Radical Genuineness: Healing the Loss of Identity After Trauma
Radical genuineness is the value of being real or true to oneself through and through. You’re true to yourself to the core: how you think about yourself, how you consider yourself, and how you act, speak, and express yourself. Trauma makes this skill challenging for people. When survivors of trauma are stuck in survival mode, whether that’s fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, our brains are constantly thinking of strategies to stay alive and reduce harm, not necessarily on how to relate or express ourselves. Radical genuineness can be a powerful, healing skill that facilitates encountering and expressing ourselves.
Coping with the Holidays: Skills and Self Care for Trauma Survivors
Togetherness can be fun, joyful, and fulfilling for many people. Yet, for many others, the idea of coming together with certain friends and family can be triggering, isolating, distressing, and anxiety-provoking.
Below, I have outlined core skills to use whenever we think our sensitivity is high.
Radical Acceptance
Mindfulness
Self and Sensory Soothing
Boundaries with people, time, and content.
Assumptions About Survivors with Sarahi Gutierrez
In this blog post, I’m talking with my colleague and good friend, Sarahi Gutierrez, about the 10 Assumptions of Survivors. I personally consider Sarahi quite the expert in DBT. She is so masterful at engaging in this intervention, so I wanted to get her insight into how these assumptions can shape how we engage with survivors in the world and in the community, how we can engage with ourselves, and why these are so important.
