“I had food.” “My parents loved me.” “I know they did the best they could.” And yet, underneath those statements, I often hear another story. The story of children who learned to become what other people needed. The story of giftedness mixed with loneliness. The...
Last week, I was in a room full of trauma therapists for a training I was giving. We were talking about something that doesn’t always get named clearly, but everyone in the room could feel it. The depth of relationship required for real healing. Not...
By Amy Wagner, LMHC, LMFT Founder & CEO, Growing Branches Counseling There is a moment I have witnessed many times in therapy. A person has spent months, sometimes years, understanding their story. They can tell me what happened. They can recognize the patterns. They understand...
There is a common misconception that trauma belongs to the past. Many people believe that if something painful happened decades ago, it should have faded by now. They tell themselves, "I've lived with it this long," or "I survived it, so it shouldn't affect me...