Insight Therapy

Day 3 Boston Trauma Conference

This day got me thinking a lot about relationships and play, and how when we are at play with another person, it can also become a way for us to reorganize ourselves.

In play, we are able to negotiate with experiences in a way that feels less threatening. Play allows us to explore things we may not always have access to and gives us the opportunity to try something different. While, for me, the therapeutic relationship is always at the centre, I am looking forward to bringing more of this into the therapy room.

A little on the research: play is far more than just recreation. Research by Jaak Panksepp identified PLAY as one of the brain’s primary emotional systems and found it plays an important role in social, emotional, and neurological development. Research also suggests that play can help bring flexibility to our stress responses and create opportunities to safely engage with activation related to fight, flight, freeze, and other survival responses. Through connection and play, we can begin to negotiate these responses rather than remain stuck in them.

Another dense but impactful day.

One of the more disorienting parts of trauma work is realizing that many of the ways you learned to move through life were actually adaptations to what you lived through.

You thought everyone scanned for shifts in tone.
Everyone over-explained.
Everyone struggled to relax.
Everyone expected love to disappear, turn cold, become critical, or feel unsafe.

And then one day you realize some people were not raised in constant survival.

That realization can feel validating, painful, grieving, confusing, and relieving all at once.

In therapy, we often work toward understanding these patterns with more compassion, processing the experiences underneath them, and helping you build a different relationship with yourself that is no longer organized around survival.

If this resonated and you are looking for support we are currently accepting new clients for virtual therapy across Ontario and in-person sessions in Vaughan. Link in bio to book a complimentary consultation 🦋

Disclaimer in highlights

Healing and fixing can sometimes look similar on the surface because both involve wanting change.
But the drive underneath them is often very different.

Fixing often comes from the belief that something in you is wrong, too much, broken, inconvenient, or needs to be removed before you can finally feel worthy, loved, regulated, or enough.

Fixing often creates more shame because it treats symptoms as failures or proof something is wrong with me. Healing creates understanding because it recognizes that many symptoms were once adaptations.

A lot of trauma survivors learned how to manage themselves, suppress themselves, over-function, intellectualize, or constantly work on themselves without ever feeling safe enough to actually heal.

There is a difference between becoming better at surviving and finally feeling safe enough to soften.

Therapy is not about “fixing” you.
It is about helping you understand yourself differently, build capacity, process what has been carried for too long, and create a more compassionate relationship with yourself.

We are currently accepting new clients for therapy across Ontario and coaching worldwide. Link in bio to book a complimentary consultation to see if we are the right fit for you.

Research in trauma and memory processing shows that healing does not happen through flooding the system. It happens when the brain and body can stay connected enough to safely experience, process, and update what previously felt dangerous.

This is why trauma therapy often focuses on pacing, regulation, titration, resourcing, and building capacity first.

When therapy moves too fast, the stress responses can become stronger. When therapy moves at the speed of safety, the brain becomes more capable of forming new associations, new experiences, and new ways of responding.

Sometimes slowing down is actually what allows healing to move forward.