Episode Summary: In Episode 10 of The Inked Therapist — and the final episode of the first solo arc — Del Knight breaks down what neurodivergent-affirming therapy actually requires. This episode covers the neurotypical defaults baked into standard clinical training, the history of harm caused by ABA and social skills training, the critical difference between accommodating and affirming neurodivergence, what genuinely affirming therapy looks like in a real session, and the specific clinical terrain of masking and late diagnosis. Closes with a reflection on the full five-episode arc.

Topics Covered: Neurotypical defaults in clinical training · Alexithymia · Executive function and therapy homework · ABA legacy and harm · Social skills training as suppression · The double empathy problem (Damian Milton) · Deficit model vs. difference model · Affirming vs. accommodating · Interoception and neurodivergence · Sensory experience in session · Masking and autistic burnout · Late diagnosis and retrospective re-interpretation · ADHD and autism in queer/trans communities · Diagnostic gaps for women, AFAB people, and BIPOC folks

Referenced Work: The Double Empathy Problem — Damian Milton (2012)

BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Instagram: @somaticrootstherapy

Next Episode: Episode 11 — Staying Informed Without Burning Out

Episode Summary: In the second episode of The Inked Therapist's trauma arc, Del Knight goes beyond the language of trauma-informed care to examine what the framework actually requires — and what it's been diluted into by the wellness industry, corporate HR departments, and providers who adopted the vocabulary without building the structure. Drawing on SAMHSA's Six Principles of Trauma-Informed Care, this episode gives listeners a concrete framework for evaluating whether the care they're receiving is genuine, what they're allowed to expect and ask for, and what to do when a provider claims trauma-informed care but doesn't demonstrate it.

Topics Covered: Origins of trauma-informed care · Judith Herman's foundational work · SAMHSA's Six Principles (safety, trustworthiness, peer support, collaboration, empowerment, cultural responsiveness) · Co-optation by wellness and corporate sectors · Language vs. structural commitment · What genuine trauma-informed therapy looks like in session · Client rights · Rupture and repair · Leaving therapeutic relationships that aren't working · Cultural responsiveness as clinical requirement

Framework Cited: SAMHSA's Six Principles of Trauma-Informed Care — samhsa.gov

Referenced Works: Trauma and Recovery — Judith Herman

BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Instagram: @somarootstherapy

Next Episode: Episode 10 — 'What Neurodivergent-Affirming Therapy Actually Looks Like'

Episode Summary: In Episode 8 of The Inked Therapist — and the first episode of a two-part trauma arc — Del Knight, CCTP-II, breaks down one of the most persistent and harmful misunderstandings in the therapy world: that trauma requires a dramatic, identifiable event. This episode draws the distinction between single-incident and complex/developmental trauma, explains why complex trauma is so hard to name (including for the people living inside it), and addresses directly the minimization trap — the 'nothing that bad happened to me' calculation that keeps so many people from taking their own experience seriously.

Topics Covered: Defining trauma as nervous system response · Single-incident / Type I trauma · C-PTSD / Complex trauma · Developmental and relational trauma · Attachment disruption · Emotional neglect · Fight/flight/freeze/fawn · Pete Walker’s C-PTSD framework · Judith Herman · Bessel van der Kolk · Peter Levine · Resmaa Menakem / Cultural Somatics · Racialized and historical trauma · Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart / historical trauma in Indigenous communities · Joy DeGruy / Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome · Prentis Hemphill / healing justice and embodiment · Minority stress and social trauma · Neurodivergent trauma histories · Comparative suffering · The minimization trap

Referenced Works: Trauma and Recovery — Judith Herman | The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk | In an Unspoken Voice — Peter Levine | Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving — Pete Walker | My Grandmother’s Hands — Resmaa Menakem | Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome — Joy DeGruy | What It Takes to Heal — Prentis Hemphill

BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Instagram: @somarootstherapy

Next Episode: Episode 9 — 'What Trauma-Informed Actually Means (And What It's Being Used to Sell You)' — Trauma arc, Part 2 of 2

Episode Summary: In Episode 7 of The Inked Therapist, Del Knight — Certified Body Trust Specialist, Center for Body Trust (2024) — introduces the body trust framework and why it's different from body positivity, intuitive eating, or any other self-improvement program dressed in liberation language. This episode names the systems — diet culture, medical fatphobia, wellness culture — that taught most of us not to trust our bodies, walks through the core threads of the Center for Body Trust approach, and gets specific about what body trust actually looks like in a life, in a therapy room, and in a culture that profits from the war.

Topics Covered: Body trust vs. body positivity · Center for Body Trust framework · Body sovereignty · Diet culture · Medical fatphobia · Wellness culture co-optation · Body trust for trans and neurodivergent people · Interoception · Grief and body trust · Health as not a moral obligation · Collective vs. individual healing

Framework credit: Center for Body Trust — Hilary Kinavey & Dana Sturtevant

• BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time
• Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started
• Instagram: @somaticrootstherapy

Next episode: Episode 8 — 'Not All Trauma Looks the Same: Single-Incident vs. Complex Trauma'

Episode summary: In Episode 6 of The Inked Therapist, Del Knight demystifies one of the biggest barriers to starting therapy: not knowing what's about to happen. This episode walks through every stage of a first session — what gets asked, what doesn't, what the therapist is actually doing, what clients are allowed to expect, and what to make of how you feel after. Includes a direct note to anyone who has been dismissed or harmed by the mental health system before.

Topics covered: What a first session is · The intake process · What you don't have to bring · Somatic presence in session · Client rights and agency · The therapeutic fit question · Emotional processing after session · How to know if therapy is working

BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Instagram: @somarootstherapy

Next episode: Episode 7 — 'Your Body Is Not a Problem to Solve: An Introduction to Body Trust'

Episode summary: Del Knight takes four words — 'it could be worse' — and spends an hour unpacking what they're actually doing to your nervous system. What pain minimization is, where it comes from, why comparative suffering is a logically broken system, and what it actually means to let pain be what it is. Funny at the start, real in the middle, liberatory by the end.

Topics covered: Pain minimization · Nervous system dismissal · Somatic storage · Survival adaptation · Minority stress · Comparative suffering · Permission to feel · Liberation-rooted healing

BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Companion Reel: 'It Could Be Worse' — @somaticrootstherapy on Instagram

Next episode: Episode 6 — 'What Actually Happens in a First Therapy Session'

Episode summary: In the final episode of The Inked Therapist's nervous system arc, Del Knight gets specific about what trans-affirming therapy actually means — not the sticker in the window, but the real thing. Five concrete clinical practices, a deep dive into somatic work with trans clients, a direct address to trans and nonbinary listeners about what they're allowed to expect, and an honest note to clinicians about what this work actually requires.

Topics covered: Willing vs. affirming · Minority stress · Gender euphoria · Anti-gatekeeping · WPATH-informed care · Somatic work with trans clients · Political neutrality in therapy · Trans flourishing

BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Next episode: Episode 5 — 'It Could Be Worse' (outside the nervous system arc)

In Episode 3, Del Knight answers the question that Episodes 1 and 2 were building toward: what does healing actually look like in practice? The answer — slow, titrated, body-centered, at the client's pace — is unpacked across four clinical pillars, a direct address to the people this approach is built for, and a personal account of why Soma Roots Therapy was built the way it was.

Topics covered: Productivity logic and healing · Titration · Integration · Autonomy in therapy · Complex trauma · Nervous system pacing · Soma Roots practice philosophy · Anti-hustle healing

BuyMeACoffee Link: Support the Soma Roots Therapy Access Fund — monthly or one-time

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Next episode: Episode 4 — 'What Makes Therapy Actually Trans-Affirming'

Episode summary: In Episode 2 of The Inked Therapist, Del Knight goes deeper on the nervous system arc — unpacking what 'adapted' actually means, why the story of dysfunction causes additional harm, why insight alone doesn't shift nervous system patterns, and what the foundational shift from combat to curiosity actually makes possible in healing.

Topics covered: Nervous system adaptation · Dysfunction language and its costs · Prediction machine model · Individualizing systemic harm · Neuroplasticity · Why 'just relax' doesn't work · Somatic healing frame · Curiosity as a clinical starting point

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Next episode: Episode 3 — 'Slow Therapy for Exhausted Humans'

Episode summary: In the first full episode of The Inked Therapist, Del Knight breaks down chronic vigilance — what it is, how it develops, who carries it, and what healing actually looks like. If you've never been able to fully relax even when everything is technically fine, this one is for you.

Topics covered: Chronic vigilance / hypervigilance · Nervous system adaptation · Minority stress · Window of tolerance (intro) · Somatic approach to healing · Titration

Links: Soma Roots Therapy Website · Blog companion post · Reach Out & Get Started

Next episode: 'Your Nervous System Isn't Broken — It Adapted' (Episode 2)