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.

Why can you feel lonely and then want everyone to leave you alone, or set a boundary and immediately want to take it back? Today, I explore why conflicting parts and contradictory responses can feel especially intense after complex trauma, drawing from parts work, attachment research, fear learning, and Somatic Experiencing.

You’ll hear why missing someone doesn’t mean the relationship was safe, why guilt doesn’t prove a boundary was wrong, and how the body can move toward something while also putting on the brakes. The goal isn’t to decide which response is the “real you,” but to understand what each one expects, protects, or needs.

The question to take with you: how much might be right for me right now?

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.

How do you grieve a childhood you never had? If you grew up with childhood emotional neglect, you may have heard that grief is part of complex trauma recovery and still have no idea what you're supposed to be grieving, or what that grief is supposed to feel like.

This episode is built around a listener's question. She grew up without much affection, remembers wanting it, and came to believe that needing it meant she wasn't growing up properly. Decades later, she's wondering whether she has anything to grieve, and whether feeling sad about it is selfish.

We talk through how the grief of emotional neglect works when nothing specific "happened," why you often only recognize the loss through contrast, and why receiving care now can sometimes make you feel worse before it feels better.

In this episode:

• Why the grief of childhood emotional neglect is hard to locate, and how a point of comparison can suddenly make it visible
• What you're actually grieving when you never had the thing
• Why grief can feel like self-pity, and what "my childhood was good overall" might be protecting you from
• What this grief can look like, including anger, envy, numbness, disbelief, and trying harder with the parent you still have
• Why a partner's hug or a therapist's kindness can make your body brace, and how to read that response
• Memory reconsolidation, and how receiving care now may update old emotional learning
• Why you don't have to go looking for grief or perform it correctly
• What grieving can look like in actual life, without turning it into a checklist
• Whether accepting a parent's limitations means giving up on the relationship
• When grief gets too big, and what to bring to your therapist

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth! I’m so excited to have them supporting The Complex Trauma Podcast. Head to Cozy Earth and use code RECLAIM for 20% off your order.

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.

What happens when you grow up learning that someone else’s needs, emotions, or version of reality matter more than your own?

In this episode, I’m joined by Amy Marlow-MaCoy, MEd, LPC, to talk about narcissistic abuse and its relationship to complex trauma. We unpack narcissistic family systems, gaslighting and DARVO, the roles children can take on in these families, and why survivors may struggle with self-trust, perfectionism, overfunctioning, guilt, and boundaries long after childhood.

We also talk about what happens when you begin changing these patterns, the complexity of low and no contact, and what it can look like to rebuild a relationship with yourself after years of learning to question your own experience.

About Amy

Amy Marlow-MaCoy, MEd, LPC, is an internationally known clinician and trainer specializing in gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, and complex developmental and relational trauma. She is the author of The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook and co-author of The Clinician’s Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists. Amy is also the founder of The Courageous Heart Institute, a learning community for clinicians specializing in treating survivors of narcissistic abuse.

Amy has advanced training in Internal Family Systems (IFS), EMDR, Brainspotting, and other trauma treatment approaches, and provides therapy, consultation, supervision, and continuing education for clinicians working with narcissistic abuse and complex relational trauma.

Follow Amy on Instagram and Facebook!

Check out her website here

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.

You’re functioning. You may even be the person everyone relies on. But inside, you feel stuck, distant, or like you aren’t fully there for your own life.

In this episode, I'm answering a listener’s question: Is functional freeze actually real, or is it something the internet picked up and oversimplified?

We explore what trauma clinicians mean by functional freeze, why it isn’t a formal diagnosis, and how mixed patterns of activation and shutdown can make you look capable while everything inside feels stalled. I also explain why functional freeze and dissociation aren’t interchangeable and why difficulty getting started can have many possible contributors, including complex trauma, chronic stress, depression, ADHD, exhaustion, and executive-function challenges.

You’ll also learn:

• Why you may mobilize instantly during a crisis but struggle to begin a simple task
• How childhood emotional neglect and complex trauma can give you more practice responding to others than initiating from within yourself
• Why urgency, pressure, and responsibility may organize you more easily than desire
• Why stopping doesn’t always make rest feel restorative
• How small choices, movement, pleasure, and everyday acts of agency can help build greater nervous-system flexibility

Functional freeze can be useful language for a real experience. But it was never meant to become the whole explanation for you.

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth! I’m so excited to have them supporting The Complex Trauma Podcast. Head to Cozy Earth and use code RECLAIM for 20% off your order.

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.

You finally understand something about yourself. Something that took months of therapy to even name. And now you need someone else to get it too.

This week we're talking about that longing, where it comes from, why it can feel so urgent with certain people, and what happens in your body when the conversation doesn't go the way you hoped. We'll cover emotional flashbacks, the fight flight freeze fawn response, and the difference between being understood and being agreed with. Plus, what's actually yours to hold onto when someone doesn't meet you where you're at.

This episode is for anyone who has ever tried to explain their trauma response to a friend, a partner, or a family member and walked away feeling more alone instead of less.

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.