William Arnold (he/him)

My current preferred working definition of trauma is “pain we’re stuck in alone.” I do not use DSM diagnoses, but if I did I would favor PTSD and C-PTSD because they come closest to naming the suffering which seems to me to be at the root of most of my clients’ mental and emotional distress.

My current perspective on depression is that it’s what happens when one part of our system turns against another part of our system in an attempt to protect us from what that other part is feeling. Hence Freud’s saying that “depression is rage turned inward.” Depression isn’t just sadness, it’s how it feels when one part of us feels very sad and another part hates how that part feels and tries to make it go away.

Alan Watts characterizes anxiety as “fear of fear.” I find this to be true. If trauma is "pain we’re stuck in alone," that feeling is one of fear reflected back on itself: what we are feeling is scary, but not being able to do anything about it? Being alone in it? That’s terrifying. I consider anxiety to be the body’s memory of that terror. The opposite of anxiety is feeling safe and loved.

My current preferred working definition of trauma is “pain we’re stuck in alone.” I do not use DSM diagnoses, but if I did I would favor PTSD and C-PTSD because they come closest to naming the suffering which seems to me to be at the root of most of my clients’ mental and emotional distress.

My current preferred working definition of trauma is “pain we’re stuck in alone.” I do not use DSM diagnoses, but if I did I would favor PTSD and C-PTSD because they come closest to naming the suffering which seems to me to be at the root of most of my clients’ mental and emotional distress.

Most of the mental and emotional distress my clients experience is rooted in some need that wasn't met, some feeling of unsafety, some pain they felt stuck in alone. I don't know that "trauma therapy" means any just one thing, but it feels clear by this point in my career that all the work I do is healing work, is "trauma work."

My practice increasingly draws from "parts work," perhaps best exemplified by Internal Family Systems. Sometimes my practice feels like nothing more than being my Self with my clients; gifting them my Self energy and empowering them to be their Selves with me and their parts and everyone else in their lives.

I believe that most trauma is relational, meaning that we got hurt, did not receive compassion, and so the pain of that harm got stuck. It taught us how to relate to ourselves in a certain way. Patterns of connection got replaced with patterns of protection (to paraphrase Stephen Porges). Healing looks like being related to differently: receiving the loving kindness we needed but didn't get, holding it within ourselves, and carrying it out into all of our other relationships.