I'm often asked what it's like to be a trauma therapist - to work with people that have experienced life's worst possibilities. I'm often asked "Doesn't it make you depressed to see bad things all day long?". My answer is always the same - "sometimes". The next thing I hear is "That would make me really depressed!". It would be a lie to say that the things I see and hear on a daily basis have no effect on my life and my mood. I see on a daily basis the things most people only see in movies and on the news. As a trauma therapist, I daily work with adolescents who have bee abandoned by the people that were supposed to nurture and protect them. I see children, teens, and even adults that suffer from the damaging effects of childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and emotional abuse: most of the time by people they should be able to trust. Left un-processed, this trauma eventually leads to broken minds and broken relationships. I won't mention specifics of the things I'm exposed to. I really don't think it would add any significant substance, but the stories I hear sometimes cause me to lose sleep.
My Advantage!
It's not uncommon for trauma therapists, and therapists in general, to just get exhausted, burned out, and to find a new profession all together. I knew one therapist in particular. He was a brilliant and talented therapist, but the years of hearing the worst things this life has to offer finally got the best of him. The last time I talked to him, he had left the profession and had started a business making cabinets. My friend told me that cabinet making was his therapy and helped him to process life. But I diverge...... my advantage. The vast majority of graduate training for counseling is from a "Darwinian" or "Marxist" perspective that teaches trainees that there is NO HOPE - No hope of something better, no hope of being loved and cared for by someone bigger than ourselves, and no point in looking toward the future. In fact, modern psychotherapy, in and of itself, fails to recognize the God of the Bible, the creator and sustainer of the world, as the center of the world, and the focus of all of history.
As a trauma therapist, that sees the world from a Christian worldview, I am able to see a future; not just a future of being lowered into a grave to rot away, but a future in heaven with the one that loved me enough to rescue me from my own rebellion and disobedience. As a Christian trauma therapist, I see the world as fallen and broken, but not without hope. That is why I call my company HOPE RENEWED. Life without a savior and without a sure future is hopeless, but life with a personal relationship with my savior has constant HOPE. I'm certainly no preacher and have issues with many who do. I also do not impose my Christian values on my clients. This post is not about sharing my Christian faith, but about sharing how I, as a trauma therapist, manage to keep things together, while daily dealing with a LOT of trauma. Knowing that I'm not alone in this life, nor alone in my pursuit of quality trauma therapy, gives me hope of a future without daily trauma and without exposure to my own sin and a fallen world full of sin and rebellion against God. In short, I have a future, a future bought and paid for by someone else; a future that is not dependent on my own deeds or on my own self-will. That makes me feel safe and secure and gives me an outlet to take my own trauma, something I do daily.
A Final Word
As Paul Harvey used to say, there is a "rest of the story". As a licensed professional counselor in Tennessee, one of the first things I learned in graduate school to maintain professional boundaries in therapy. This means that while I deeply care for my clients, and pray for their health, I cannot be "knee deep" in their trauma and pain and still maintain the necessary objectivity to help them. Healthy boundaries are absolutely necessary to help hurting people and to maintain our own mental health as practitioners. This means that I must be able to listen as a young lady tells the story of her mother's boyfriend sneaking into her bedroom at night to molest her while maintaining distance and my own self-regulation. As her tears fall to the floor, I have to constantly remind myself to maintain professional boundaries as this is necessary to help her in any meaningful way. This may sound cruel and cold, but we cannot help others out of their own traumas if we enter these traumas with them. Someone has to be in a safe place to throw the life preserver to those drowning.
Even with all of the negatives and problems, being a certified trauma therapist is one of the most rewarding experiences of my life - one I would not trade for anything.
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