"You do your personal work. We really believe that we're the change agents and we can't take our clients anywhere we haven't gone." ~Adena Bank Lees

Adena Bank Lees, LCSW, LISAC, BCETS, CP is an accomplished speaker, author, experiential trainer, and consultant working in traumatic stress and addiction. She's a leading authority on, and advocate for, psychodrama, a modality that employs guided role-play in private or group sessions. And Adena's encyclopedic knowledge of her field is as impressive as her compassion and empathy are genuine.

This is one of those rich, inviting conversations that begs to be bookmarked for future re-listens; it's just that good!

Adena clients face a wide range of challenges, from transgenerational trauma to covert emotional incest. She creates safe spaces in which intuition helps them rework their personal stories. This isn't an erasure of the past. Nor is it an exercise in traditional forgiveness.

"It's the feeling, it's the understanding, it's the grieving of the losses, of the hopes and the dreams. And the I wish my childhood was like this. It wasn't. I can't go back. But, I got to grieve and at some point to make the choice. I'm not going to hold onto this anger."

Accepting that we can live vibrantly and wholely with our wounds is a byproduct of owning one's agency. It's for this reason that Adena adamantly advises therapists to embark on self-healing journeys so they can better understand the client experience.

Asked if she considers herself a wounded healer, she says, "I don't see myself as wounded anymore. I have parts that are wounded, but me as a whole? No. And I believe that was an important stage, an identity for me to have. And to be and to move through. I have wounds and I am in the process of assisting other people to heal."

Truth!

Note: This interview was recorded well before shelter-in-place orders were instituted across the United States in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, the conversation does not reference the crisis.

For complete show notes and links to connect with Adena, visit http://www.headhearttherapy.com/podcast.

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