When we begin working with clients with significant trauma histories, they generally present for therapy with a significant lack of resources. Trauma is sometimes described as a person's resources being overwhelmed in the face of a threatening and stressful situation or experience(s). The process of healing from trauma, necessarily needs to begin with helping our clients develop resources for coping, which will include both internal and external resources. Certainly, there is a wide array of skills, activities, and relationships that can be resourcing to our clients. An additional resource that I have discovered in helping traumatized clients achieve a state of calm and relaxation has be
“The therapist would say, ‘If you don't kiss the raisin, Mommy has to leave. You don't want Mommy to leave, do you?’ I would ALWAYS end up leaving because there wasn't a chance in hell she was going to kiss that raisin. She would SCREAM my name again and again, hysterical, hard-to-breathe screams and cries. I felt like I might as well have been leaving the room while someone stabbed her. I always felt it was wrong.”— mother of 4-year-old Emma, with severe selective (picky) eating “We were told we had to make our son eat two bites of non-preferred food before he can have his preferred food. Every night at dinner, he cries and gags. This has been going on for two years, and our therapist tells
