It's All In Your Head*
I was talking with a colleague who recently completed her graduate degree in counseling. We were discussing one of her cases—a young man who had experienced considerable trauma as a teenager. Her client knew he had experienced the trauma, but didn’t have clear memories around it. She was concerned about how much she needed to delve into his traumatic experiences in order to help him heal.
My colleague had taken a trauma course in graduate school, and said that it was one of her favorite classes. Some of the content in the course, all of which seemed current and relevant, included the study of the neurophysiology of trauma and the impact of trauma on neurodevelopment.
“One of the things I remember so clearly, is my professor telling us not to do memory retrieval work,” she explained. “He said that if a client doesn’t have specific memories, there is a reason, and we shouldn’t ‘poke the bear,’ so as to not accidentally implant or suggest memories.”
On one level, I agreed wholeheartedly with what her professor had shared. At the same time, I was thinking about her case through a different lens. “You’re already doing memory work,” I offered. I could see her contemplating what I’d said, and trying to reconcile it with what her professor taught her.
*This post is simultaneously posted on Live Oak’s blog: “Branching Out." Written by Jeff Levy, Co-Founder and CEO