Relational Trauma, Repair, and Felt Safety (with Dr. Vicki Sanders)

Renae: Hello, Dr. Vicki. Welcome to the TraumaWise podcast. We're glad to have you here today.

Dr. Vicki: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Renae: Absolutely. Well, I'm such a fan of your approach to communicating about trauma and relationships and healing and what that means individually and community wise. And so I'm really glad you're here, and I would love it if you could take a moment to introduce yourself to everyone.

Dr. Vicki: Sure. Um, I am a licensed marriage and family therapist with my PhD in psychology. I focus on relational trauma and really addressing that in children and families, particularly with the foster and adopted groups. However, the more work that I do, the more that I find that maybe some of those big relational disruptions that we have in the foster and adoption community are actually mirrored in just our general population. Uh, perhaps those relational traumas weren't quite so big, but they were still super impactful. And often we can boil down exactly when things started based on our relationships.

Renae: Beautiful. Thank you for that. And, um, as you were talking about the relational disruptions, the relational betrayals, the dysfunctions, um, I, I just want to put it out there very clearly that this is not this whole conversation is not a. Oh, no, my parents screwed me up. That's why I am the way that I am. Although we can totally identify times when there was not the safe caregiver input that would have set in a baseline or a trajectory. But this is not a blame or shame as we're talking about this. So if anyone is like, oh no, I'm worried I'm going to screw my kids up or, you know, this is that's not what we're saying, right?

Dr. Vicki: Absolutely not. Um, some of some relational trauma actually occurs simply because of the personality of the child. Parents will do and say the same things with one child, but to another child it really impacts them negatively. I'm a firm believer that most of us do the best that we can with the information that we have. What we're talking about here is just how certain things impact us long term, and maybe impact us differently. Certainly, I think that we all can accept that physical abuse and sexual abuse really impacts people in the long term. I simply think that we discount how emotional interactions with other people impact us. I think to some people it even feels uncomfortable to say like disruption or, you know, betrayal. But I understand that it I have I know that in my lifetime I have said and done things to people that have caused disruptions, and I value the fact that I've been able to resolve those disruptions. I had no intention of doing that. But they occur because that's what happens sometimes. And our job is not to blame or shame. Our job is to know better and then do better.

Renae: Well. And and you know, there is this piece of it. I'm going to say this very carefully. It's not that we go out looking for ruptures in order to become resilient people. However, there is no building of anything in the physical world without there being some death or disruption or rupture. We can't grow without that. And so it's if we if we pretend or we encapsulate or control environments so that there's, you know, seemingly none of those things, we're inhibiting the growth of the, the individual, the organism or whatever it is. And it can't grow.

Dr. Vicki: Right, right. No. Absolutely. Because that one of the ways that we do grow is, is through disruption and through having to learn and work through things. And for me, because I do so much work with families, what's important to me is, is that we we identify that the disruption happened and then we address it, because that is teaching our children that it's okay to make mistakes and it's okay to fix those mistakes. When we pretend that we never make mistakes, then our children learn that mistakes are not okay. Um, and so absolutely we grow, we learn. I think there's a saying, and I wish I could ascribe it to the right person, but I, I've. I love the quote. Like I've learned so much more from the things I failed at and the things that I succeeded at. Um, I'm not a huge fan of the word failure, but it fits in this context.

Renae: Sure. Well, and the it's the, um. Well, there's so many there's so many directions we could take that, but I think the one that I would love to, to kind of follow the thread on here is, um, this this piece about it's it's not that we, um, it is not a if we screw up, it's a when we screw up. Right. And that part of how, uh, we create safety is by telling the truth about that. So we're not creating cognitive dissonance for the person in front of us. And, you know, the the less, the less fancy way of saying that is we don't gaslight or make people feel crazy by pretending that something didn't happen that did. Or vice versa.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And so how how do you talk to maybe do you have um people that you're working with that in their family system where that telling the truth of, of making a mistake or screwing up or getting it wrong was not part of their own family tradition? Sure. How do you how do you discuss that with them?

Dr. Vicki: Yeah. Uh, you know, I sometimes jokingly say that I'm surprised I don't get fired more, um, by clients because I am a relatively confrontational therapist. Um, and so usually what I try to do is I try to point something out that's happening currently. That doesn't make sense. And then we talk about why it initially made sense in our head. And so I often will say things like, okay, so I just want to be clear about what I'm hearing. You lost your temper parent. You fully grown adult with a fully developed frontal lobe, lost your temper because your baby lost their temper without a fully developed frontal lobe. And that's dealing with all these things. And then when they say yes, because we laugh about it. Right. Like, I'm a big proponent of laughter because it's not helpful to shame ourselves. So now let's talk about why that was. Why was it that it felt okay on your side to do that, but it didn't feel okay for your child to do that, or what happened in your family of origin where making mistakes was not acceptable for children, or where being respectful was the only thing that mattered. Being obedient was the only thing that mattered. And I feel like I'm so lucky to work with so many people in the faith based community. But that's one area where sometimes we have to agree to disagree. Because if obedience is our primary goal, we're missing out on a lot. But so for me, I'll be honest, I'm about like, I'm just going to say it now. I'm going to be kind and I'm going to be gentle and I'm not going to shame. But I think it's important that we actually are just okay with having the conversation, because that also takes some of the stigma out of it. So we can have those conversations with our family and our friends. When we see things that come up with people, we don't have to be in therapy to address it. We can we can talk with our family and friends about it all the time and about what we see. Because man, it's hard to see in ourselves. It's real easy to see in other people.

Renae: Right? Right. And we're not I don't think that we um, and I think there's probably a huge historical, um, precedent for this, um, even especially within the faith community, but in other movements in the United States where, um, intellectual curiosity or openness or saying, well, this is what I think, and I and I'm going to live my life based on what it is, I think. And I'm going to be open to. I might be wrong. And I want, I want to grow and change as I learn more. And I, I think that there's, um, I mean, it's the pace of our lives. It's the fact that there's we're spread out too thin. We're not we don't have the time for reflection and depth.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And so some it feels like almost something catastrophic or really challenging has to happen to pause us to be able to look inward and and say I wonder why I do that.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah absolutely. And I think because we are so success driven in our society, at least in, in the culture and society that I live in, it's about what have you done. What have you brought to the table that I don't have time to stop and consider whether or not I made a mistake? I don't have time for that. Um, so I'm just going to keep going, because if I made a mistake, what does that say about me as a person? What does that say about me as a parent? What does that say about me in general? And so we just keep going. But when someone really stops and says like, well, like you, you said, like, why did I do that? Or why did my child do that? Or as a teacher, why is my student doing that or whatever role you are? It feels like I'm not going to be curious about it. I need you to tell me why. If you don't know, I'm going to move on.

Renae: Right?

Dr. Vicki: And then we lose out on some real opportunity to figure out, like, well, why is that my trigger? Um, or why is that something I react to in a certain way?

Renae: And, and I think that, um, there's, there's a piece of this that has to do with. Well, first of all, um, the, you know, the feeling safe enough to belong in places is something that the the further and further we move into, you know, what the the smallest, the smaller screens got further. We moved away from each other in a lot of instances, and those started to meet certain needs for us for connection that would normally have been met in relationship. And so, um, because of that and the fact that our, our brains are lovely and also lie to us a lot about the full picture of things.

Dr. Vicki: Absolutely.

Renae: Um, so we're getting we might be getting partial information, uh, in front of us from someone else, and our brains are giving us a piece of it. And if we're if we don't have those, those trusted spaces internally and externally where we can, we can be curious and fact check things, then we're kind of running on fear.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And that fear translates into lots more disruptions in relationship. How do you how do you see that playing out.

Dr. Vicki: So I want to say something real quick that I like to point out to people that I think is helpful. Most people don't realize that we react the same way, whether it's an emotional fear or a physical fear, an emotional threat, or a physical threat. Which is why if you have teenagers and you threaten to take their phones away, they act like you're killing them because their brain kind of thinks you are. But the problem is, is when we are in a place of fear because we can't differentiate between an emotional threat and a physical threat, we have three responses. Sometimes people add a fourth. Not really sure about this one, but we've got fight flight freeze. This fourth one is fun. That one I don't focus on as much. But we do this in our relationships. We fight, we flee from relationships, we feel uncomfortable and we run away or we freeze. And that's actually that shutdown, right? Or that piece of, I'm not going to ever speak about myself. I'm never going to ask for anything because I'm so afraid that you're going to leave me in those moments. And so if we're responding in those ways, All of our relationships are being built on fear, which then doesn't lend itself well ever to finding those those safe spaces and those spaces where we actually feel safe.

Renae: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you talking about the the you just touch on the phon issue in that, um, fawn is is difficult to put into the trauma. People say responses. I'm going to say reactions because we we react. We don't think about it. fawn is actually a response and not a reaction in that we have two parts of us activated and it is a strategy of fight. Flight or freeze are not strategies, they are defaults. And so I think that that's that's part of why I can say, well, I see how it's connected, but it's, it's a little bit different because it's a, it's a behavior. Mhm. Um fight flight or freeze are not a is not a behavior. It is a state.

Dr. Vicki: Yes.

Dr. Vicki: Yes. And it's an automatic. Um, I'm a freezer. And so I think there's a lot of times where I wish that I was a fighter or a flee or I'm, that's just not in my nature. So whether it's physical threat or emotional threat, that's just what it is. Um, and, and so, like you said, it's a reaction, not a response. Responses allow us to think our our fear response. Our fear response is really a fear reaction.

Dr. Vicki: Right.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: Right. So in in looking at that, to go back to one of the things that you started sharing about at the beginning in that, you know, physical and sexual abuse, it seems to be more clear cut. And I even, I even recall times when, um, as a mandated reporter, I've had to make reports and they're the questions that are asked are, was there this type of harm? Was there this type of physical harm, were there marks, was there this ignoring the emotional part of it? Um, and the and the, the terror part of it. And so, um, I, I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about, um, how do we help people to come to terms with the times that they've, they have been part of creating an environment where there wasn't safety, where there was emotional or psychological harm and not realizing it. How how do you walk people through that?

Dr. Vicki: Sure.

Dr. Vicki: I'm a big believer that I cannot do anything to change what I have done in the past, except that I can change what I'm doing moving forward. So first for me is I am about acknowledging we have to acknowledge what happened. Now, depending on the circumstance or situation, we may not break down every single thing that happened because we simply can't remember all of them. Um, some people need that. Some people need to write out the list of every single thing that they did or that happened to them in order to address it. For me, I'm big on we're going to address that. We're going to acknowledge the emotional response to that. We're going to acknowledge how that impacted us, because our relationships are what builds our sense of self and our sense of the world. And then we're going to say, now, what am I doing moving forward? How can I say that? That's the only way I can repair the rupture is by trying to do things differently in the future. Because no matter how much I shame or blame myself or someone else, that doesn't actually change anything. Um, it doesn't change things that happened in the past. So I am a big believer that we can do what we can spend lots of time shaming ourselves for things that we've done that doesn't actually serve us, nor does it serve the people who we may have harmed, intentionally or unintentionally. The way we provide service is by working on repair, changing things, moving forward. And a big part of it is acknowledging that sometimes, even once, we know all the things, we know all the things we're supposed to do when we fail because we're human, that we come back to center, repair and move forward again, that it has to be a process that we understand.

Renae: When you just said something really interesting. They're coming back to center. And I think that that and that, that, um, tying it in with the self-compassion of before there's a repair process internally that that really does need to to happen. And we grow those muscles before we're able to extend to other people.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And where do you see that people get caught up on that sometimes.

Dr. Vicki: So it's interesting. Um most people and, and I'm trying to think of how to phrase this in a way that's not going to make me kind of sound like a jerk. Uh, we all seem to think that we're the one exception to the rule. So everyone else gets to, you know, be happy and be forgiven because they're human, but not me. And so sometimes I, I ask people, and I usually say, I'm trying not trying to be a jerk here, but are you really that special, that of seven billion people on this planet, that you're the one person that doesn't deserve to be happy, or you're the one person who doesn't deserve X, Y, or Z. And knowing things in our brain and knowing things in our heart and spirit are different. The first step is being able to acknowledge it. Being able to acknowledge like, okay, I am like everyone else. I'm not this lone alien being on this planet. I'm not the only one who doesn't deserve this. However, that alone is not enough, and I think that's where people get really caught up. Because what has to happen is there has to be nervous system regulation. There has to be actual like rewiring of our brain because we know lots of things. Um, I talk a lot about felt safety. You've used felt safety and feeling safe. We would imagine, for example, that children in foster care when they are in foster homes should be safe. That doesn't mean they feel safe. They may be safe, but they don't feel that way because they don't know these people. And so it doesn't matter that they're actually safe. Their bodies are operating as though they're not safe. So as we are trying to work towards self-compassion, self-healing and all of those things. It takes this. I'm actually going to regulate my nervous system. I'm actually going to quiet that fight, flight or freeze response and actually bring my brain back online where I want it to be, so that I'm not only knowing something in my head, but I'm feeling something in my heart and my spirit.

Renae: Yeah. And we and to be very crystal clear on this, it is my firm belief. And I'd love to hear your take on this. None of that happens by ourselves. We cannot actually develop any of those strategies or skills by ourselves. It requires us to be able to experience it in relationship before we can ever internalize it.

Dr. Vicki: Absolutely. And Dr. Karyn Purvis said all the time. You can only heal relational trauma through relationship. I do try to stress to people who maybe are more isolated in their life that the relationships that we have can can be thoughtful relationships. It might be the relationship that they have with a therapist or with a teacher. However, it is relationship because we can only heal that relational trauma through relationship. We can only help ourselves to regulate our nervous system in relationship with other people, because that is when our nervous system became dysregulated, was in relationship with other people. So one hundred percent, I think that it has to happen in relationship. And I think, um, often we downplay the importance of relationship. I made sure my kids had food and water and they went to school, and now they have jobs, and that's great. That's lovely. But we're missing a component. You talked about it when we're making these CPS reports. It's very specific, right? It doesn't ask about what the emotional response to that was in fact not to fall down this rabbit hole. But often people are discouraged from reporting emotional abuse because it's a permitted mandate, not a man. Or it's a permitted report, not a mandated report. So you might be in legal trouble if you make that report. It's a mess, right? Because we're pretending as though it's not that big of a deal.

Renae: And the the. The great challenge of that is, um, I remember hearing, um, well, I, you and I have both gone through, um, trust based relational intervention practitioner training. And so we're both practitioners. And I know that within that, that training, um, that the, the there's a figure given, you know, three to ten percent of the general population as disorganized attachment and to, to very simply say, disorganized attachment, meaning I don't have a clear strategy to get my needs met because those strategies and those that trust with the community and with myself, there is no trust. And so I'm just casting about trying to get my needs met because there's nothing I can connect to consistently enough that's going to meet my needs. And, um, I remember hearing not too long ago, um, another neuroscientist talking about that, the in the general population that he believes were about twenty percent of the general population is now disorganized attachment. And I think that what we're what we're talking about with that is it culturally, when we're not highlighting the importance of safe connection and safe relationships and that piece of repair which is part of safety. We're we are going to of course, we're going to trend toward disconnection.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah. So it's interesting because I feel like, um, so often one of the things that I struggle with is, well, I'll be processing through a situation that happened, and we'll talk about the ways in which we can resolve whatever happened. We will talk about teaching kids a different way. We want to try to handle it next time. And the third question is what's the consequence? And I understand, but we are a very consequence driven population and and society and structure right now. And I did jokingly say to a group of um, teachers not too long ago when I was speaking about the, uh, success of our prison system, which is about punishment. Um, the problem is we look through things, we look through lenses of if my children are behaving in a certain way, that is a reflection of me, who I am, whether I'm a good parent or whether I'm not a good parent. The problem with that, then, is when we feel discomfort we need we feel the need to cause discomfort to our child, so they stop doing that rather than focusing on. We had this big problem, and I came out of this problem with my child, like more closely connected with my child than I was before. My child can now share with me how they want to handle things differently next time. And maybe if I was more concerned about ensuring my connection with my child, I wouldn't be quite so concerned about them receiving some kind of pain or discomfort. But even in most of our schools, when we talk about wanting to work towards more resolution and repair oriented strategies rather than punishment oriented strategies, um, I get a lot of you're a hippie kind of looks. Um, and so I under I understand that's not how we roll here. Because what is success? And we all want to say that success is whatever we make it. Um, but the truth is, we have very clear markers of success. What's your education level? How much money do you make? Where do you live? All of these sorts of things. And that's the measure of success. Well, in those we don't really actually ask about, like, how do you feel? How are your relationships?

Dr. Vicki: Right.

Dr. Vicki: Um, so there's just this huge focus on these very specific outcomes. And then we're driven away from relationship and into these outcomes. And for me, you know, yes, it's about, you know, depending on where you're looking, you know, let's say twenty percent of the general population, more than eighty percent of children in foster care, um, have this disorganized attachment style, which then tends to lend itself really well to getting kicked out of one foster home or another, because parents don't know what to do. And what they want is compliance and obedience and for themselves to not feel uncomfortable. And this is no shame on foster parents. That is. On a really quick side note, if people think that foster parents get in it for the money, trust me, they do not make enough money. They do not get paid enough to deal with all of that. So there's no shame or blame here. Disorganized attachment is so difficult because I do not know what to expect. Not scary.

Renae: It. Yeah, it it's scary. And we you're you're right. We because we're such a production industrial complex oriented culture. It um it is I'm going to say the phrase beaten out of us to have those types of, um, public displays of humanity because it doesn't serve the factory, it doesn't serve the machine. It disrupts people who who are like, I can focus on what's in front of me, but if anything distracts me, I'm off track. And so we're going to do away with distractions, which includes other people's humanity, so we don't leave a place for it. And I think that that coming back to that, um, that idea of safe to even belong. And I'm when we're talking about the safety of the foster child, we're talking about the safety of a person who looks differently than everyone else, who has a different sensory experience of the world, who has a different education level, who is different that the the the amount of stressors on that system as they're scanning for safety, because we need that relational piece for that first level of regulation. And if I can't find someone who makes eye contact with me, who like, like a caregiver says what? Their eyes. I got you. I see you. Yeah. You're right. That shouldn't have happened. Or. Yeah, that was weird. Or you're okay. And we do that without even words. But if we can't find that we don't have safety and we can't manufacture it.

Dr. Vicki: No. And that's that home base. And this is where when these early childhood experiences don't happen, if people are familiar with the circle of security, we say it's from a toddler. A toddler steps, you know, ten feet away from their primary caregiver and looks back and go, okay, you're still here and you're looking at me and you're not freaked out. Okay, I'm going to go a little farther. Okay. Now you're starting to look freaked out a little bit because I'm really far away, so I'm going to come back. And that that is exactly how we learn about our circle of security. What's interesting is we pretend that that circle of security goes away. Except when I'm in a very crowded place, I need to see my husband. If I can see his face and his eyeballs. I'm okay. If I can't see his face, I'm like, where'd he go? And now I'm not comfortable. And so when we really think about the importance of that relationship. I think what happens is we we begin to lose sight of that importance.

Dr. Vicki: Right.

Renae: And then.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah, we begin to lose sight of the importance of the relationship. We begin to focus on what tasks are important. I mentioned, like, I'm surprised you don't get fired more, uh, by clients because parents will tell me things and I'll ask them like, well, is someone going to die if your fifth grader doesn't do their math homework today? And I usually get like, oh, no. Like, okay, well then why did this turn into a knock down, drag out, hole punching, throwing things over a math assignment. Um, rather than going, um, we seem pretty dysregulated today. We need to do something to reconnect. Or we we seem like we're not as connected as we want to be. But again, I feel like we pretend like once we're, like, past three to five. Like, you should be good on your own. Regulate on your own. Go do your own thing. I don't. You're on your own now. That's hard enough for people like me who had that really early good stuff where I could turn around anytime and see my mom, you know, or where I could turn around and be connected with my dad. That's hard for me. And I got that when I was young. And we imagine all these, these babies and these people who didn't get that when they were young. And but yet we go, but you, we get it. But you still need to do all the things.

Renae: Right. And, and I think there's a piece of this where you and I've had some conversations before about this gets really Tricky in treatment because, um, billing codes and treatment plans and, uh, the way paperwork is filed for treatment in order for a payer to pay really focuses on this individual has a problem. They have a disorder, they have a dysfunction. We need to fix that.

Dr. Vicki: Yep.

Renae: Versus what we're talking about here is a systems issue, whether it's a system of a family or a school or a church or whatever the thing happens to be, there's a system where this, this piece of the system does not have what it needs in order to belong and participate. So how you talked me through a little bit about how you've experienced that and what's kind of resonating for you in there?

Dr. Vicki: Sure.

Dr. Vicki: You know, this is one thing that's hard for me because I have people in my life who refuse to work with insurance companies and payers because they don't want to do that. And I think that's great, except that if anyone has tried to pay for therapy services, it's really expensive. So we're cutting out a whole population of people. And for the most part, interestingly, we're yes, we're absolutely cutting out those people who we would identify as living in poverty who maybe have Medi-Cal or Medicare. We're also cutting out people who have private insurance, just can't afford to fork out one hundred and fifty dollars once a week, because in order for something to be paid in insurance, you have to have a diagnosis. You have to have one person who you say is the problem. Here's what their problem is. And depending on how long treatment goes for, you might have to justify to the insurance company why you're still providing treatment for this specific diagnosis. I've had insurance companies come back and say, well, you treated this person for twelve months for that diagnosis. That should be enough. That's great. That it should be. It's not because what we're doing is we're diagnosing based on very specific behavioral categories. We're not actually diagnosing based on the underlying problem other than in neurodivergent diagnoses. Now there's some very specific somebody's going to come up and say, well, I know this exception. And that's fine. Yes, there's exceptions to every rule, including that one. Right. But when we're talking about o.d.d. And when we're talking about major depression and generalized anxiety and PTSD and Cptsd, they're a collection of behaviors. So number one, we might disagree. Professionals disagree. But the problem is then we run around and we talk about evidence based practices. And we go, oh, this is an evidence based practice. Except it's an evidence based practice for a specific disorder and diagnosis. So for me, I have very real conversations. I have um, associates who work for me. I also have licensed staff who work for me. And I have very real conversations with my associates that there is value in diagnosis because it can give us a direction. But a diagnosis should not be it. Once I have this diagnosis, that's it. A treatment plan is a living, breathing document that needs to change and shift. And we need to look at, for me, no matter what the diagnosis is, what's the underlying problem and how are we actually going to address that. And so I think, you know. Bessel van der Kolk has talked about it in his book. That was you know, his original book came out in two thousand and eight, and we're still pretending as though there's not enough evidence that relational trauma should be included in the DSM. Um, even though everybody knows it is, and quite frankly, most therapeutic schools are teaching about it now. We just have to teach about it differently because we can't acknowledge it, because it's not in this, you know, the diagnostic manual that's supposed to count everything. For me, it's about really breaking it down. What is happening in this system and what does that system need? Because every system is a little different. Um, I use this example a lot. I came from a very, um, relatively affluent family and grew up in the church and all those kinds of things. And I remember I worked with kids who were on probation, and I went into a home, and I heard a kid yelling the f word at his mom, and I was like, you can't do that. That's not okay. And she was like, the mom was like, why? He's mad. It's fine. I was like, oh, values, there we go. Um, and what I figured out was they are a high energy. They were a very high energy family, and that wasn't a problem for them. They had other issues. So we sit down and we say as a group like, what is happening? Now when I do have a system where someone comes in and one child or it's usually the child is the problem, I usually have to do a little more pulling because it's never one child. Like, we gotta talk the whole system here. But I think for me, what's the most important is saying, like what is happening in the system that is not working for you. And that seems to be the most effective way for us to really break down. Okay. Where did that come from? How can we support you through that? How can we work through that? And what you need might be different than what someone else needs. What works in one family might not work in another family. Um, and then the final thing that's interesting, I think, for people is also understanding that our role as therapists is, is really supposed to be broader. Um, people tend to have a very focused view. I can't I can't talk to someone about their employment problems or their housing problems or their food problems. Goodness gracious, if someone doesn't have any food, they do not care about how they feel right now because they're hungry. So part of our job is to really break down. Like this isn't just about what's happening in your communication, although that's important. So what's happening in your system? Is everybody safe? Like physically safe. Does everybody have food? Does everybody have clothes? And if you don't, where do we find those connections. And I think that's the second component of how we're successful is really saying like, okay, maybe what you're missing is community. Maybe what you're missing is food. But we got to figure out what it is.

Dr. Vicki: Right?

Renae: Well, and so interestingly, like you, you named and I agree with you a list of these are things that if we don't have these, we don't feel safe.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And we connection to others trusting that we can have that connection and then trust in that, having that connection to ourselves. Um when we don't have a lot of these basic things that provide safety, but those needs are not met. We do we have to disconnect to from ourselves and from others to survive.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: Um, because there's a, there's a such a dissonance between what people say and do that it makes us feel crazy. Um, if they're like, we love you. And yet too bad that you don't have these things. Um, it so so it was that is that's happening.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: Um, thinking about that list of things that we need to feel safe. That's the same list of things that a, a a parent who is not emotionally or psychologically available, a caregiver might say is, well, I, I provide all these things. Isn't that my job? Your job as a caregiver is not just to provide safety.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm. Mhm. Yeah.

Renae: Like you're, you are you are mentoring a brain and body to be able to connect with other brains and bodies in the future. And I think that the, the, this is where the definition of success falls short. If a because of all the time parents will say, well, I want my child to be a productive member of society.

Dr. Vicki: Yes.

Renae: Okay. So that in and of itself, what does that mean.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm. Mhm.

Renae: Right. And that answer is going to be different. And often if a if a child or a family member is communicating their feelings their thoughts, they're, they're, they're making their voice heard in the family unit. And it's in a way that the caregiver doesn't understand or that's not how they express themselves. They're going to have a fear response because they don't know what to do with that.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And so it comes back to at the end of the day the the the in charge adult um finding that reconciliation with themselves.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm. Mhm.

Renae: Right. That repair work that the the meeting those those needs internally it's it's really required. That's not in a like we don't write that in a. Well we, we can this is why I'm not a therapist. I don't I'm like I can do all kinds of things. Um but the but that's not typically part of the plan is, you know what the adult really needs some reparenting in these areas, or there there's some unresolved stuff that's going on that's keeping them from being able to collect evidence that things are going to be okay and that it's translating right to that kid.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah.

Dr. Vicki: So I'll be honest, one of the reasons that I work for myself, I own my own business, is because I do things a very specific way. I do not see children under the age of ten years old alone. I need one or both parents involved in treatment all the time, and ten is sort of even a little bit. I mean, I prefer to do family therapy all the time because we have this system happening, right? And so then I can pull in. Now, I can't force anyone, right. But I will tell parents, I think that this would be valuable for you. Or here's the research that shows that parents and therapy helps kids behaviors more than kids in therapy, which is actually a true thing. Um, you know, I do want to make one thing clear real quick, and that is that poverty alone does not mean that your child is not going to feel well loved. I work with so many kids who are adopted, who felt loved by their biological parents, and unfortunately, because of different factors, they could not remain there. They go to a home where they have food, water, shelter, and they do have people who love them, but they don't. The parents who love them don't understand that they loved their first family too. And the question is like, well, they should be so much happier here. They have so much more stuff and all those things. So it goes both ways.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah.

Dr. Vicki: Stuff alone is not going to help a child. Not having stuff is going to make life harder. But if the if I don't have stuff but I have a loving parent, that does make my outcome so much better. But I think what happens is parents forget that, like, their kid's not like a Lego set. They're not broken. They don't need to come to my office to get fixed. What needs to happen is we need to shift the perspective. And so I think for most people, you're right, especially depending on the systems that we're in. And if you are, if you have Medi-Cal, for the most part, for example, the state of California, you're going to go to a program that has a plan. And this is what we do, and this is who we see versus someone like myself that says, okay, I need everybody because we gotta talk and we gotta make a plan. And we're, you know, and that plan has to include a lot of different things. Um, but I think I'm very hopeful that in the next ten to fifteen years, we will finally be able to acknowledge what is true, what we've known all along, which is that when we do remember things from before, we have our normal verbal memories. Our body remembers things. Our relationships are as important as anything else. I cannot be a truly good, productive member of society if I can't be in relationship with other people.

Dr. Vicki: Right, right, right. Yeah.

Renae: And we and we actually see that play out on the public viewing stage when we have very smart people who are very talented, who who can think of amazing things, who do a lot of harm.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm. Mhm. Right.

Renae: Because they're missing that humanity component of it.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And um that is, is I have trained parents over the years and I bring out the four hallmarks of secure attachment. And I say these are this is the like, if your kid can get through school and knows these things right here, if they can draw on that, they will be fine because they can. They can find solutions for all the other stuff if they have these four things. And so let's not let's not create create conditions where people can't succeed. And and frankly, we'll be happier too. We'll be we'll be much happier. I, I think so. Um, what would you say to if someone's listening to this and they're recognizing that maybe the way that they have been approaching, maybe the treatment for their child or for their family or they're curious, let's just we'll start with the example of a caregiver that's that is like, I actually am curious why I do the things that I do, but I don't know that I have money for therapy or I don't know what to do. What are some things that you would recommend to them? And understanding, of course, that that, uh, you have not signed any paperwork with Doctor Vicky. This is for educational purposes and not treatment purposes.

Dr. Vicki: Absolutely not. Treatment purposes. Here's the thing. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes I talk about offering unique suggestions, but the unique suggestions that I'm offering are actually the things that we've been saying all along. But they take time to work. So I'm actually a big believer in journaling. I've created a little bit of a worksheet that people can fill out after a conflict in a an interaction, and it asks very basic questions. What happened? What was I happy about in that interaction? What was I unhappy about? What did I want to happen? What came out of it? Because when we have to sit down and think about it and reflect, then we can often pick things up. At the very least, we can go, oh, that was when I lost my cool was when x, y, or z happened. And so for some parents, it's going to be their kid yelling the f word at them. And for other people it's not going to be that. So I think the first thing, if they're like, well, I'm not in a space where I can afford therapy, or maybe that's just not something that really they feel comfortable with. And that's okay. We're strangers. We get that doing some personal reflection when something happens. We want to do that reflection after we're calm, though, because it's really hard for us. The second piece is, I do think that connecting with other people in community is really important, and there's lots of opportunity to do that, whether it's online, um, on social media, in a church, in a community center, but being able to process through number one and having somebody else say, yeah, man, that is really hard, I think is a good first start, uh, or a good first step, because once they say that now, I feel validated. I know, okay, I'm not a crazy person, but now I can talk about what I want to do differently. So I think for me those are the two things like I'm going to talk with someone else, but also I'm going to sit and reflect back on like, okay, what happened? What was I happy about? What was I not happy about? Big question I sometimes ask is. How do you think you would have felt when you were that person's age? Or how do you think you would feel, um, if your spouse said that to you? Usually I get the oh, I don't like that. Um, if we wouldn't say it to an adult, we need to ask ourselves why we're saying it to a kid, or if we set it to an adult and it created a lot of conflict, we have to ask ourselves, what if the roles were reversed? So for me, that that process of like processing, journaling, thinking, reregulating our own nervous system and saying what I want to do differently next time, to be honest with you, that's that's the process right there for most, resolving most of these ruptures and making different choices. That's the process.

Renae: And you spoke before about the the whole person approach to. And I think that that so I'm hearing the and I one hundred percent agree with you about the narrative. I think that I um. Say to people often, if not, if someone is showing you behaviors, they can't use their words and they're showing you behaviors, they're asking you for a different ending to a story that is playing in their head.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: And so you, you do have an opportunity to provide a different ending because this is what's happened before. And their brain and body is like I swear that that is not how things are supposed to go. I'm supposed to be cared for. I'm supposed to be seen, heard and valued. Right. And so that narrative piece is, is often where we can say to ourselves, that shouldn't have happened and and start that grief and loss cycle of saying, wow, I, I need to be, you know, like it's okay for me to be mad about this. It. when, when when my kids would say that. Well, I, I, I use all the words too. But, um, but when my kids would use them and people would say, oh my gosh. I'm like, listen, they got a lot to lament about that. Those words are lament words where they're saying there's an injustice. And when I use it, I'm saying there's an injustice and I'm not okay with it. Um, and so the, the using the, the words to express that. And there's the physical component of it too.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: Right. So when we're talking about that, that, that before we can write anything down.

Dr. Vicki: Mhm.

Renae: What are some things that you might suggest. Um that, that help our nervous systems to calm a little bit so that, that we can enter into that narrative.

Dr. Vicki: Sure.

Dr. Vicki: I want to throw out there too. I had a kid tell me, uh, one time I said, listen, you can be mad, but you can tell your parents you're mad or whatever. And he said, what I feel is so far beyond mad. And I said, okay, right. So that's the other piece of like, my kids are talking about an injustice. Well, we are so afraid of the physical. What's interesting is we tend to be really afraid of other people's physical responses, but we don't notice our own. So I'm a big believer that when there has been a conflict, when there has been any kind of a rupture food, water, breathing and rest, we need to sit. We need to breathe. We need to eat something. We need to drink water. Um, because our body is processing things faster, our body thinks we're in physical danger. I might have to flee and run away for my life. So I'm a big believer in time. We're afraid of taking time because we hear things like, you have to respond immediately if your child is three and they hit their sibling. Yes. You need to respond immediately. We use soft hands. If your child is fifteen, it is okay to say, we're not going to talk about this right now. We're going to eat and we're going to have some water, and we're going to watch a funny show, and we'll talk about this in an hour or two hours or tomorrow. Your child remembers. It's okay. Um, so I think that piece of like, I do not have to fix this right now because I can't fix it right now. I need time, I need space, I need water, I need healthy foods. And and I'm big on food because our gut is so closely aligned with our brain. Um, we have the gut brain axis, right? Everything starts in our gut and moves through the rest of our body. So we need to put healthy things into it. But for me, it's we have to. It all starts with noticing the number of people who I say, where do you feel that in your body. And, you know, usually it's feeling where do you feel anger in your body? And they're like my head. I'm like, like your face gets hot. Oh, no. In my brain I'm like, yeah, that's not where I'm feeling lives. I gotta know. I personally, if I get dysregulated, I need a lot of water. I don't know why that is. For me, a snack is good. I don't need a lot of food. Other people need more food. They need like a meal. So it's about noticing. But almost everybody needs those four things breathing, food, water and rest. Rest time.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah.

Renae: And I in the one that we can, if we can't get to food, we can't get to water, um, and we can't get to rest. We can get to breath.

Dr. Vicki: Always.

Renae: Always with breath. And that that there's, um, despite the tidbit of our, our sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, if we're doing a rhythmic breathing that is deep and and controlled, it doesn't have to be like super deep. But there's a depth to it and it has a pattern as we inhale, we're that's the activation of the sympathetic nervous system. And as we exhale it's the parasympathetic. And so we're giving ourselves a cycle of meeting our need and distress just by breathing over and over and over again. And that's why breath is so dang important.

Dr. Vicki: Yep.

Dr. Vicki: Yep. I think it's what we need to understand is that our our brain works in relationship. Like our knowledge works in relationship with the rest of our body. So I jokingly say, if you breathe in and out through your nose for about ten minutes, your brain suddenly goes, oh my gosh, we must be okay. Because, you know, when we're running away from our life, we're breathing in and out through our mouth so we can get more oxygen in. So I'm a big believer in like we when we have this knowledge and our frontal lobes are active enough for us to go, okay, wait. I know that if I can breathe in and out rhythmically, calmly, slowly, then it'll slow down. Everything slows down and. And my parasympathetic nervous system is activated. Um, if we breathe in to the count of, say, four, but we breathe out to the count of six. Right now I'm. I'm rewiring things. I'm telling my body like, hey, everything's cool. Nobody's everything's fine. I'm not. I'm not in danger. And we always have access to breath and we always have time for breathing, uh, because we're not asking for a whole lot. I mentioned ten minutes. People like I do not have ten minutes. Well, you kind of do, because you're not. If you don't breathe, you're going to die. So you are breathing at all, at all times. But the truth is, is that if we did it for one minute, three times a day, and and I, I get it. I'm busy. Everybody has one minute, three times a day to say. I'm just going to sit and breathe while you're going to the bathroom.

Dr. Vicki: Like, I was literally.

Renae: Thinking that I was like, you know what? While you're going to the bathroom, it's a great time. It is a wonderful time. And you'd be going more than three times. People drink more water.

Dr. Vicki: But it's some of that, though is great. I talked to about marking with activities. So if you're doing that breathing multiple times throughout the day just because your system will already be well regulated. But if so, you connect it with something every time you go to the bathroom, every time you wash your hands, every time you, uh, eat food. If you do that, you'll be well regulated. But also when you do it, when you're dysregulated, it works much faster.

Dr. Vicki: Yeah, there's.

Dr. Vicki: A reason we practice.

Renae: Absolutely. Well, I really appreciate you giving the the head knowledge and also the physical knowledge, the reminders of that. We are multifaceted people and we need a many faceted approach because we're such wonderfully complex people and creatures. And, um, and I think you give a lot of, um, of hope for people to, to remember that you will have lots of opportunities to repair, um, and that starting to repair with yourself is a wonderful place to to start at the very beginning. Um, so, uh, well, thank you so much for your time and your your knowledge and participation in the community. Um, we love to to learn from you. Thanks so much.

Dr. Vicki: Thank you so much, I appreciate you.