Ever leave a therapy session looking totally fine, then spend the next three days clenching your jaw, snapping at everyone, and wondering if you’re just bad at therapy? Or find yourself completely checked out mid-session with no idea how long you’ve been gone?

In this episode, I answer two listener questions about feeling worse after EMDR and dissociating in therapy sessions. We talk about why therapy can stir so much up when you have complex trauma (CPTSD), the difference between being stirred up and being flooded, and what an EMDR session for complex trauma looks like in my office. That includes pacing, preparation, working with parts, and closing a session so you can actually leave inside your window of tolerance.

We also cover:

• Why “looking fine” in therapy is a survival strategy
• Why self-blame was protective when you were a kid
• The different kinds of dissociation and what each one needs
• What to do between sessions when you’re flooded
• Signs therapy is working, even when it’s hard
• Exactly what to say to your therapist when you need something different

Many of the metaphors in this episode, including the boat and the whale, the barn door, and brakes on a car, come from Thomas Zimmerman’s book EMDR With Complex Trauma, which I highly recommend: EMDRwithComplexTrauma.com

Mentioned in this episode

• The Dissociative Spectrum episode
• The Beauty and the Work of Complex Trauma Recovery with Thomas Zimmerman
• My functional freeze episode

Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!

Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw

Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw

Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.

The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.

Why do we keep reliving the same painful patterns, even when we can see them coming? In this episode, psychotherapist and complex trauma expert Dr. Gillian O’Shea Brown joins me to explore how Greek myths can help us make sense of complex trauma, CPTSD, and the relational wounds we carry from childhood.

Gillian is SUCH a good storyteller, and she walks us through four myths that might feel a little too familiar.

In this episode, we talk about

• Why stories can reach us in ways facts and diagnoses sometimes can’t
• Sisyphus and “the bite that fits the wound,” or why we keep reenacting old pain in our relationships
• The erotic emotional map, a tool for spotting the patterns in who you’re drawn to
• Medea and the parent wound, and what happens when the person you need for safety is also the person who scares you
• How defense mechanisms that helped you survive childhood can work against you as an adult
• Medusa’s story retold as a story of survival, and why survivors who speak up so often get cast as the problem
• Chiron, the wounded healer, and how people make meaning out of pain

Content note: Around the 16 minute mark, Gillian tells Medusa’s story, which includes sexual assault. Please take care of yourself while you listen.

About Dr. Gillian O’Shea Brown
Dr. Gillian O’Shea Brown is an Irish-born, New York based psychotherapist, adjunct professor at NYU, and EMDRIA approved consultant passionate about whole living for all people. Her work on the treatment and healing of complex trauma has been featured in Vogue, Forbes, Marie Claire, HuffPost, and more. Her new book is Psyche’s Awakening: A Guide to Emotional and Somatic Healing Through the Wisdom of Greek Myth (HarperOne).

Connect with Gillian

• Free Sisyphus chapter and erotic emotional map mini course
• Website
• Instagram
• Substack
• Order Psyche’s Awakening Today!

Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!

Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw

Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw

Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.

The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.

Everyone has parts. So how do you know when a part is just a part of you, and when it's crossed into a dissociative disorder like OSDD or DID?

This episode came from a listener healing from CPTSD who just found out she has a dissociative disorder. She asked two questions a lot of trauma survivors are carrying. How common are dissociative disorders in trauma survivors? And with parts work like IFS so popular right now, where's the line between ordinary parts and dissociation?

So we're walking the whole dissociative spectrum, from the drive home you don't remember to PTSD, complex PTSD, OSDD, and DID. We'll talk about what clinicians who specialize in dissociation might actually pay attention to, why "not me" matters so much, and why not losing time doesn't rule anything out.

In this episode:

• Why "dissociation" means two different things, even to professionals
• Structural dissociation, explained in plain language
• How common dissociative disorders really are, and why they're so often missed
• Six things that help separate everyday parts from dissociative parts
• "Am I making this up?" and other fears that come up
• Why a diagnosis is a map, not an identity
• What healing can look like, including goals your system gets a say in

This episode is for education, not diagnosis. If something here feels familiar, bring it to a therapist trained in trauma and dissociation.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Coping With Trauma-Related Dissociation by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, and Onno van der Hart
• My conversation with Dr. Janina Fisher on dissociative parts
• My dissociation Q and A episode
• Last week's episode, "Why Do I Want Two Opposite Things at the Same Time?"

This episode's sponsor: Cozy Earth. Get 30% off home and sleepwear at cozyearth.com with code RECLAIM, through Sunday, October 11.

Thanks for listening to The Complex Trauma Podcast!

Be sure to follow, share and give us a review on your favorite podcast platform.

Follow on Instagram: @sarahherstichlcsw

Follow on TikTok: @sarahherstichlcsw

Learn more about EMDR & trauma therapy in Pennsylvania with Reclaim Therapy

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or nutritional advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Remember, I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist. Nothing in this podcast is meant to replace actual therapy or treatment. If you're in crisis or things feel really unsafe right now, please reach out to someone. You can call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, text them, or head to your nearest ER.

The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not represent the opinions of any organizations or institutions. Reliance on any information provided by this podcast is solely at your own risk.