mental health professionals in their area, especially therapists who specialize in trauma and have business cards on hand so that they can refer out. And one of the things I talk about in the training I lead in working with yoga teachers is how to identify when somebody is activated again. It's recognizing the signs and symptoms and that they are kind of of in that dissociated state, sharing their trauma narrative. How do you gently interrupt them without invalidating them and get them to contain what's coming up so that you can resist retraumatization most effectively?

[B]

Yeah, that's a skill that I'm sure it takes being in a training like yours to be able to develop because you. You have to remain compassionate, grounded yourself. And, you know, also you, in a way, you're protecting the person from what they don't see is happening in that moment, you know, the best you can.

[C]

Definitely. Yeah. You know, and I remember when I was a new clinician, this came up just in a training I did, or it might have been in supervision where, you know, we were talking about how the trauma narrative can just spill out, you know, and sometimes people will actually go home after spilling like that and say that they felt a sense of relief until moments later or the next day or whatever, where they feel so raw, cracked open and vulnerable that then things like suicidal ideation start to show up or triggers to go get high start to show up.

[B]

That they wouldn't do otherwise.

[C]

Hmm, Exactly. Right. Because we know as trauma therapists, there's a very structured, safe way that we have people approach the trauma. And we're never, I don't know, any trauma therapy where we're inviting people to relive it. Right. We might be allowing pieces of the trauma to come into the present moment and always have that knowledge that we're in the present, but we never are encouraging clients to relive the past, you know, but in that dissociative state, that's what's happening. Right.

[B]

And so for the clinician who is working for. Working with the client who is not within their window of tolerance, as Dan Siegel talks about, you know, and their. Their trauma is activated, and of course, if it comes up, you know, it comes up and you. You have to help the person be resourced and contain what's happening so that they are not being re traumatized, but to, you know, to try to do trauma work with them in that when they're outside of their window of tolerance is. Is potentially harmful and re traumatizing.

[C]

Exactly. Yeah. Like in clinical settings, if I have a new client who's coming in, you know, and they're coming in for their trauma, I encourage them over and over again. I remind them, you know, that we're not going to go in depth. And sometimes they want to because they'll say, no, like, it happened three years ago. I'm totally over. I can talk about it now. But they're also here because they're having flashbacks. So clearly, no, it's not over. Right. So I'm always just embodying compassion and acceptance to the best of my ability, but again and again encouraging people not to get to the details. Like we'll get to the details eventually, perhaps depending on which, you know, treatment approach we decide to take. But, you know, just give me the general idea of when it happened. You know, very, very general sense of what happened. And then that's it. And then we're doing skills like containment, maybe sometimes breathing grounding and mindfulness skills that before we actually go into the narrative. And it also teaches people how to have boundaries around what they share. Right. Which is, which is challenging for probably most people, but also for the trauma survivor specifically.

[B]

Well, especially when their trauma is activated and it doesn't feel like it's within their control to when to share it and when not to. Because it's basically seeping out everywhere. For example, like with the floor flashbacks there all the time and they're being, you know, constantly reminded. So they're basically kind of almost blurting it out because they really need someone to hear it. But that's a symptom of, you know, that their trauma is activated.

[C]

Definitely. Definitely. Yeah.

[B]

There's one more thing I'd like to touch on about that, that I think I've probably said this before and we may have even talked about it last time. But I'll just briefly say that I've heard trauma survivors describe this sense of urgency to let's do the trauma work. Come on, let's get into the trauma. I need to get into the trauma. I'm ready. I'm ready to do the trauma I've been suffering for so long. I'm ready to let's get into the trauma. And it's this like, urgency. And people have said, I thought this was a really good description that it feels like having your petal to the floor in your car. Like you're accelerating your pedals all the way down to the floor and your emergency brakes on. Like, it's like this out of control. Gotta go, you know.

[C]

Right.

[B]

A thousand miles per hour. Meanwhile, this, like, you know, stuckness at the same time.

[C]

Right. Well, that parallels the traumatic experience.

[B]

Right.

[C]

Wholeheartedly. Because, you know, it's like you go from fight or flight, and then most trauma occurs. And this is the words of Bessel, van der Kolk and Peter Levine. Most trauma occurs in immobilization. So it's like the gas pedal, the accelerator was pressed down. You were in fight or flight, but then you were forced to be immobile. So, I mean, that's what creates trauma.

[B]

You couldn't get away, right?

[C]

You couldn't get away, but all those chemicals, like your body wanted you to run. The adrenaline was up, the amygdala was super active. Like, you were ready to run, but you couldn't. So all of that energy becomes lodged in the. In the connective tissue, disorganized in multiple parts of the brain, in the muscle. Right. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So that. So that means that they're activated to a degree. Right. Because they're. They're stuck in that place of, I'm frozen, yet I gotta go. Right, right.

[B]

And it's like asking the therapist, take me there. You know, and the therapist is wanting to help, but that's where our responsibility is to recognize the symptoms and clues and hints that they have, you know, that this is actually their trauma that's activated, that's making them want this and resist traumatization. Re traumatization. Because we know that it's. That's what we have to do for, you know, ethical practice.

[C]

Definitely. Most definitely. Yeah. And, you know, so with resist re traumatization, so one is staying within your scope of practice. And we covered that a bit. And then another piece to resisting re traumatization is doing your own work. I don't think anybody should be working with trauma survivors who hasn't done their own work. And I mean, trauma work, because we've all been traumatized to some degree, you know, and I kind of. I think I touched on this a little bit last time, but in a different way, you know, talking about how people try to meditate away their trauma or like, yoga away their, you know, depression or, you know, and. But what if your wounding happened, you know, in childhood, which for most of us, it did. None of us had perfect childhood, you know, so the yoga gives you the ability to be calm, to find peace within your body, to take a breath and breathe deeply. Yoga gives us good coping skills. Meditation affords us the same thing, you know, and yoga and meditation are one in the same. But if you haven't ever explored your childhood, you know, at least once with a licensed mental health professional, if you haven't approach some of your past relational issues, you've got to do that before you go do any relational work, whether it be yoga, massage, acupuncture, psychotherapy, whatever, because we're vulnerable, our clients are vulnerable, and it's very, very easy to exploit other people and re. Traumatize them. And we've seen it, We've seen it in the yoga world and we've seen it in the therapy world over and over again. How people who are given this status of authority, whether it be the guru status or the. You're the mental health professional and I'm the patient, we've seen it happen again and again. The exploitation happens and then there's trauma within the clinical setting. And, you know, that's just. That's just so heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah. So do your own work.

[B]

Yeah. And, you know, and I, I will expand on that too, to say, do your own work and continue doing your own work.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, it's not just like, yeah, get that taken care of and get.

[C]

That out of the way.

[B]

No, it's like, take care of and tend to what comes up with you in your role as a yoga teacher, in your role as a therapist, a massage therapist, you know, whatever it may be, because, you know, it's not like there's an end destination. You want to heal your trauma so that it's not flaring up, but relationally stuff is always happening. And, you know.

[C]

Exactly. Yeah. You know, in the trainings that I lead, I'll give examples because I feel like examples just really help to illustrate. So I'll give examples of specific yoga teachers who were like famous yoga teachers who have sexually exploited their students. You know, and then there's always the residual judgment, Right. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe this person did this. You know, and I think that's how we tend to react a lot of the times to, to recognize what we perceive to be the difference between us and the bad guy.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Really, we're all more alike than we are different.

[B]

That's right.

[C]

So, and so I say, you know, if you think it couldn't happen to you, if you think you couldn't exploit somebody, that's when you're at the highest risk to do it because then you don't think you need to do the work. That's so true of getting you from doing it. Yeah. Yes. It's got to be ongoing. I absolutely agree with you on that.

[B]

Yes, indeed.

[C]

Mm.

[B]

So I wanted to talk about the. The other. The six principles of. Of Trauma Informed Care too, but we really won't have enough time to do that today.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

So I will link to the list and I'll just go over it really quickly. Just the main points for people to consider. This is from samhsa, the guiding principles of Trauma Informed Care. And I'll link to this with. Also I'll link to the resource that Natida talked about, but it's safety, trustworthiness and transparency, peer support and mutual self help, collaboration and mutuality, empowerment, voice and choice and cultural, historical and gender issues. Maybe we can even come back to this again in another future episode because, as you said, we could talk about just one of them probably for three hours or three days.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

Because it's so.

[C]

Three years.

[B]

That's right. It's so important. Important and it's so complex and deep, but crucial.

[C]

Yeah, definitely. Yes. I feel like we've got to be trauma informed. Just everybody benefits from being trauma informed, no matter what field you're in, just as a human being. Because we've all experienced trauma to some degree and there's so much trauma happening in our world all the time. So.

[B]

Yeah, right, that's. That was that first R, I believe, where it was saying that recognizing the prevalence of trauma and how it impacts all of us all the time.

[C]

Right, definitely. Yeah. The broader impact. Yeah. And, yeah, it's so, so prevalent. And again, like, a lot of the statistics are for ptsd, like who's walking around with post traumatic stress disorder. And to meet the criteria for ptsd, there's a whole bunch of criteria that, you know, and there's a certain time frame that criteria have to be met in. It's very, very specific. So there's a lot of people who have very active trauma that would really benefit from being resolved, but they just don't meet. So a lot of the statistics are just, I would say, almost irrelevant because, like, we're. We're not including people who don't have PTSD but really are suffering all the same.

[B]

Yes, people who are impacted by trauma but whose symptoms don't meet the criteria would still be suffering quite a bit. It's just basically a numerical score on the, on the assessment scale that, you know, you could have. If you're below that number, you don't have quote, unquote, ptsd. But if you, you know, it's. It's not a lot of difference in the symptoms. It's just kind of almost like a random line that they created. It's like, well, okay, we'll say it's higher than this, right?

[C]

Yeah. And it's used, you know, for managed care purposes. So, I mean, like, if you're having.

[B]

Flashbacks, like, but you say that they're a 2 out of 4 severity instead of 4 out of 4, flashbacks are a problem. It's not.

[C]

Right.

[B]

It's telling you that the trauma is not. It's activated. It's not settled.

[C]

Right. Yeah. We want to get people embodied and help them thrive in their life and be able to make choices over what's happening to their bodies instead of their bodies hijacking them. So who cares if it's a two or a four or whatever? Yeah. Any flashback at all being drawn out of one's present moment experience is not something anybody wants for their life, so.

[B]

Right, exactly. Well, Natida, it's been wonderful talking with you again and I feel like there's so much more to be said. I wish we had more time, but yeah, I believe that we will come back together again because, you know, we're like really kind of, I think, in the same mindset. And I really enjoyed talking about this with you.

[C]

Thank you. Yeah. And I mean, we both graduated from Old Dominion University, so I feel like it's just meant to be. But yeah, it's always a pleasure talking with you too. So we'll talk about it. Yeah, I'd love to. To come back and see what else we can explore together potentially. But thank you for having me on again.

[B]

Yeah, thank you. So, real quick, if you'll just tell people where they can get more information on the trauma conscious yoga method in your trainings.

[C]

Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. So they can find more information at trauma conscious yoga dot com.

[B]

Awesome.

[A]

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[B]

Thank you for listening to Therapy Chat with your host, Laura Reagan, LCSWC. For more information, please visit therapychatpodcast.com.