Podcasters: Matthew Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

Pain, shame, self-doubt, suffering, depression, anxiety, anger are just a few of the emotions we encounter working with people struggling with trauma. We create safe places for people to express their emotions and heal from trauma. In this episode, Matt, Curt, and Jerry examine what makes us effective in our work by looking at emotional labor and emotional intelligence.

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This week’s article: Emotional Intelligence Emotional Labor and Work Effectiveness in Service Organizations

Podcasters: Matt Bennett & Dr. Jerry Yager

In this episode, Matt and Jerry explore the role of supportive strategic supervision in trauma-informed workplaces. We share our experiences on both sides of the supervision relationship. What role did supervision we receive play in our professional development? How did we positive supervision as part of our efforts to run quality programs and organizations?

Discussion Questions

Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

Do emotions play a role in organizational outcomes? Working with trauma, we pay special attention to emotional regulation, mood disorders, and other powerful emotions. It is obvious to see how emotions hinder many people’s ability to achieve positive life outcomes. In this episode, Matt, Curt, and Jerry examine the influences of emotions in organizations that try to help others achieve emotional and social health.

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Article for this week’s post: Why Does Affect Matter

Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

What is small t trauma? Does it exist at all? Matt and Jerry have different opinions on the topic, and we spend this episode trying to figure out our differences and come to some sort of consensus. Not quite a battle royal but join us for a fascinating conversation on an important topic.

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Podcasters: Dr. Robert T. Muller, Matt Bennett, & Curt Mower

Dr. Robert T. Muller joins Matt and Curt to discuss his new book Trauma & The Struggle to Open Up: From Avoidance to Recovery & Growth. Dr. Muller’s book beautifully frames how the guilt and shame of trauma affects peoples’ ability to discuss and overcome their traumatic pasts. We explore his insights and how they help inform our approaches to helping others heal from trauma.

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Click the book cover for more information on Dr. Muller’s book and here for his Psychology Today Blog

In our final episode in our heart rate variability (HRV) series, Matt, Curt, and Jerry examine the connecting between HRV, self-regulation, and psychosocial well-being. We also reflect on the entire series and crucial lessons learned about trauma’s impact on critical biomarkers. Is HRV the next major step forward in education, psychology, and medicine?

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This week’s article: Cardiac Coherence, self regulation, autonomic stability

Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

Trauma-related symptoms have been demonstrated to impede the establishment of effective working alliance between therapist and client.  In the article we discuss today, researchers provide some conceptual framework and empirical data that suggest a strong relationship between autonomic regulation and working alliance between therapists and clients seeking trauma-focused treatment.  This also leads to a discussion of the impact autonomic regulation on the formation of effective interpersonal communication, connection, trust, and shared goals that are required for cooperative interactions in other contexts.

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This week’s article: Physiological predictors of Working Alliance

Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

We are taking an opportunity to hit the pause button and dig deeper into what we’ve covered so far in our heart rate variability series. What does this all mean for our own health, our programming, and how we view trauma. We explore what it all means in this episode.

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The Window of Tolerance Episode

The Epigenetics Episode

In this episode, we continue our exploration of trauma and heart rate variability. This week we explore the relationship between stressful life events, heart rate variability, and social engagement. Our conversation explores how this research applies to programming and treatment to help people recover and heal from trauma.

Article for this week: High cardiac control protects against future depressive symptoms under conditions of high social support

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Conditioned fear responses and learning safety cues are critical components of both the etiology of trauma-related dysfunction and recovery from traumatic experiences.  Can inter-individual differences in physiological measures predict our ability to extinguish conditioned fear responses and to learn new safety cues?   In this episode, Matt, Jerry & Curt discuss an article describing a study that asked these very questions.

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Article for this week: Resting HRV Predicts Safety Learning Fear Extinction