God Attachment Healing
Hi everyone! Welcome to the God Attachment Healing Podcast. I'm your host, Sam Landa. This podcast is dedicated to Christians who want to understand why they relate to God in the way they do. I explore how our early childhood relationship with our parents--specifically with how they met or did not meet our needs--influences how we relate to ourselves, the church, and to God. Because much of the pains and struggles of life are intertwined in these three areas, I discuss with my guests how we can find healing from the pain, confusion, doubt, and anger experienced in these relationships. If you're interested in learning more about your attachment style and how to heal from the pain you’ve experienced in the relationships mentioned above, then this podcast is for you. Welcome to the show! I'm happy you're here!
God Attachment Healing
"Big T" Trauma vs "Little t" Trauma: How Trauma Shapes Belief And Recovery w/ Maggie McCane
Send Me Questions on Attachment
What if your brain isn’t broken—it’s just stuck? We sit down with trauma therapist Maggie McCane, LCSW, to unravel how big T and little t trauma shape your body, beliefs, relationships, and even how you see God. From the first moment a young brain misreads a storm as “I don’t matter” to decades of confirmation bias and physical symptoms, we trace how pain embeds in the nervous system and what it takes to move it into the past.
Maggie explains why she left agency work to create a flexible practice that prioritizes extended EMDR intensives and individualized care. We dig into how EMDR “unsticks” memories, what resourcing looks like before deep work, and why motivation can’t outrun a dysregulated body. You’ll hear practical ways to notice early signs—sleep, gut issues, irritability, hypervigilance—and translate them into action steps that restore balance. Instead of silencing the body, we treat its signals as vital data.
Faith takes center stage without clichés. We talk Christian integration done well, the damage of spiritual platitudes, and how attachment to God often mirrors early caregiver attachment. Using correspondence and compensation theories, we map how negative God images form and how consistent, timely, and effective experiences in community and prayer can heal them. We keep it grounded: what healing actually looks like day to day, how to evaluate therapist fit, and why trust is the number one predictor of change.
If you’ve ever wondered why you feel triggered by everything, why “just think positive” falls flat, or where God was in your hardest moments, this conversation offers clarity and tools. Listen, share with someone who needs it, and if it landed, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what belief you’re ready to rewrite.
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God Attachment Healing
MY HOPE FOR YOU
I hope these episodes bring you closer to Christ and encourage you in your walk with Him. Meditating on Scripture, Being committed to prayer, and Seeking Christian community are all essential to helping us learn more of who He is and who He made us to be.
ABOUT ME 👇
I have been a Christ-follower for the last 20+ years of my life, and have seen the Lord's grace, strength, and faithfulness through it all. He led me to pursue a degree in higher education and has given me a gift for the field of counseling.
Alright everyone, welcome back to the God Attachment Healing Podcast. I am very excited today as we're talking about one of my uh favorite topics because I work with a lot of students who um have experienced trauma. Um it's one of the areas that I was mostly interested in when I started attachment uh theory. And today I also have another trauma expert and who that works with a lot of clients with trauma. This is Maggie McCain. Maggie, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much for having me, Sam. I'm so happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01:I'm excited. I'm excited. It's not it's not often that I get to have a conversation with other trauma experts to discuss our topic for today, which is trauma, faith, and healing or recovery. And um yeah, so basically that or typically the way that I like to kind of start off our conversation is really just kind of giving you the floor to introduce yourself, a little bit about your background, um, the work that you do. I know you're out in, is it Arizona?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Tucson, Arizona.
SPEAKER_01:Tucson, Arizona. So you have some do some work there. But yeah, just uh introduce yourself to the audience and then we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_02:Great. Sounds really good. So yeah, my name's Maggie McCain. I'm a licensed clinical social worker, which just means that I'm independently licensed to practice therapeutic care. So there's lots of routes that you can go to become a psychotherapist. And I just took the route of social work. Um, I just wanted the flexibility to be able to work in, you know, hospital settings or private practice or behavioral health, and you can do that with social work. So I that appealed to me. Um, and so I've been in behavioral health agencies throughout my entire career. And, you know, I can definitely get down into the nitty-gritty of the populations I served. Um, I think one of my passions and where I started in therapy work was actually um providing therapeutic services. We had a contract with the court. So it was juveniles who had committed sexual crimes and were now needing therapy as part of their rehabilitation. And my heart really went out to that population because, as you can imagine, most people didn't want to work with that population. But when you really got these youth, right, they're minors in front of you, they just created, they just had committed a really horrible mistake and not to alleviate them of their responsibility of the act, because of course they they made a horrible choice, but they just really felt like these things had either been done to them or had been modeled to them, or they had just been truly like confused with boundaries. And I think that really sprouted a huge love of serving those that, you know, just came from traumatic backgrounds, right? Like this idea that hurt people typically, not always, of course, but go on to hurt people and heal people go on to heal people. And so that's I again, like these youth in front of me who had committed these horrible crimes, once they knew better, they were very committed to doing better, right? Like they were like, now that I know what consent really means or what boundaries really are, I have no intention of ever breaking that again. Um, so yeah, that's kind of where my career started. I went lots of different directions after that. But after being in behavioral health for many years, I just really saw the restrictions that insurance was putting on patient care. And I just thought we could do it better. So that's why I started my own private practice about a year and a half ago. And um, you know, I understand the restrictions that come with being a private pay clinic. You know, not everyone can pay out of pocket for an expense like this. And again, like very understanding of that. But I really believe that there's better, I don't want maybe I shouldn't say better, maybe I should say um just different type of healing that can come when you don't have an insurance company telling you what you can and can't do and mandating the treatment. Um, but we really have the freedom and flexibility to meet a client exactly where they're at and support them exactly where they are. And something that I'm super excited about, and we can talk more about this later if you'd like. Um, but I've even found the benefit of extending sessions. So, you know, we have the traditional kind of model of 50-minute sessions weekly or bi-weekly. And what we have found is that clients really benefit from getting more an extended period of uninterrupted time. So we can really delve further into trauma and healing work when we can go for four hours, you know. And of course, we take breaks and we get snacks, but we're really able to do some massive healing in an extended period of time. And you can't do that if you're in a behavioral health agency or you're uh contracting with insurance providers. They don't pay for that sort of thing. So, again, just that's one example of the flexibility that we have to really prioritize patient care.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, that's a great point, Maggie. I never thought about that, you know, extending it for um for each session. And again, maybe there's a plan or a type of treatment plan that you have set up where it can be done in that way. Um, but yeah, the flexibility to be able to meet the needs of your clients who have experienced trauma because they have different needs. And as any client, right, they just have different needs. So you're tailing your tailoring your treatment for each of them. But um, and you also do EMDR, correct?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yeah. So uh I got certified in EMDR, so eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing. Everyone always asks me what that means, but it's like it's such a mouthful, we all just say EMDR.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and so and doing the EMDR, um, that's probably what I do the most is EMDR intensive therapy at this point. And so it is that extended sessions of EMDR, we're really going in to rewire those negative cognitions or the traumatic memories and bring them to a place of not feeling stuck anymore, like really living in the present and seeing the truth for what it is and moving forward in their healing. So, yes, we do EMDR. I have a couple therapists on my team. Um, so we also specialize in men's healing, grief work, somatic therapy, older adults, and we try to work a lot with veterans and first responders.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, wow. Yeah. And all of them are, I mean, would have very traumatic type of backgrounds or at least some trauma. I think I was reading a statistic earlier today that something about 70 to 75% of people in the world have experienced some form of traumatic event. And we'll get into that in a little bit. But um before jumping into our topic, the last question I had is is are your services mostly Christian? Is it is it both? How do you operate regarding that? Just for the audience to know.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, you know, personally, I was raised um in a Christian household and have had, you know, a great foundation in my faith. And I think that was another area that always felt really restrictive for me when I was practicing in behavioral health, is they didn't really want us to bring faith into the mix. Um, and of course, like I'm always here to respect a client. Like I have lots of clients that I serve that are not Christian, but a lot of Christians are looking for a Christian therapist, right? They want to know that if they're gonna come and share the deepest hurts and um most vulnerable parts of themselves, they want to be met with someone who shares similar values and beliefs. And so in my private practice, I have advertised myself as a Christian therapist, not a biblical therapist, right? Like we're not going through the Bible necessarily and applying it for their healing, but just I, you know, I'm here to support their values, you know, and I can say things like, well, what would God say up to, you know, what would God say about that? Or um, let's talk about how God created you. You know what I mean? We can just pull in those values very seamlessly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's kind of the Christian integration. And I remember there was a big um uh divide for many years. Actually, one of my favorite authors, his name Dr. Larry Crab, he was one of the first pioneers to try to integrate psych and Christianity, and he was getting hit on both sides. So the psychologists were saying, Why are you bringing spirituality, religion into the field? You know, that doesn't belong here. And Christians were kind of saying, Why are you bringing psychology into the church? So he really kind of fought for that for many years, and I really appreciate about that about him.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's excellent.
SPEAKER_01:So for us to be able to have that opportunity that now there's a lot more research on being able to do Christian integration, so it it's it's a blessing to see more and more therapists and the rising numbers and people actually wanting to connect with that aspect of their lives. So we have a huge opportunity here for meeting the needs of people in a very unique way.
SPEAKER_02:So I totally agree.
SPEAKER_01:That's so awesome. Well, good.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and isn't there research again? We probably might get into this later, but I'm sure you wouldn't might know better than me that there's research that if you're seeing a Christian therapist who is actively praying for their clients, clients get better faster.
SPEAKER_01:I haven't seen that. I know the value alignment between therapist and client is a huge deal and it's a huge predictor of um client success. But I do see um prayer being implemented for um how the um the counselor shows up in session, right? It's just this practice of being able to pray over their clients, it just puts them in a different mentality, especially when you're carrying so much heavy, um, heavy stories from all the various people that you're working with. I mean, the work that we do does take a toll. So, where do we go to kind of fill that back up? You know, we have community, family, church, God's word. So all of these different things that we choose to fill ourselves with because the work that we do is very draining at times. And also a blessing when you see them make make progress, right?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, yeah, yeah. But it it does, it makes a difference with how um, yeah, just like emotionally healthy your therapist is, clients are gonna feel that difference. And so part of our health is our spiritual health. And if uh you know therapist was lacking in that or struggling with that, right? Like that's it's gonna flow, flow out of us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and the client will feel it. So to your point, if the client is wanting to address that and the counselor is not equipped or does not have a a uh belief system of a religious type, um, they're gonna feel that disconnect because that's really what their hearts are yearning for, right? They want connection outside of the other, you know, the biopsychosocial. There is that spiritual component that people are searching for, you know, and a search for wanting um a more rooted faith. So um, yeah, there's a lot of great stuff out there, and I'm really excited and and um happy that they're doing more research in that space.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, me too.
SPEAKER_01:Well, good. Well, Maggie, here's our here's our first question as we start off today, because the big word is trauma, right? We're talking about trauma, faith, recovery. And um, I guess we could define for the audience like what is trauma? Because a lot of people kind of throw that word out there. It's almost losing its actual meaning as we hear it in conversations, uh, and everyday conversations, or even in the media when we hear the word trauma. So, what are we referring to when we're talking about trauma? How would you define it?
SPEAKER_02:Okay, I love this question so much. And I've kind of been on a roll in talking about um this difference between big T and little T trauma. Are you familiar with that terminology?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, great. So, yeah, so just for the audience, then, you know, a big T trauma is what, you know, historically we would think of as trauma, right? Going to war, sexual, physical abuse, a car accident, a plane accident, things like that. Like clearly major disruptive aspects of your life that then do alter our physiology, right? And they do alter the way that our brain functions, our body then functions, and continue to demonstrate um negative symptoms in our life and in our relationship thereafter. A little T trauma, however, is anything that happens to you that changes the way you view yourself or the world around you. And so if we can accept that definition, then the statistic that you were sharing earlier that 70 to 80% of us have experienced trauma would obviously apply. Like if not, probably even a greater percentage of us can identify with having a trauma in our lives. And this is where I get really passionate because our brain, you know, you know the answer to this, Sam. At what age is our brain fully developed?
SPEAKER_01:25?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yeah. Research would most research at this point would say 25 years old. So while our brain is developing, it is constantly misinterpreting information, right? It's just trying to learn, trying to put pieces together. It's doing the very best that it can, but it's just underdeveloped, right? So anything could happen to us at a young age, and this is where a lot of trauma work ends up going to childhood. And it's simply because our brain wasn't fully developed, so we couldn't fully understand or grasp what was going on. So um Francine Shapira, who um founded EMDR, writes in one of her books that there's a story of a young woman who um was doing trauma work as an adult, and they were able to go back to a childhood memory where she was in her parents' home, you know, as again, as a child in her parents' home, she was up in her room and there was a thunderstorm. And she had very loving parents who cared for her very much. But she was up in her room and there was a thunderstorm and she was scared and she cried out to her parents, but they didn't hear her. So in that moment, her underdeveloped brain interpreted, I am not worthy to be cared for. That was how her brain interpreted that event. It wasn't true. That wasn't what was actually going on in real life, but that was how up, that was a brain synapse that formed. So that became a little tea trauma in her life that then impacted the way she viewed herself and the world around her, up until the point that she got trauma therapy.
SPEAKER_01:Now, was it just one experience or are there other experiences that kind of continue to communicate that same thing? Because I know with big T trauma, usually there's these major events, right? As you kind of mentioned, kind of it be um uh big disaster, uh sexual assault, whatever the case is. So these big events with little tea trauma, is it those instances that does communicate something about them or their value? Is it those one instances, or do they start to see it in every in multiple interactions and then develop that into their adulthood?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, great question. So it really does come down to that one moment. It's always the first trauma. So when you're doing trauma work, we need to get back to that original hurt or trauma. But you're not wrong that after that, she did continue to look for um what is it, the confirmation bias of other examples that this is true, that I'm not worthy to be loved. And then again, like of course, this impacts her in her relationships, in her friendships, in her job. And the reason I think this is so powerful is because there are so many of us, you know, functioning in the world that probably are very high functioning, right? That we probably do pretty well. We probably have pretty good relationships, we probably have pretty good jobs. But we, most of us, I'm not gonna say all, a lot of us struggle with some kind of negative belief that if we can get to the root, you know, if you ask enough questions to a person, they can get to a point where they say something like, yeah, honestly, like I don't really feel worthy or I don't really feel good enough. That's one that good enough is one that comes up quite a bit. I really actually at the end of the day believe I am a failure. They could be doing great in life. They could have successful relationships and kids and a house, but they have this core negative belief that came from somewhere in childhood. And in EMDR, we can go back and we can um heal that part of their brain and show them that that wasn't true and that was never true.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's great. I mean, it's it's great information for the audience to have because they think you're right. You know, I can almost imagine a cognitive dissonance type of situation where um, you know, where someone does experience something like that and maybe they're having those things show up in their relationships, you know. I often say the best way to know a lot about a person is how they experience stress within a relationship because that shows these beliefs that that come up. And as people try to explore that, they're like, but uh to your point, like I didn't have a bad childhood. I had very loving parents, so why would I have trauma? So it's almost this idea of I don't even want to describe it as trauma because it's nothing compared to what so-and-so went through. So I don't even want to call it littlety trauma. It's just it's a belief that I have. Do you find that it's helpful to explore it in that way through the language of trauma? Or do you just kind of work through the symptoms and the memories, uh, the core beliefs and so on to help them reach a point of health?
SPEAKER_02:So good. Love this question so much. I actually like I totally understand the sentiment of like we're overusing the word trauma, it's losing its value. I get how that is a conversation right now. I'm honestly like on the opposite side of the camp of like we should keep saying that and talking about it. And we all should be helping each other identify again these little T traumas that have negatively impacted us, but haven't felt big enough to call a trauma. Because when we don't feel like they're big enough to call a trauma, we don't work on them. We say, I'm fine, I'm making it too big of a deal. It was nothing, my life is good, my childhood was good, my parents are awesome. So I'm just gonna ignore it and act like it's not a problem. But really, this is we know our brain is connected to our bodies. So this is more than just a negative belief. Most of the time, even high-functioning people that come into my office have IBS, have chronic migraines, wake up three times a night, right? Like this, this is more than just a negative belief. But it's wild that just a negative belief can have such a profound impact in our lives. So that's why I'm actually super passionate about like, yeah, let's let's talk about it. Let's say we have trauma. And then in the goal of being behind that being, so go work on it, right? So go heal so that you can be healthier for yourself and your family and your friends.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. No, that's that that's good. I appreciate you sharing that. I think I come from the perspective of complementarity. And what I mean by that is the client that comes in and they don't want to call it trauma or they don't have language for it, or whatever the case is, for that person, I do want them to kind of start using that type of language so that they can understand that it is something that did significantly happen in their lives. Then I have the other client, I'm sure you've had this as well, where everything is trauma in their life and it blo I don't know if it blocks their ability to process because if every situation in a relationship is traumatic, then and that's the worldview or the lens that they use, um, it can almost block or impede their progress because it becomes so overwhelming to continually think about this um the effects of the trauma. At least so for them, I want them to kind of pull back a little bit from using that and maybe just talk about symptoms or talk about um uh even doing some EMDR processing, right? So those are that's kind of the the way that I try to approach things. But yeah, can you speak a little bit to that? Uh if there's a danger to maybe um are there clients who maybe use the word too loosely or make everything in their life uh like a trauma, like a little too trauma. Hmm.
SPEAKER_02:That's interesting. Yeah, I think the the closest that I can think, I I can't say, at least in a long time, nothing is coming to mind of a person who is calling everything a trauma. It's actually funny. I went and spoke at a high school recently, and I kind of just shared the same sentiment I shared with you, and they all completely disagreed with me. They're like, no, for the same reason that you're saying is like, no, now people are overusing the word and everything's a trauma and you can't help them at all because it and so that was a very interesting perspective. So that's what comes to mind when you say that is like, yeah, maybe from uh um from like a high, you know, I can imagine like an immature or um, I don't I don't mean to use language like immature, but you know, just like an that per underdeveloped thought process that they might be using that word um to exhaustion. The only thing that comes to mind for me is a client that I'm currently, or yeah, a client that I'm currently working with. I don't know if we could say that on that client, um, that it does feel like every session is an eruption of emotion and we have like a new crisis that we're dealing with. She doesn't use the word trauma necessarily, but we do use the word triggered, that she she did feel triggered by an event with her husband, an event with her boss, an event with her neighbor, an event with her dog, right? Like everything feels very triggering for her. And so I guess when that does come up, I encourage her to take um to like evaluate the seriousness of her symptoms of like, this must be really hard, that you are being triggered multiple times a day or every day. We need to get back to the root of the original trauma. That's the work that I do with clients to heal this nervous system dysregulation that currently we just like simply we can't get your nervous system regulated. That's why it feels like we're like popping off left and right. We got to get back to your nervous system getting regulated. And how do we do that? By going to that original trauma and teaching your brain that you are safe now, right? That those crises that used to exist that we needed to be um alerted to multiple times a day, that's no longer your reality, right? Your husband's not trying to hurt you, your coworkers are not, your dog is not, like you are safe now. That that is ultimately what our brains and bodies always need to know is that we're safe because it they just want to keep us safe. And sometimes they're kind of misfiring, right? Because of trauma from the past.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And and also you mentioned the importance of acknowledging what's happening in the body. And I think that's the disconnect for a lot of people is that there is that belief, and they do you have those physical um responses to certain situations, right? They're feeling triggered by a certain situation, a certain word or a certain look that someone else gave them, and so on. And I think a big part where people, especially with Christians, where we often discount the influence of how our body is trying to communicate something to us, and we say, No, it's not a big deal, or I just need to speak truth to it, which you do, but God also made our bodies, He created us to be able to cope with these different things that happen in life. So I think one of the challenging parts is getting people to be in tune with their bodies through um, you know, through body scanning, or again, just kind of noticing how they're reacting to different situations. And I'm sure you probably experienced that as well as you work with your clients.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, without a doubt. It's so true. And I think again, like it's a lot to do with our culture and the conversations we're having, which is why I'm so thankful for conversations like this, Sam, because we do kind of blow some of our body signal signaling off, right? Like, oh, I have like a chronically upset stomach. I'll just go to my doctor and you know, get on ometrazole or whatever it might be. And like that's just what you do. And I love being able to kind of turn that table for my clients and be like, what is your stomach communicating to you, right? Like maybe we're like in that fight or flight too often. We have way too much stress in our body. And if we worked on that, we wouldn't have, you know what I mean? It's all communication. So I love what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, we we've briefly touched on this, but what are some ways in which trauma shows up in people's lives? I know you talked a little bit about the meaning that we attribute to certain situations, or just kind of you know this this idea of not being good enough. But are there other ways in which trauma shows up in the lives of people, whether it be physically or or or cognitively that you can think of?
SPEAKER_02:Oh my goodness. I mean, there's so many, right? We could go so many different directions in the way that trauma can show up. Um I think by the time that people are um motivated enough to go to therapy, it's probably had to disrupt their life fairly significantly, right? Because again, like we'll just normalize a lot of these things of like, oh, I just have a little bit of anxiety, or like, oh, I just don't sleep well, right? Like I have clients come to me that say I haven't slept well for decades. And I mean, how cool would that be if the moment we started not sleeping well, we started to kind of listen to our body and ask more questions. But again, I think we just normalize a lot of these symptoms of like, um, you know, I just can't find a partner, right? So it could be disrupted relationships, um, estrangement of family members, um, disrupted work environment, difficulties with bosses, right? So it can affect us in every area of our life, relationally, physically, emotionally. And then, of course, we have cognitively with like depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts. Um, I would say anger is one that comes up pretty often. I love talking about anger because it really is um a top-level emotion. So I like teaching clients that there's so many emotions underneath the anger. Um, and so let's talk about like identifying maybe you're embarrassed. And so it's coming out as anger, right? Maybe you're um feeling guilty about something. Maybe you um maybe you are anxious or or maybe you're tired and hungry, right? I love going back to the in the Bible where Jesus just said, like, maybe you need to get some food and take a nap, is like it's so true for so many of us. Um, so I mean, right, trauma can show up in um so many different ways.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And I like that you mentioned that as well, because typically I think when we think about trauma, we're thinking about those um those hypersensitive responses that we have, right? Where there's there's this hyper-awareness of um how people are looking at us and we read into every little thing and it communicates something about who we are as people. So there's always this constant imbalance of how we feel and what we think. You know, ties a lot into attachment styles where we become so anxious in our close relationships that it's hard to even function, even though to maybe the outside world we seem well put together, but internally there's this kind of war going on about meaning, significance, and how do others perceive me? Right. Um, so yeah, no, really, really great, great um information there. Um is there anything that when you think about trauma, what are people getting right and what are people getting wrong? Now we briefly touched on, you know, we want to identify trauma, whether it's big T or little T. Um and there's this one side over here that also sees it as well, we can't call everything trauma because then it loses its meaning or its value. And we already mentioned kind of the percentage of people that have experienced trauma. So, what is a a healthy balance? Like, how would you want clients, other people to kind of look at trauma? How should we see it?
SPEAKER_02:I think in a perfect world, we would be able to identify, and I say we as like individuals, like each individual person would be able to identify when just something feels off balance or askew, whether it's thinking patterns, um, somatic or like physical responses, something in our relationship. And we were more skilled in identifying that faster and then having the tools and knowledge to get it back on track. I think that that would be kind of the perfect situation, right? Because everyone is gonna need something different, right? Like not everyone needs to go to therapy, um, not everyone needs to take medication. Um, a lot of us just need to be in more community. A lot of us just need to enhance our spiritual health, a lot of us need to um engage in more physical activity, right? And oh my goodness, don't even get me started on the effects of alcohol. That is just something that's been so normalized, but the research is wild with how negatively it impacts our brain and body, right? So I think if if we were just more adept at noticing something is off, how do I help myself? I think I think that would help us get a lot of things right. Because unfortunately, again, we just normalize it, we put it off, we don't know who to go to for help. Um, we don't even know what we need. I think that that is a huge barrier that I see with clients is that they come to me and they know they need help, but that's all that they know, right? And I wish that, you know, even from a young, young age, we could be teaching people of like, again, like you have somatic symptoms, right? Like maybe you need to go to a yoga class or exercise or focus on your health versus you have cognitive symptoms. So let's try journaling, let's try try uh talking with a trusted friend. Is that making sense?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We they have we have so many different resources or different avenues to kind of take this, and it's just what's lacking in the person's life. Like one of the things that's pretty solid in the research is people cope better with heavy traumatic incidents if they have a strong social support system. And this kind of alludes back to your point of um the the girl who had very caring loving parents. Like, she's probably gonna cope better or has cope better with that than someone who didn't have loving parents, right? And we have someone who maybe has the um I remember looking at someone who's experienced abuse uh would probably uh display more traumatic symptoms than someone who has not. But when you look at the research, actually neglect has very similar impact to those who have experienced uh abuse. Because neglect is not being able to meet the needs of someone who Someone at a very critical age, to your point, just very young age, zero to two is usually the attachment stage, zero to seven, zero to twelve. You know, those are there's some very key needs that are that are necessary during that time. So if a parent or both parents are not meeting those needs, that also communicates that you're not worthy, you're not loved, no one cares about you. So it's gonna have the same impact as someone who was abused where that's saying, I don't care about you. Actually, I value you so little that this continues to happen, right? So the messaging from two different experiences is the same and therefore has that similar impact on their excuse me, on their understanding of themselves. So there's a lot regarding the the field of of trauma. Um you know, for those of us who are are Christians, I think one of the things that is is difficult is when people do experience trauma, a question that often comes up is well, Maggie, like where was God in that? You know, where was God? My parents said that they were Christians, and look at what happened. They allowed this to happen, or they were themselves were the perpetrators, or they allowed a family member, or just they didn't care about me, whatever the case is. And it changes their perspective of God. And how you know, how has that been for for you in working with clients where you know they get to that point so sad, right? Because we want people to have know the true God, a loving God, a caring God, and yet their parents represent or at least provide a representation of how God sees them in our experience. Um, but yeah, what what's the hardest part about that? Like getting people to see God in a more um clear way throughout their experience?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, oh my gosh, it's such a good question. Um, well, and just you know, admittedly for the audience, right? I think a question we all struggle with at times, right? Like we, I'm sure each one of us has our own trauma and has wondered kind of where was God in this or why did God allow that to happen. And then working with clients who have gone through, you know, sometimes horrific things and wondering that alongside them. So I think it's such a valid question. So the way that I, you know, kind of support a client through that, if if they are Christian, kind of just reminding them what the Bible says, right? That, you know, that we um our thoughts are not our thoughts and we are our our what is it? Our thoughts are not God's thoughts. God's thoughts are not our thoughts, right? So we can't fully understand exactly like the creator of the universe and how this all works. We can't even like fathom, right? But we do know that God loves us and that he's here for us and he protects us and he hears us. And so both can be true. And I think that that is like a point of spiritual maturity, is just kind of like understanding that we can't fully comprehend or understand. Um, so just holding space for that kind of difficulty there. I will say that I have quite a few clients who are not Christians and who were raised by Christians or in a Christian household, or were just simply hurt by Christians. Um, so you know, abused in the name of faith or by people of faith. And so to have those people share how much they hate God and how much they hate faith, I mean, what can you do other than like kind of validate that that would be their experience and that I can understand why that they feel that way? Um, of course, I'm not in a position to push faith or try to, you know, change their minds about that, but really just hold space for their experience. And then again, I think a beautiful thing about being a Christian therapist is that I can go home and pray for them. Um, and you know, not every therapist might go do that. So I think that's a very challenging topic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, you know, we have the opportunity to be what um in the attachment literature is called kind of the corrective attachment experience or the corrective attachment figure, where if we're speaking about God in this way, where else are they going to experience a a loving, caring person outside of that or or anywhere in their life? And when they come to our office every week and we see them, that's opportunities for us to again display that caring, gentle, loving God that we're describing to them. Now that hasn't been their experience, so they're looking at and kind of cautious and maybe um skeptical about okay, do I both trust? As you know, people who have experienced trauma have a difficulty trusting other people. But for us, they you know, they almost give us that that freedom to try to be that space for them because we're the counselor and we're supposed to know what we're doing and all of these things. But really, what we're doing is just sitting with them, giving validity to their experience and trying to reframe that through our experience with them in session, which I think is such a blessing. I mean, that that uh one of the reasons why I enjoy doing trauma work is because it is that opportunity to represent maybe a lie that they've been told to show them something different in session.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. Oh my gosh, it's so good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and you know, we talk about faith. What role does faith have in healing and recovery? You know, there's these um maybe growing up where these band-aids were kind of given to us of, well, you know, just pray about it, or hey, just do this, or hey, just do that, and everything will be okay. But we know that trauma work requires a lot, a lot of work, a lot of processing. Um so in your experience, what what what role does faith have in the healing and recovery process?
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I use a tool um called a restoration team. Are you familiar with that? It's kind of like a resourcing tool before. So, yeah, I always want to make sure my clients are really well resourced before we get into deep trauma work because of course, if we get dysregulated, if we hit something really hard, I want to make sure we both feel really confident that they can get back to, you know, regulated, like a good state before they leave the office. So, all that to say, so we build this team of people that we can reference as supports in our work. And um there's five categories. And one of the categories is spiritual. And so even clients who have told me that they are not religious or, you know, whatever the case might be, I still ask them about spiritual and I still want them to have some kind of spiritual resource for themselves. And I just say something like, um, you know, what's what's something that reminds you that you're connected to something greater than yourself? Right. And people say like stars or water or nature, it could be anything. But it, I say that to say that whether you're Christian or not, we all need to be reminded that we're connected to something greater than ourselves, right? We all need to find hope. We all need to be able to find hope in something bigger than our circumstance. And that's just basic healing work, right? So to answer your question, I think that spirituality, and for us who you know are Christians and find faith in that is essential, honestly, to growth and healing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I think one of the things that maybe we want to clarify also for for the Christian is what does healing actually look like? And um I think usually when we think about healing, we think that everything is either gone by the end of our time together, or is it just that it's better managed? Or what does healing actually look like? You know, there's people who go to counseling for years and you know, they'll talk about, yeah, you know, I'm healing. But for the Christian, I think there's almost a sense of shame if it's not gone, or if the symptoms have not resided, or if they still have every once in a while an anxious thought about something or a certain meaning about themselves. You know, what would healing look like for not just Christians, I guess for anyone really? What is healing from trauma actually look like on a day-to-day basis? What would be different from the time that they started counseling to the end of their time of counseling?
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm. Okay, so trauma is trauma because it it the memory got stuck in our brain. Our brain didn't know how to process adequately the memory of what just happened, right? So all day long we're making memories throughout our whole lives and it just gets organized because these weren't traumatic, disruptive events. When it's traumatic and disruptive, our brain doesn't know what to do with it. And so that's why we experience triggers, whether they're um mental triggers of like flashbacks or anxious thinking or depression, or those somatic or physical triggers of like heart pounding, stomach hurting, you know, whatever the case might be. So from my perspective, healing is that we can't make the memory go away, right? We can't make the bad thing, we can't pretend that it never happened. However, we can get it organized in your brain so that your brain sees it as yes, that happened, but it happened in the past and I survived. And today, this is how I feel about myself. And hopefully, right today, I feel that I am worthy and that I am lovable and that I am good enough. Right. So healing is living in the present and feeling confident that you have the tools and skills to manage the difficulties that life will inevitably continue to bring.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. No, that's great. That's a great definition for that. Um, that way it paints the picture for the audience. Okay, it's not that it's gonna go away because they think that's the expectation that that memory is gone or that they don't feel anything, but it's much better regulated. And yeah, they're able to create a new meaning behind it, right? Um uh gosh, I was gonna go somewhere. It just slipped my my mind right now. Um, but yeah, along with that part of healing, I think it's really, really important for us to kind of have a realistic expectation of what that looks like. I remember my question now. Yeah, do you see do you see a difference between the generations regarding the healing process? Obviously, older generations kind of have a more uh skeptical view of counseling. Um, younger generations seem to be more open to it. So, what do you think is the biggest barrier for them to get to that healing? So, along the way, they start counseling and they're working through, and there's something happens. What do you think are some of the barriers that people may encounter in the process of healing from trauma?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think one that keeps coming up recently for me is a lack of trust in the therapist. So research will even say, right, how important. I think even it is the most important thing is that therapeutic alliance. Yeah, the number one predictor of success is your, is it the trust or you just your relationship?
SPEAKER_01:Alliance.
SPEAKER_02:The relationship between that a lot of clients, a lot of just folks in the world, don't understand how important that is, right? Like maybe they found somebody online or their friend recommended someone and it's kind of like, okay, yeah, they must be good enough or they must be, you know, a good therapist. I'll work with them. But when I talk to clients who have experienced massive barriers or who have not been able to progress in their healing, it's because they ultimately just did not trust the therapist and they were fearful about saying certain things. They didn't feel totally comfortable. Um, again, not saying the therapist is doing anything wrong. It's just not always the best fit. And so there's really nothing wrong with, you know, a client. Well, and then I was going to say, and then it's daunting for a client to have to say, you know, unfortunately this isn't working out. And now I have to like keep shopping or kind of like dating new therapists until I find the right one. But the process of shopping or dating requires people to share quite a bit about themselves and open up and be vulnerable. I mean, that's scary, right? Like that's no one really wants to do that. So I think a lot of people kind of give up or again start to say, well, I pretty much am good enough. I can make it work. Um, I'll figure it out on my own. I'll read more books, I'll listen to more podcasts, um, which is we're all very reasonable solutions. But if you need that one-on-one work, we have to keep looking for the therapist. And so I was just honestly encouraging a friend this morning that most therapists will do a 15 to 20 minute free consultation. So really take advantage of that and ask the therapist some hard questions, right? Like, do you what is your experience in working with clients like myself? Um, what happens if I don't think it's going very well? Can I tell you that? Are you open to feedback? Right. Like just ask those really hard questions to your therapist during that free consultation. That would be my advice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I love that. That's actually really great because you could get a feel. I mean, and like that, it's 15 minutes, so it's not a short two to five minutes, but 15 minutes is good enough time where you get a feel uh for the counselor. How are you meshing? How's the conversation going and so on? And yeah, I think you could hit that trust factor at some point within that conversation, either I feel like I can trust them or I don't. Or it can also speak to maybe just previous experiences. So if they had one or two previous counselors that didn't help or that they triggered something else, so that it makes sense to us, I guess, why they would come in fearful. So for us, it's just trying to be that safe um presence for them when we do have those um you know consultations and so on. But I love that advice. I think that's really, really helpful. Um, I mean, we've covered a lot. Um, I feel obviously like there's always much more that we can talk about, right? But um, yeah, based on our conversation today, is there anything that I missed? Anything that you feel like, you know what, Sam, before closing, I think it would be really important for the audience to know this.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, I'm always curious to learn more about attachment and kind of discuss that a little bit further. Is there anything specific in regards to attachment and trauma that you think that we would would be helpful to discuss or you know, hearing my perspective versus yours on that one?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you know, there's um when I was when I think about um trauma and then God attachment, there there's two kind of phrases that come out. One is called it's called the correspondence theory, which says that whatever relationship your parents had with you when you were growing up is gonna be kind of the same relationship you have with God when you get older. So if your parents were um uh critical, mean, rude, um, neglectful, it's really hard to think of God in another way when you start seeing that the people who were supposed to care for you the most, now you're saying that God is all of a sudden gonna treat you differently, right? It's hard for them to conceptualize that because they never experienced that from people who are supposed to love them. So that they correspond. So their early childhood experiences corresponds with their relationship with God. But the other side to that is if their parents were loving, kind, gentle, and understanding, then when they grow up, they kind of have a better understanding, like they can see that about God because their parents model that for them. So when they read scripture and it says, you know, that God loves you, that God cares for you, that He's carrying will carry all your burdens, that makes sense to them, right? So for them, that transition to their adult walk with God is much better than those who had different type of parents. So that's the correspondence theory. Uh the compensation theory is really interesting because usually um it's people who did not grow up in the church. So if they didn't grow up in the church and they had, you know, parents who were neglectful or abusive or whatever the case is, when they get older and they get introduced to Christ or they start going to church and then they hear the gospel and then they convert to Christianity, then they start to see God as God is making up for everything that I lost when I was a young child. So basically God compliments or God uh yeah, God compliments whatever it is that they were missing when they were young. So they feel this deep love for God and this deep appreciation for him because they never knew what that was like growing up. So that compensates for what they were lacking when they were um when they were younger. So a lot of that can tie into, you know, how does trauma distort my view of God? Well, one example is the correspondence theory. If your parents were like that, automatically they believe that God is like that. But they need multiple experiences, positive experiences, consistent experiences that can reshape their view of God. Okay. So I often talk about consistency, timeliness, and effectiveness, which means that they need consistent patterns of positive experiences with the people of God. So with the church, with uh Christians in their experiences reading or praying, um, reading or praying, uh, reading the Bible or praying. Um, effectiveness. Okay, is it doing what it's supposed to do? So when I pray, do I feel closer to God? When I go out and and and uh meet with people from church, do I feel like I'm learning more about God because of our conversations that we're having? Right. So that's the effectiveness piece. And then the timeliness really just has to do with how promptly are your needs being met. So when you need something, if I ask for help from someone from the church or for someone who who claims to be a Christian and they don't respond right away and it's delayed or they never get back to me, I start that starts to shape my view of God. Like, well, God's there sometimes, but not all the time, right? Yeah. So if they're timely in meeting the needs when we really need them, then all of those three things can help shift our perspective of God. Interesting. So it's it's really, and as we're talking about, then it's getting them in tune with their bodies. Like, how does your body feel when you're with with uh with the church? How does your body feel when you're having these thoughts come up for you or when you're praying and you're sharing with God and being open with Him? So there's a lot that that we can do, but I mean that would definitely be another great conversation for us to have.
SPEAKER_02:That would be, I would be really interested in that. I think especially I've been having a lot of clients who have pre-verbal trauma. So obviously, some attachment was severely disrupted. And there's not a lot that you can talk about with that because the memory where we didn't even have words, our brain wasn't formed enough to have words. So that's been so fascinating to have people just experience those like body sensations more than you know, memories or being able to speak about, well, I never felt good enough. That those words didn't even exist. They just like know that their body was hurt or whatever the case might be. So, how does that impact attachment with people in the future, but also with their relationship with God? So I think there's probably a lot there that we could talk about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, I really like um exploring a lot also the counselor client relationship, the therapeutic alliance, because we really are. I mean, and that is what the what the relationship is, right? Um, I forgot who said it, and um, we kind of see it this way where it's counselor, client, and Jesus, right? In the room, in the office, just kind of guiding us through that process. Because sometimes, I mean, I feel lost. I'm like, gosh, this is so heavy. Where do I go with this? Like, it's almost like at least for me, you want to help them heal. Okay, and it's almost like we want to get there a little bit faster before they're ready to. Okay. And that's the hard part because you want to see them get better. But knowing, yeah, but knowing that it just takes some time, we're still establishing trust, still need repeated, consistent, positive experiences between counselor and client so that they can start to open up just a little bit more and a little bit more. And how we receive whatever it is that they're sharing obviously provides more openness for that. So I really do see that as Jesus got kind of guiding that process for us. Um because yeah, sometimes it's like, where do I go from here? Like I know what to do, but to really sit and be present with the client, it's hard when maybe they want to, you know, also get healed faster. Um I'll share this with you. Meggie, I had a a client um who was in a field that is basically a helping services field, so nursing. And um, she came in, did the intake, a lot of trauma in the background, and you know, specifically with like family members. Um, and she's like, you know, I'm so committed, I'm ready to just get this work done. And I think uh by the end of the semester I should be good. And I just kind of smiled and I looked at her, I'm like, uh, by the end of the semester, you mean like in in 10 weeks? And she's like, Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm ready to do this. Like, you don't know how committed I am. I'm like, okay. It's probably not gonna be 10 weeks. And you know, just kind of smiled and she's like, Well, what do you mean? Like, I'm ready, I can do this. My, I think along the way, we'll find that it's gonna require a little bit more, as committed as you are. So let's first let's just try the first couple of weeks, see where you are, and then we'll continue to assess. But she was one of my favorite clients because she was so committed to the process, so motivated, yeah. Yeah, so motivated. But she started to see that um that no, there's a lot more to dig. So obviously it extended our time, but she wants she had these other goals in life. And again, she's one of those clients who, on the surface, I mean, she was a hard worker, she was doing well in school, all of those things, but her relationships was where the trauma was coming up, and it was as soon as she started to get close to people, all these things started to brew up for her. And um, yeah, so we did a lot of work. She did she did grow a lot in that process, but I just always remember just because of how motivated she was and and how quickly she wanted to get everything done. So definitely we appreciate that motivation. But um, yeah, trauma work is hard work and long work.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. I I experienced something very similar with EMDR where people come in in the first session, they're like, okay, so we're doing EMDR today. I'm like, oh goodness, no. So now I've it incorporated into my consultation calls of like, hey, I just want to set clear expectations that like we have to get to know each other. You need to trust me. We need to make sure you have great resources that you're practicing outside of session. So I hear you with the motivated clients, which again, like my heart goes out to them. Like, I'm the same way when I go to therapy. I'm like, okay, we're jumping in, right? You know, like we want to feel better, and there's nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So so yeah, so we'll we'll uh we'll keep in touch and see if we can bring up another conversation. But this was great. Thank you so much, Maggie. I mean, I really loved um how you shared. You have a great depth of knowledge in the whole process of counseling working with trauma. I'm sure you can share a lot more. Um, again, like I said, I could probably added two, three more questions um that we could have gone over, but time is a thing, you know?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. No, I really appreciate your time. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here, Sam.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Well, thank you, Maggie. We will meet up again. Hopefully, we get another topic on trauma. And uh, yeah, hopefully, guys, those of you who were listening, hope this was a blessing. And uh yeah, tune in to the next time.
SPEAKER_02:Sounds good. Take care.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.