Attachment, Avoidance and the Path to Healing with Dr. Robert Muller

Season 5 of the How We Can Heal Podcast is sponsored by SimplePractice.

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This episode is also sponsored by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD). 

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is an international, non-profit, professional association organized to develop and promote comprehensive, clinically effective and empirically based resources and responses to trauma and dissociation and to address its relevance to other theoretical constructs. 

Visit https://cfas.isst-d.org/ to access educational offerings for both professionals and non-professionals 

To learn more and become a member, visit: https://www.isst-d.org/

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Trauma leaves invisible wounds that shape our relationships, survival strategies, and capacity for connection. In this profound conversation with Dr. Robert Mueller, we journey through the complex landscape of trauma therapy, examining both the protective role of avoidance and the human yearning to be truly seen and understood.

Dr. Muller shares his deeply personal connection to trauma work as a child of Holocaust survivors, revealing how his parents' experiences during childhood shaped not only their parenting but also his professional path. With remarkable candor, he articulates how his own anxieties around control and uncertainty continue to influence his clinical work, offering a refreshing glimpse into the very human experience of being a trauma therapist.

At the heart of our discussion lies a compassionate exploration of avoidance in trauma recovery. Dr. Muller introduces the concept of "trauma fragments" – those subtle disclosures that slip through otherwise protective defenses, signaling a readiness to process painful experiences. He offers practical insights for therapists navigating the delicate balance between honoring defenses and gently challenging them, emphasizing curiosity over confrontation as the pathway forward.

Perhaps most powerfully, Dr. Muller challenges the cultural pressure many trauma survivors face to forgive their perpetrators. He reframes forgiveness not as a virtuous endpoint but as a fluid process that may ebb and flow throughout one's healing journey. This perspective liberates survivors from the burden of toxic positivity, honoring the complexity of their experiences without demanding premature resolution.

Whether you're a therapist seeking to deepen your trauma-informed practice or someone on your own healing journey, this conversation offers a roadmap grounded in compassion, patience, and profound respect for the wisdom of our protective responses. As Dr. Muller reminds us, healing comes not from bypassing difficult emotions but from creating contexts where they can be safely felt, understood, and integrated into our life stories.

Episode Transcript

Lisa Danylchuk (00:19):
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(01:24):
Dissociation, the ISSTD, forsponsoring this episode.
If you've been listening tothis podcast for any amount of
time, you've heard me talk aboutISSTD and the incredible
researchers, clinicians andadvocates I've met during my
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howwecanhealcom/ The website ishowwecanhealcom Y4 T.
If you're feeling called tojoin us, I would love to welcome
you and support you through theprogram.
Welcome back to the how we CanHeal podcast.
Today, our guest is Dr Robert TMuller.

(03:58):
Dr Muller completed hispostdoctoral fellowship at
Harvard, was on faculty at theUniversity of Massachusetts and
is currently a professor at YorkUniversity in Toronto.
He's a fellow and member ofseveral scientific societies and
is the 2024 recipient of thePierre Genet Award for his
scholarship on trauma.
His most recent book, traumaand the Struggle to Open Up,

(04:20):
earned the 2019 Written MediaAward for the year's best
written work on trauma, and hisaward-winning bestseller Trauma
and the Avoidant Client has beentranslated widely.
His online magazine, the Traumaand Mental Health Report, has
over 100,000 readers annually.
He's lead investigator onseveral multi-site programs to

(04:42):
treat interpersonal trauma andhe lectures internationally.
With over 30 years in the field, he's still a practicing
clinician in Toronto.
Today we dive into the role ofattachment and avoidance in
trauma therapy and discuss thevery real challenges clinicians
and clients face on the path ofhealing.
We talk about forgiveness,toxic positivity and how his

(05:03):
parents' experiences in theHolocaust relate to the work he
does today.
I think you'll enjoy thishonest, nuanced conversation as
much as I did, so please join mein welcoming Dr Robert Muller
to the show.
Dr Robert Muller, great to haveyou on the how we Can Heal
podcast.
Thanks for being here today.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (05:23):
Fantastic, I'm really glad to be here too.

Lisa Danylchuk (05:27):
So you've written a few books that focus
on trauma, attachment andavoidance.
These are all topics I'd loveto dig into today, but first I'd
just love to get a sense of howyou got into this work.
How do we find ourselves astrauma therapists doing this
work, and what's your storythere?

Dr. Robert T. Muller (05:46):
So there's a story that I told myself
until my early 40s and then thestory that kind of became more
clear to me as my parents aged.
Do you want both of thosestories?

Lisa Danylchuk (05:58):
Sure, you can give us the Cliff Notes version
of the early version, and thenwe want the truth.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (06:11):
We always want the truth.
Yeah, the early version.
I thought I had a cooldissertation supervisor who I
loved and then got me into thefield and got me interested for
more intellectual reasons thananything else.
That's the Cliff Notes version.
It's not that interesting, butby the time I was already in my
mid to late 30s and already inthe field.
As my parents started aging, Ibegan to have more conversations

(06:31):
with them about theirchildhoods and in fact, what I
did now this is about 15 yearsago, so in my mid 40s mid to
late 40s is I interviewed bothmy parents, who were children
during the Holocaust, and so thereason this is relevant to
trauma is that they had a wealthof stories about what happened

(06:55):
to them during the period oftime that they were little kids
in Hungary.
Now they were Jewish and myfather was 10 years old and my
mother was seven and my father'sfather actually was murdered
during the Holocaust.
My mother's parents did not die, but my mother was separated

(07:17):
from her family for about ninemonths.
So both my parents.
She was seven years old and shewasn't told the reason.
She was just told okay, we needto hide you somewhere.
They didn't really say why shewas seven.
They didn't want to scare her,but she couldn't understand.
Why was she apart from herfamily?
And then, once she was hiddenby a woman who was Christian and

(07:37):
not at risk for anything, mymom at that point in time
realized after months that shehad no idea where were her
parents.
This was terrifying for her.
She felt completely abandoneduntil after the war when her dad
came and picked her up.
But honestly, there was almosta year there where she had no

(07:59):
idea if she would ever see herparents again, why her parents
weren't seeing her.
What was going on?
And then at some point she wastold you're Jewish, someone
could kill you.
Seven-year-old kid worried thatshe was going to get killed.
My father, his father, waskilled, as I mentioned.
His mother was taken away.
She didn't end up dying, sheended up escaping, actually my

(08:21):
father's mother.
So quite an amazing story inits own right.
So both my parents are traumasurvivors, the long and the
short of it, and both of themgrew up not as avoidant trauma
survivors.
So my first book is Trauma andthe Avoidant Client.
And my parents were not that.
My parents talked about theHolocaust absolutely and told a

(08:44):
lot of stories, but theycertainly were impacted, and
they were impacted severely inmany ways.
I mean, my father, for example,didn't really know how to like.
He was, you know, although hewas 10 when his father was
killed.
Even the years leading up tothat were very, very anxious
years.
So his father obviously, as youcan imagine, didn't spend a lot

(09:06):
of time playing with my dad.
My dad really didn't know howto play with us.
He really didn't have a senseof how to be a playful father.
He could be funny but notplayful, if you know what I mean
.
And so there was a way in whichI never really understood why
is my dad not more like otherdads?
Like it's so strange, hedoesn't really seem like other

(09:29):
dads.
And I went through therapy in mymid-20s but this wasn't the
main focus, or maybe I wasn'tready for it yet.
I think is probably more whatit is.
And so then, by the time I wasin my early to mid-40s, I became
much more interested in myparents' story.
Is I became much moreinterested in my parents' story?
I mean, I knew about it already.
I grew up with stories of theHolocaust, but it wasn't on my

(09:50):
mind, it wasn't something thatwas as meaningful to me and I
understood it in new ways atthat point in time, especially
once I interviewed them.
I actually wrote a more recent.
My parents wrote a memoir withme of their lives.
I mean I put it together forthem because their English
wasn't very good, becauseEnglish was the second language

(10:12):
for them, so I sort of put ittogether for them, but it's
their stories Anyway.
So that's really my story.
I mean, really I think it'sbeing a child of Holocaust
survivors, growing up withparents who lost their
childhoods, who struggled withabandonment, who didn't
understand, who struggled withtrust and the impact that had on

(10:34):
me.
I think that's really primarilywhy I'm interested in the field
of trauma loss, trauma,traumatic loss, all of that.

Lisa Danylchuk (10:43):
But I think that's a fairly honest answer
yeah, it sounds pretty real tome and I want to acknowledge the
loss within your family and theharm done in your family,
because that's a firsthand andvery difficult education of all
the layers of trauma and all thelayers and ripples of impact it
can have.

(11:03):
Because you're talking abouteven for a young kid
seven-year-old girl feeling and10 years old, being taken from
their family without knowing why, not knowing if their family's
okay, feeling threat for theirlife, directly knowing what's

(11:25):
going to happen.
You're talking about peoplelosing a sense of safety, people
losing a sense of connection,people losing that daily
interaction with family thathumans need and loss right and
actual death and loss and howthat impacts families and how

(11:45):
that impacts people and the factthat there's threat and real
violence in it too.
Right that it's not justhappenstance.
I know I've read your work andyou talk about.
I'm not focusing on naturaldisasters, I'm not focusing on
these types of accidents.
Your work is more responsive tothis relational trauma and this

(12:05):
harm done between people andwithin families and communities,
and I even hear the impacts ofwe might call it neglect, but
it's also of like needs notbeing possible to be met.
When you talk about your dad notbeing able to play.
It's like, okay, maybe thatcould translate as feeling a
sense of neglect, but when youtrack it you're like, well, that
makes sense.
And like it's not like yourdad's, like I'm not going to

(12:26):
play with you, right, it's avery real loss that we can trace
into the history and the storyof the trauma and something
that's just so important for, Ithink, all of us to remain aware
of, because the older I get,the more I'm like that wasn't
that long ago.
Like when you're a teenager inhigh school.
You're like whoa, 1970 was along time ago, right, but then

(12:48):
it's really not.
And there are plenty ofchallenges in our world today
that I think it's important thatwe're aware of why all these
stories are important.
So can you say the name of thememoir?
I wasn't aware of that.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (13:00):
Oh, the memoir is called From Hungary to
Canada.
The memoirs of Lewis and EvaMuller.

Lisa Danylchuk (13:06):
Interesting that and I'm sure many listeners
will be too, and thank you foryour honest answer and that
evolution that comes with.
Well, here's what I thought andthen here's what I learned about
myself in time.
I think that you talk a lot inyour writing about avoidance and
the potential protection ofavoidance, but even in between
the lines there, sometimes, likeyou just said, we're just not

(13:26):
ready or we're kind of puttingthe pieces together as we go
Like, oh, I'm just interested inthat for some reason.
Oh, that's the reason, right,we're sort of digging deeper
into ourselves, into our ownhistory, and I'm aware, as
you're talking too, of theevolution of our understanding
of trauma and the timing of that.
As you're growing up and asyou're learning these things
about your family, hearing thesestories, going to school,

(13:48):
studying and I don't know thateven 20, 30 years ago we were
talking about intergenerationaltrauma or we were talking in the
way that we are today.
I think there's even more thatwe'll continue to dig into.
So I'm curious for you when youlook at your work with
individuals, how has some of thepersonal awareness that's come

(14:10):
over time impacted the work thatyou do with clients or as a
teacher, as an author?

Dr. Robert T. Muller (14:17):
That's a good question.
It really cuts to the heart ofcounter-transference and what we
bring as therapists to thesituation.
I mean, I'll be very honest,I'm quite an anxious person.
I definitely struggle with myown anxieties and very often,
you know, I find that my wish tocontrol and my wish to manage

(14:43):
situations comes up a lot in mywork.
Sometimes clients will thinkthat I'm upset with them.
So trauma clients, as manytrauma therapists are aware,
have learned to become kind ofparent watchers and so too
they're therapist watchers.

(15:03):
They're careful.
They're often not everybody,but a good number of them are
very attentive to changes inyour demeanor, changes in your
emotional response, subtlechanges in your interest in
something versus something else,and it can be disconcerting and
they can worry that they'rewasting your time, that they're

(15:27):
no longer interesting, thatthey're being too needy.
These are all anxieties, thatkind of predisposition based on
their trauma history, theirtendency to be anxious about

(15:48):
whether or not they're wastingmy time or their problems are
big enough or warrant myprecious time, that kind of
thing.
Sometimes they'll misconstruesomething that's going on for me
as me being upset with them, nolonger being interested in them
, thinking that they're sayingsomething silly, et cetera, et

(16:08):
cetera.
And really, when, most of thetime that happens, I'm just
responding to some internalstimuli and they will project
onto me some kind of worry thatI'm somehow, that I have some
sort of negative feeling towardthem and it may be more
something like oh, oh, I'mworried about this person, or oh

(16:31):
, I'm worried, are they going tobe okay, or I'm worried about
something, and there's oh, I'mgoing to let them go and are
they going to be safe, andthere's a kind of a you know
stuff going through my own headof some kind of anxiety.
But it has to do with lettingthem go and not having control
over their situation and beingable to let go of.
For me, let go of that controland say, okay, they're an adult

(16:55):
in their adult life and they'regoing to make the choices they
make.
And some of those choices wouldnot be the choices I would make
and may very well beproblematic.
And I can't control it, I can'tdo anything to necessarily fix
it.
Obviously, in time, with goodtherapy, people do learn, come
to a place where they makebetter choices or they make

(17:16):
choices that are healthier orbetter for them personally.
But it can take a.
It can.
In that meantime there can beall kinds of standing on the
sidelines as they're doingthings that I think it's not a
good idea and I'm stressed outabout it and I'm responding to

(17:38):
my own lack of control ratherthan judging them or thinking
that they're a bad person oranything like that.
So I sometimes find that myanxieties and those kind of
facts and I can trace thatabsolutely back to my parents I
mean, yeah, my parents weresuper control freaks.
I mean like a hundred percent.

Lisa Danylchuk (17:55):
Which also understandable given their
context right.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (17:59):
A hundred percent understandable, and yet
it was very annoying to me as akid and impactful, yeah it has.

Lisa Danylchuk (18:05):
Oh, I can have compassion for that.
I see where it came from.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (18:07):
It's still happening, right, it's still
happening, it's yeah, exactly um100, so but yeah and so that
that then sometimes comes out inmy, in my work absolutely and I
think many therapists wouldalso connect with.

Lisa Danylchuk (18:23):
Maybe it's in different circumstances, but it
makes me think of when you havea client who's self-harming or
suicidal or in an abusiverelationship and I know you
share case studies about this inyour work too where maybe
they're coming in for therapyonce a week and they're going
back home and being harmed andoutside of mandatory reporting

(18:48):
being harmed and outside ofmandatory reporting.
There's nothing we can do ifsomeone's in that place.
So that can feel very difficult, even if we're taking off the
layer of feeling like oh, myparents showed up this way and I
feel like I really want to havecontrol.
I think most healthprofessionals mental health
professionals want to have apositive impact, want that to be
fast, right, it can take somuch time and I've worked with

(19:13):
people in harmful relationshipsfor years and years and years
and it's challenging to say okay, you know, I'll see you next
time and I hope you're okay.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (19:22):
Exactly this, particularly with domestic
violence and or with caseswhere there's a partner who is
not necessarily living with theperson but comes by and then has
some kind of interaction withthe children, or a child If
there's a little kid in thesituation, it's really
unbelievably stressful, andespecially if it's not a

(19:47):
mandatory reporting situation.
So it's not.
It's not like you like.
Sometimes some of these thingsare reportable, of course, but
some things aren't, and you knowthis is just really a bad
situation.
There's no mandatory reportthat I need to do or should do.
I have to protectconfidentiality in this
particular case, and yet this isnot optimal.
This is not a good situationfor this child, for this person,

(20:09):
and it's very stressful.

Lisa Danylchuk (20:13):
And I think you're a parent as well.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (20:15):
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, and a grandparent.

Lisa Danylchuk (20:18):
Yeah.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (20:19):
Yeah, so my, my granddaughter turned one
a couple months ago and her momis 31.
So I can't believe I actuallyhave a 31-year-old.
That feels really weird, but Ido yeah, yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (20:35):
And when you talk about parenting and
transference andcountertransference, and two
boys.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (20:40):
So my daughter is 31.
Don't want to forget that.

Lisa Danylchuk (20:42):
You have to acknowledge I have to.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (20:44):
I have twin sons who are 29,.
Twin boys Wow yeah both of whomare studying to be clinical
psychologists.
Look at that Apples landingclose to the tree, yeah.

Lisa Danylchuk (20:57):
I'm sorry I cut you off.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (20:58):
You had a question.

Lisa Danylchuk (21:00):
My question was just, or my comment was just.
When you talk aboutcountertransference and young
kids or young childlike parts,even that can evoke even more.
I think, if you are in the rolein your personal life as a
parent, because you know therecan be some neurons and wires
crossed around oh my God, ifthis were happening to my child,

(21:22):
like what would I do and whatwould I need to do?
So I just, of course, we're allwired differently and things
will impact us in different ways.
But I just want to acknowledgethat piece of it too, that when
we're working with thatvulnerability of youth and
there's limitations to how muchwe can do from a legal sense or
an even ethical sense, it can bereally hard to let go right, to

(21:45):
not have control.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (21:47):
Yeah, for sure, and there are definitely.
I used to do a lot more.
I'm trained both in adult andchild therapy and most of my
trauma work, especially my books, are really with working with
adult populations.
But back in the day, when mykids were younger, I used to do
a lot more child therapy.
I did some play therapy.

(22:08):
I still do family therapy and Istill work sometimes with
adolescents.
But, boy, when my kids wereyounger, there were a number of
situations.
Sometimes you know the sort ofstruggle with feeling, sometimes
even just guilt.
You know, here I am doing playtherapy with this kid and my.
My kids are in daycare rightnow.

(22:30):
It's sort of a feeling like Ifeel I felt a little guilty
sometimes but for sure,especially when there are
parenting issues and you'reworking with little kids and
they're so vulnerable yeah.
Especially when there's trauma.
My students and I did a programa few years back looking at
trauma therapy, so it wasphase-based trauma therapy

(22:52):
across Toronto.
It was quite a large study.
It was a multi-site study andwe were looking at trauma
therapy among kids from ages 7to 12.
And we found that therapistsreally struggled.
You know the therapists in our.
You know we had about 10therapists on our team doing

(23:13):
treatment at different sites.
We found that they reallystruggled with the question of
talking to children about theirtrauma.
There was this fear, thisanxiety will we re-traumatize
them?
And of course there are allkinds of techniques and there
are all kinds of do's and don'tsfor how you talk to children

(23:34):
about their trauma and there arebetter and worse ways and there
are ways that you know goodexperienced trauma therapists
understand in terms of how tocreate the safety, the sense of
safety in the relationship andthen how to ask questions
without leading children butgiving space for them to give

(23:56):
responses that they believe tobe true and that come from an
honest place in themselves.
So there are better and worsetechniques, of course, but by
and large kids did not getre-traumatized by talking about
their trauma.
So as long as they had a goodtherapist who was experienced,

(24:17):
who got training in traumatherapy.
So I always say to folks youcan't just do trauma therapy if
you're a therapist who's neverdone trauma therapy.
You need supervision.
There are do's and don'ts.
There are things that are, ofcourse, are very similar about
just plain old goodpsychotherapy, but then there
are things that are definitelydifferent and that you need to

(24:39):
get to understand, becauseclients do react differently
when they have a trauma historyand kind of what's a typical
kind of reaction is differentthan with clients who don't have
trauma history.
So you really do need to payclose attention and get the
training.
But if you have the training, ifyou have that training, then it

(24:59):
doesn't actually traumatizechildren to talk about their
trauma.
In fact, children found ithelpful.
So in our study we published anumber of articles in really
good trauma journals childjournals, trauma journals,
psychotherapy journals across anumber of different.
Uniformly we found and we arenot unique in this, by the way,

(25:22):
we're not the only ones whofound this Typically what
researchers are finding eventhis is we are not unique in
this, by the way, we're not theonly ones who found this
Typically what researchers arefinding, even with kids, is that
when people have a chance totalk about it, when kids have a
chance to talk about it, theyfeel better.
They feel understood, they feelthey had a place.
They feel like they're notweird or crazy.
They feel like they're not, youknow, the only person who ever
felt this way in the history ofthe world.

(25:44):
They feel that they're allowedto talk about it, that they
deserve to talk about it.
Lots of good things that comewith it.

Lisa Danylchuk (25:53):
And it fits right into a theme that comes up
in a lot of interviews herearound the avoidance side of
just oh well, we can never talkabout it across the board, right
, not only internal avoidance,but the collective and social
avoidance that can come and thatthere can be many layers to
that.
And then the flip side of it,which is like dive right in and
get swallowed by the trauma andeveryone's in the trauma and

(26:16):
nobody knows which way is up.
And I think when you talk aboutthat skill in trauma therapy,
we're aware of those ends of thespectrum and we're trying to
thread a unique path for thatindividual, knowing their
circumstances best we can.
We're never going to knoweverything, but in a knowing the
context of maybe what they'vebeen through, of their family
system, maybe their attachmentstyle If we can know that I know

(26:38):
you do the adult attachmentinterview with a lot of your
clients just having a sense ofthe culture around them, all
that stuff, and then being ableto find an opening right when
these painful experiences can,you know, just like, at a
certain point a wound needs someair.
You don't keep a bandage onforever.
At a certain point we cover it,we tend to it, we put the right

(27:00):
salves on it or whatever, andthen we let it breathe and
ideally, in the context oftrauma, we're letting that
breathe in a healthy, supportive, safe enough space, relational
space, where then it can becomeintegrated.
So it's not this locked box ofoh, we can't talk about that

(27:22):
ever.
Nobody ever asked me about it.
It seems like it's taboo, itseems like something bad's going
to happen if I revisit it, butit's also not spilling all over
right.
The trauma therapy can be thecontainment and the support that
allows even really young peopleto work through what's happened
or what's happening in theirlives, and I think that is such

(27:43):
an important point and it speaksto so many of the things you
talk about in your work aroundattachment, right Around the
protective role of avoidance,but also around the importance
of the relationship and thatresponsiveness.
I'm wondering if you couldspeak to a little bit of what
we're talking.
How and when do we know when topush forward, when to pull back

(28:14):
?
What are some of the things,maybe specific to attachment
styles or some sort ofguideposts or signals that you
found in your work?

Dr. Robert T. Muller (28:30):
And it's a really tough thing, kind of
looking at how to navigate thetwo ends of the spectrum.
On one hand, clients arecarrying this horrible burden
that is often a secret, that ispainful, that has tormented them
for many, many years, that theyhaven't really been able to

(28:51):
talk to people about.
On the other hand, it's workedto do that and opening up too
quickly.
Maybe they've tried talking tosomeone at some point in their
life and very often have notbeen met with a great response.
Either you know people tryingto be nice and saying, oh yeah,

(29:11):
well, everybody goes through.
You know, listen, parents spanktheir kids, it's, I'm sure
you're okay, that kind of thing.
And then the person you knowmaybe it's with the best of
intentions that people aretrying to normalize it or make
the person feel like they're notweird or it's not a big deal,
but ends up happening is thatthe person just feels crazy.
It's like okay, yeah, well, ifit's normal, why do I feel like

(29:34):
I'm awful, like why do I feellike I'm a terrible person?
And so it's.
You know they avoid talkingabout it as a way of coping, but
it's this horrible burden thatthey want to share.
So how do you navigate that andI do have in the book.
I talk a little bit about thoseclients who want to like, rush
into oversharing and then thoseother clients who avoid, never

(29:58):
want to talk about, and how tonavigate between those two,
those two poles, and I've got anumber of techniques for how to
how to really look at that.
But I will say as a generalprinciple that one of the things
to look for as a therapist soif you're working with trauma
clients is to bear in mind theidea that clients, even clients

(30:20):
who avoid and hold on to theirpain, it's not like they have
these walls that are impermeable.
The walls that they put up arediffuse, the walls that they put
up are leaky, and so thingscome out at various points of
time in their lives.
Things come out during times ofphysical illness, death of a

(30:41):
family member, developmentalchanges you know, points of
growth and points of challengeand crisis and high stress,
especially attachment stress,relationship stress.
These can lead people to havedifficulty, kind of keeping
those defenses fully intact andthose defenses leak.

(31:03):
And especially when you starttherapy and you have a kind,
empathic person in front of youand you've been holding this,
carrying this bloody burdenaround, that's a heavy, it's a
secret, it's awful, and you'vegot this nice person in front of
you.
You know there's a sort of ayearning.

(31:24):
John Bowlby talked about theavoidant individual's yearning
underneath the surface to wantto share, to want to be seen, to
want to be known, to want to beempathized with, and so people
will drop trauma fragments alongthe way.
So that's a term that's used inthe literature is trauma

(31:44):
fragments, and trauma fragmentsare those little bits of
trauma-related messages thatpeople are not even conscious of
that they're saying, butthey're there if you listen for
them.
So the person might act as ifeverything's okay, but they'll
say little things along the waythat sound like, hmm, everything

(32:07):
doesn't really sound so okay,as maybe this person thinks it
does, and there are someexamples in the book.
But if you think about theindividual who might be the
jokester, the person who youknow oh, it was just a joke, I
was just kidding, but you knowthe old adage there's truth in
jest If you're listeningcarefully.

(32:27):
This person just joked aroundabout how funny it is that.
You know, in the seventies,parents used to always beat
their kids.
You know we would.
We were all screaming and wewere all.
You know it was crazy, but youknow, yeah, parents today
they're all helicopter parents.
Ha ha, ha, ha ha.
So funny.
You don't have to.
You just have to scratch a tinylittle bit below the surface to
see it's not so funny.

(32:47):
There's pain under that, and sothat's an example.
Now that's maybe a little moreof an obvious example, but if
you listen to your clients andyou're sort of open to the idea
that avoidant individualsactually have leaky defenses,
then you can really prettyquickly see those, especially if

(33:09):
you ask about and you'recurious about, attachment
related issues.
So questions like you know, didanybody ever know what was your
relationship with yourgrandparents like when they
passed away?
How did your family deal withthat?
And the person tells you astory.
Oh, yeah, you know, grandma,she was fantastic, but yeah,
funerals aren't a place for alittle kid.

(33:30):
So, no, I wasn't allowed to goto the funeral.
And then that doesn't quite addup.
This person loved theirgrandparent wasn't allowed to go
to the funeral.
What's going on here?
You know, you start to thingsdon't add up and you begin to
get a sense that there are thesetrauma fragments underneath.
You know, richard Schwartzwould call the manager parts and

(33:50):
all you have to.
If you're trained in IFS,absolutely, you're trained to
listen for the presence of partsother than just the way the
person leads, with maybe theirprotectors or managers, but
rather they have these morevulnerable parts in the
background.
Let's say so.
You're listening for that, alsolistening for ambivalence,
because you know, like I said,there's a yearning, 's a

(34:12):
yearning.
All people ultimately want tobe understood, want to be,
especially people who come totherapy.
They're coming because thingsaren't working so well.
And so the clients they'resaying to you directly things
are not working.
You know, whatever way I wasdealing with things by drinking
or by porn addiction or by youname it one thing or the other

(34:36):
it's not working for me anymoreand my life isn't going so
smoothly as it once was.
My workaholism, whatever it isthat I was using to deal with my
life it ain't working so goodanymore, so I need help.
And so that kind of personalready is coming from a place
of a certain amount ofvulnerability.
And so that kind of personalready is coming from a place
of a certain amount ofvulnerability, even if they're a

(34:56):
defensive person, even if theyare saying, well, I don't need
any help, well, they're in youroffice.
So in part they're saying Idon't need any help, but in part
they're saying I do need help,maybe not verbally saying it,
but their presence there andtheir willingness to pay you is
saying they need help.
So something's going on here.
And so, noticing theambivalence, noticing the mixed

(35:17):
messages, noticing that part ofthem that, despite the part that
says pushes you away, thatthere's a part that's saying
help me, I need to be understood, and listening for messages
there that that person's giving,maybe a little unbeknownst to
them, and being curious aboutthem.
Not pointing them out in anembarrassed way, not saying, oh
well, you're saying this, butyou're saying this, I think you
really do want help.

(35:38):
No, that's too obvious.
That's something Dr Phil woulddo.
No, it doesn't work in reallife, but listening carefully to
subtle messages and beingcurious.
Again a curiosity being curiousabout Now.
You mentioned that funeralswere no place for little kids.
Kyle, is that something youthink now or is that something

(36:00):
that you thought as a kid?
And Kyle says oh well, that wassomething my parents told me,
okay.
And now that you're an adultand you have kids of your own,
do you agree, disagree, how doyou feel about that?
And so I mean, I don't know howKyle will respond to that, but
you're being curious about thisthing.
That sounds like it's actuallya source of pain and

(36:21):
vulnerability.
And then you're seeing wherethey go.
How much anxiety can the clientbear?
You for a bit, they may thenput up a wall and say, no, we're
changing the subject here.
And okay, they changed thesubject.
That's okay, we can get back tothat.
But you pay attention to it,you notice it, you pay attention
to that ambivalence, you payattention to those trauma

(36:42):
fragments and you might be ableto find a thematically similar
moment to come back to that in alater session, or maybe even
later that same session.
So that's the kind of thing youdo.
There's a bit of an art or acraft to it, but that's kind of
how I work with folks who arecoming in with that kind of
avoidant presentation, despiteactually, you know, as a

(37:05):
therapist, oh, this person's thepermeability of defenses.

Lisa Danylchuk (37:07):
Those can go hand in hand.
Something else you highlight inyour book is and you just
talked about humor when peopledeflect something painful with
humor but also enactments, andI'm thinking about the blur
between those two when maybe aclient says something and makes

(37:29):
a joke of something very painful, and there's a moment for you
sitting with them and this couldeven happen between friends,
right when your friend sayssomething oh, that time where
you know somebody tried to punchme in the face or I got hurt or
somebody tried to kill me, haha ha.
It's like that's actuallyreally serious.
And the moment of almostdecision or reaction time of how

(37:53):
do you respond to that, do you?
Ha ha ha.
Yeah, and you give the examplein your book of a case where
someone says oh, my mom tried toabort me, right?
Ha ha ha.
That's a big piece ofpotentially painful information.
And what does someone do in thepresence of that laughter?
Are you pulled into laughingalong, are you?

(38:16):
Do you see, right?
There's these moments where evensomething as subtle or
challenging as staying connectedto your experience of what's
happening or of processing allthe information that's coming at
you from another human being,this person's laughing, but
they're saying something reallypainful, like how do I feel?

(38:36):
Do I think it's funny?
Do I not think it's funny?
Am I connected in myself to howpainful that is?
Can I respond to them and goooh, ouch, or do I just laugh
and five minutes, five secondslater go wait, I don't think
that's actually funny.
There's just these momentswhere I think this happens all
the time.
I mean, I see people coping withhumor publicly, even, you know,

(38:58):
like a host on a show or right,just making light of really
hard things, and I think we needhumor a hundred percent and
it's a way to cope and it's away to share information.
That's still sort of protected,right, someone just learned
something about you.
But there's also a way that inin groups or in culture, we can,
we can go into avoidancetogether, right, we can do this

(39:22):
sort of dance, this enactment oflike oh, you don't want to go
there, so I'm not going to gothere, ha ha, ha, moving on, and
I think there's an opportunityfor healing in that.
And there's no one right mapfor it, right, it's not like
don't ever laugh with, alwaysbring up the pain, like no,
that's not what I'm saying, butthere's something so interesting
in that permeability and thatvulnerability that comes up in

(39:46):
the dance that we can do aroundit, and even the way that it's
held in larger awareness andculture right way that it's held
in larger awareness and culture.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (39:58):
Right, yeah, I totally agree, and it's
challenging in a given situationbecause I think that simply
saying go for the underlyingemotion come hell or high water,
well, no, that's notnecessarily the elegant thing to
do.
There is such a thing as timingin therapy.
There is such a thing, and it'simportant having the
relationship build in a certainway.

(40:19):
There's also navigating what'scalled the real relationship,
which is the everyday, normalway in which you act with
somebody, with you being atherapist and having the
therapist role.
And you know the client comesin and says to you and even
though you were working onsomething very, very difficult

(40:42):
that's unrelated for many, manyweeks, you know, let's say,
you're a CBT therapist.
The person comes in and says Ifound out this week, my grandma
just died.
The normal thing to do is to,you know, not say, well, let's
stop and set an agenda fortoday's session.
No, the normal thing to do isto say, oh, I'm so sorry, you
know.
Like, how are you doing?

(41:03):
You know, just a normalresponse.
Sometimes we just need to benormal people and respond very
naturally.
But it's tricky with clients whoare very avoidant and they use
humor as a defense, you couldget drawn into doing that all
the time.
And so how do you navigate ashift from simply being a

(41:25):
regular everyday person towardthey're not paying you just to
be an everyday, regular person.
They're actually coming tosessions because they need
something different, they needyou to be different and they
need you to challenge them.
And so how do you do that, anddo it artfully, in a way that
doesn't throw them, you know,for a loop, because you've

(41:46):
challenged their defenses morethan they can handle, but then
also does challenge them so thatthey're able to make change in
therapy.
Therapy has to be about,ultimately, about something
different Growth, development,change in symptoms, whatever it
is.
Different modalities havedifferent theories of change,
but ultimately, all therapy isabout some kind of change, even

(42:09):
if that change is acceptingthings as they are and in a way
that you can live with.
That's also a change.
So, yeah, navigating that stuff, I call in both my books well,
both my therapy books Trauma andthe Avoidant Client and Trauma
and the Struggle to Open Up, andboth of them I refer to that
idea as mutual avoidance, wherethe therapist

(42:30):
counter-transference getstriggered.
The parts in the therapist thatare avoidant connect to parts
in the client and you may spendlong periods of time tap dancing
around something, afraid totalk about it because it's too
scary, and the cost of that isthat you communicate to the

(42:52):
client this trauma of yours.
It's bigger than the both of us.

Lisa Danylchuk (42:56):
Yeah.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (42:57):
I can't handle your trauma and
ultimately therapy will fail,the client will leave.
The client will feel that thetherapist can't, even if the
therapist is sort of intendingat some point to get to it.
But the dawdling around thatmay push the client away,
because the client ultimately,as Bowlby said, wants to be

(43:20):
understood, which means if theyhave a trauma history it does
need to be seen, it does need tobe addressed, it needs to be
taken seriously and workedthrough somehow.
So it's very tricky and findinga way to kind of walk that
tightrope and build safety andask about the trauma history as

(43:41):
you work through and build thatsafety.

Lisa Danylchuk (43:44):
Yeah.
It just makes me think of thisclient who you know, worked with
for years and so many layers totheir experience and trauma
history, and who activelydisclosed trauma to me while
saying I can't say anything elseabout this, don't ask me
anything more, but I want tojust allude to something and

(44:05):
you're going to understand whatI'm saying, but I don't want to
ever talk about it like in onelong sentence and I'm just like
okay.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (44:12):
Yeah, I've gotten that too Right.

Lisa Danylchuk (44:13):
Yeah, like we, we don't want to just be in
avoidance or collude in that andnever get there.
And when someone's putting up ahand and or giving us a really
strong signal that they're notready, like okay.
And then going back to what wetalked about earlier in terms of
control or in terms of wantingprogress, in terms of knowing
that, oh, at some pointaddressing this is going to be

(44:33):
so healing for you.
But when folks aren't feelingresourced enough and we're
noticing that too, right, likeokay, yeah, maybe this is too
much to unpack right now.
It's just so much to continueto hold right, it's so much
awareness to continue to hold.
Like okay, now I know even moreabout your trauma history.
You just added a piece that Ididn't even know for 10 years
and, okay, that fits and thatmakes sense.

(44:55):
I'm honored that you share itwith me and you're also telling
me don't ever bring up that.
I told you that essentially,like okay, can I take a breath?
Do therapists get to get abathroom break in the middle of
a session?
I just need to collect myselfbefore I come back in here.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (45:16):
Right, right, I, I.
I find that whenconceptualizing those kind of
mixed messages, which that's,that's a classic, it's a great
example, it's, it's, it's real.
I mean, it sounds almost likesomething you'd see in a movie,
but I can say absolutely thatexact thing has been said to me.

(45:37):
Yes, several times I've hadsupervisees who say the same
thing.
So, yeah, that's a real example, that is a thing that people do
.
Yes, I find that it's helpfulto use the perspective of parts
of self.
Especially when you get mixedmessages like that, parts of
self can come up very quicklyand I'm not necessarily saying

(46:00):
that this person has multiplepersonality disorder or anything
like that.
In regular everyday folks you,me, everybody we all have
different ways of us being us.
We all have different parts toour personalities, us being us.
We all have different parts toour personalities.
Some might call it personas.
Jung called it a persona,Richard Schwartz calls it parts,
other therapists Ego states.

(46:23):
Ego states, self states.
Different people have differentlanguage for it and that's all
fine, but the idea being that wehave different, very sometimes
ambivalently held, verypowerfully ambivalently held
feelings, desires, impulses, andit's really helpful to unpack
the part of the person that verymuch feels that they don't want

(46:46):
to ever talk about it and thepart of that person who felt
they had to tell you thatbecause they didn't have to tell
you that, because they didn'thave to tell you that.
And I may not necessarily, inthat session, say anything, but
I would certainly come back toit.
So the kind of person who sayssomething like that, I might say
okay, message loud and clear inthat particular session,

(47:10):
because I feel like in thatmoment that you're describing it
, the person is testing thewaters a little bit.
If I tell you this, will youpush me?
Will I feel safe?
And I think it probably makessense to say I'm not going to
push you, let's keep it safe forthe moment.
I get it and kind of okay, yeah, I'll respect your boundaries.
I don't know if the nextsession, but I wouldn't let 12

(47:33):
sessions pass.
I would at some point,especially when it's
thematically relevant, to do so,especially if the person drops
another little trauma message.
Oh yeah, this was that thingthat I said to you about.
That I don't want to ever talkabout, and I might like Judy,
it's interesting, this is thesecond time you've told me about
that thing that you don't everwant to talk about, and I

(47:54):
believe absolutely that there isa really strong part of you
that never wants to talk aboutit.
And then I'm also hearing thatthere's something that's not
sitting quite right for youeither and that maybe in some
kind of way I'm not sure howthis would look.
I'm not even sure if we'regoing to do this today or

(48:15):
tomorrow, I'm not sure when, butI kind of wonder if at some
point there is something thatyou kind of do need to talk
about on that issue.
I don't know.
So I'm being very tentativethere, but I find that people
you know almost always will veryquickly connect to that and and

(48:37):
okay, well, I'll tell you, orsomething.

Lisa Danylchuk (48:40):
Or come to the next session like let's go.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (48:43):
It doesn't take that much.
Very often it almost just takesalmost me recognizing the
reality there for them to then,and then I almost need to slow
things down as well, becauserecognizing that simply telling
at that point might feel likeit's too much, because there's
the part of them that wants tohold back.
So, you know, helping theperson and I do talk about this

(49:05):
in trauma and the struggle toopen up, how to help someone who
comes in wanting to overshare,to slow the process down so that
they don't end up feelinghumiliated and ashamed, so
that's a whole process as well,kind of again, you know, like so
it doesn't feel like they'redriving this car down the
highway at 200 miles an hourkind of thing.
Oh my God, I never intended totalk about this.

(49:27):
And now you know and this istotally out of control now
helping the person sort of slowit all down so that it feels
like it's a process that you canpace with them.
It's tricky.

Lisa Danylchuk (49:41):
Yeah, it really is too, because I've absolutely
experienced that where theslowing down feels invalidating
and then you're like, okay, so Iwant to validate where you are.
I don't want to call the fastpace, the spilling, wrong or bad
.
I also want and trying toexplain all of that and what
you're right in the moment,trying to make decisions on your
feet, it can be a lot.

(50:01):
So I'm really grateful forclinicians and people like you
where we can reflect on thesethings and get consultation and
just try to find the best pathforward for each individual
client, where we're holdingspace for those painful things
that sometimes do take time butwe don't want to collude in
avoidance with and trying tofind that artful, real way of

(50:25):
relating to this person in a waythat's supportive for them, in
a way where you know it's notjust spinning around the same
thing again and again or it'snot spilling over and then
feeling embarrassed or shamefuland it's also not ever being
able to broach the big reason orthing that is really at the

(50:46):
root of a lot of current life.
Challenges.
So it's quite an art right.
Challenges so it's quite an artright.
It does require a lot ofawareness and attention and
intention and curiosity right.
Coming back to that as well,there is one other thing I
wanted to ask you before we wrap, because you talk about
forgiveness and forcedforgiveness, the forced

(51:09):
forgiveness that peoplesometimes feel pressure towards
from other people in theircommunities.
Do you see that as a largercultural avoidance, as a larger
cultural discomfort with thecomplexities of trauma or with
the pain and the not being quoteready for forgiveness?

(51:31):
Right, like wanting to movethrough to resolution because
being in the impact of the harmdone is too much, even for a
bystander.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (51:41):
Yeah, I do , I sure do.
I think that.
So my writing on forgivenessgenerally is related to the idea
that some people especially I'mcoming from a place of working
with trauma survivors that manytrauma survivors feel a pressure
to forgive.
Sometimes they feel it throughfriends and family, it through

(52:08):
friends and family.
You know, your husband diedthree years ago.
I guess that's not a greatexample of forgiveness, that's
kind of a let it go kind ofexample.
But let's say your husbandcheated on you three years ago
and you've been separated fortwo years now.
Can't you just forgive?
Can't you just let it go?
Can't you just that sort ofthing?
And you know it's not for me totell someone whether they should

(52:30):
or shouldn't forgive.
That's a values issue that cutsto the question of what people
feel is right and wrong andmoral and ethical and all of
that.
And those are all personalchoices.
So it's never for me to tellsomeone whether they should or
shouldn't.
Never for me to tell someonewhether they should or shouldn't
.
But what is important as atrauma therapist is when I find
that people are responding tooutside pressures and aren't

(52:53):
able to give their own voicespace.
That's when it is actually aproblem for them in their
everyday life and they feelstupid and they feel angry and
they don't understand what'swrong with them.
What's wrong with me that Ican't?
Yet my friend Joanne, herhusband, cheated on her only six

(53:14):
months ago and she's gottenover it.
What's wrong with me?
That kind of social comparisonyou name it Friends, children,
who are sick and tired ofhearing you whine about
something that happened to you acouple years ago, like why
can't you just let it go already?
And that kind of language, sothe kind of toxic positivity

(53:34):
language that is very common inour culture, which comes from a
very important placehistorically.
It comes ultimately from thepositive thinking movement and
that's not CBT.
The positive thinking movementis really from the early 20th
century.
It's an old movement and someof it comes from Christian

(53:56):
writers, but not exclusively.
This isn't a dig againstChristian writers.
Some of it comes from popularwriters of the early 20th
century.
It's got a number of differentroots and it can be perceived or
felt as helpful to some peopleand that's fine.
If you connect with that andthat works for you, great.

(54:19):
That's not a criticism of whatworks for any one person, but I
will say that for many traumasurvivors.
It's really, really problematic.
So I work with people who havesuffered at the hands of
relationships that have beenvery damaging to them, and what
I find they need is to beunderstood, to be heard, to be

(54:42):
listened to and to have a chancefor their pain to be worked
through.
And then, when they do that andthey can find a place to grieve
the losses, then some of themwill forgive and some of them
won't.
And what I talk about in thebook is the idea in trauma and
the struggle to open up.
I talk about the idea thatforgiveness can be a process.

(55:05):
You can forgive elements ofwhat happened.
You can decide to forgive andchange your mind.
You don't have to stick with it, and you can be curious about
that.
That's so interesting.
In my 20s I forgave my uncle forwhat he did, but now I'm not
feeling so forgiving.
I'm wondering what's going onthere, because forgiveness can
be a process.

(55:26):
That happens at different timesin your development.
It can be an up and down kindof thing.
If you think of forgiveness asan emotion like anything else,
you know there's a time andplace for anger, there's a time
and place for sadness, there's atime and place for happiness.
There's a time and place foreverything, right?
Why can't it be the same forforgiveness?

(55:47):
If we think of it as a process,maybe it's not technically an
emotion, but a subjectiveexperience, let's say, and a mix
of perception and emotion.
If we can think of it that wayand the word has meaning to all
of us we all know what it means.
But if we think of it as aprocess rather than as a virtue,

(56:10):
then it can give us space touse a developmental perspective
and to say how does this go upand down in different ways in
our lives?
You don't have to make adecision that stands forever.
You can be curious.
You can be curious about whatyou're feeling and that I find

(56:31):
is really helpful to clients,because then they oh okay, so
you mean, I don't have toforgive my husband for the
affair from three years ago andI say to them what do you feel
toward your husband?
Well, I feel this, I feel this,I feel this.
Okay, those are your feelings.
Let's see what happens withforgiveness.
Be curious about it.

(56:51):
I'm not saying you should orshouldn't Pay attention to it.
If it comes to you over thenext while that we're working
together, interesting.
If it doesn't.
What does that say about you?
What does that mean?
Let's just be curious and beopen to you, experiencing
whatever you experience.
That just opens the door forpeople and it relieves the

(57:14):
burden and they're able to moveforward in their lives.
It's very helpful.
So, that's how I work In termsof cultural connection,
absolutely.
There's so much pressure toforgive the ills and to not make
a big deal out of it.
It's interesting as a Canadian.
The Indigenous population inCanada suffered from the

(57:39):
Indigenous school system whichwas created by the church in the
early 20th century, and many,many children indigenous
children were taken from theirfamilies and put into school
systems and actually many ofthem were killed.
So that might seem like abizarre.
How could that even happen?
But it absolutely did happenand there's all kinds of

(58:02):
scandals that are now coming outabout how horrible that was.
They were mistreated physicallyand sexually, etc.
Etc.
So, without going into too muchdetail, canada is in the midst
of a process of reconciliation,if you will, restorative justice
, if you will.
How to do that?

(58:23):
How to talk about forgiveness,apology and forgiveness.
So Canada is kind of in themiddle of this and has been for
several years.
But that's just Canada.
I'm speaking from the countrythat I happen to live in.
We all have our crosses to bearand it's important that when a
trauma has been done to a groupof people, that it be

(58:45):
acknowledged, taken seriously,that there be some kind of
restorative justice if possible.
So I think that it's a veryimportant issue culturally
globally.

Lisa Danylchuk (58:56):
Absolutely.
And when there's collectiveharm done and it's
intergenerational and it's goneeven a few generations down the
line, people can say, well, Ididn't do that, so why are you
upset at me?
It's like, well, can we back upand go?
Well, why are they upset?
Because it happens right,because someone was killed,
because populations wereslaughtered, like acknowledging

(59:18):
that, rather than why are youmad at me?
Well, you're mad and I'm therepresentation of the people who
did that and that makes a lotof sense and I can have empathy
for that.
And yeah, it might beuncomfortable to not feel
kumbaya connected, but we can'tforce that.
You can't just say, oh well,let's get to the other side of

(59:40):
this really harmful, horrible,awful thing that happened.
Whether it's trauma therapistssitting with client, or it's
trauma therapist sitting withclient, or it's us collectively
out in the community trying tohave institutional courage or
trying to practice resilienceacross generations.
Still, there can be difficultand painful emotions that are a
part of that process, and so Iappreciate your naming Also the

(01:00:04):
toxic positivity that can comeinto that common thing I still
see people share the thought ofyou know I was holding onto this
and so it was a poison withinme and so I forgive so that I
don't hold the poison and theother.
You know, like I don't know ifyou've seen that type of
messaging and I get that andagain, kind of like the

(01:00:25):
positivity, if you feel that andit's working for you and it's
making you feel free and lighterand better in your life, okay.
But if someone else is readingthat as a message of, well, I
need to forgive because there'spoison in me.
I mean that folds into thiswhole like cleanse yourself free
of toxins thing.
That can also come up.
That's a little extreme.

(01:00:45):
So I appreciate thatacknowledgement as well.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (01:00:49):
Yeah, yeah , it's also really in an age of
disinformation, it's also reallyimportant.
I'll just say one brief littlething and just say that you know
, as a child of Holocaustsurvivors, how important it is
for me personally to recognizethe ills of the past and not to
get into covering up the illsthat are happening in the

(01:01:13):
present to others who aresuffering.
So but I think, well, I'll just, I'll leave it at that and just
, yeah, I'll just leave it atthat.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:01:22):
And for some reason, I just grabbed my arm
and the thumbs up emoji showedup on the screen.
I am in agreement, but that'snot the way I meant to
communicate it.
Oh my God.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (01:01:31):
I didn't see the thumbs up emoji.
How do?

Lisa Danylchuk (01:01:33):
I turn that off, zoom.
Well, robert, I want to thankyou for being here today, for
sharing your personal history,everything, some of what you've
learned along the way and sharedthrough your books, everything
some of what you've learnedalong the way and shared through
your books, definitely sharethe links to those resources in
the show notes.
So people who want to readTrauma and the Avoidant Client

(01:01:54):
or Trauma and the Struggle toOpen Up, and can you say the
name of the memoir one more timeas well- it's From Hungary to
Canada.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (01:02:01):
The Memoirs of Lewis and Eva Muller,
my parents.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:02:04):
Yeah, and if people want to get in touch with
you, what's the best way?

Dr. Robert T. Muller (01:02:09):
So you just Google Robert T Muller,
m-u-l-l-e-r, and you'll get to acouple of my websites.
I have my professor website atYork University in Toronto.
I also have my private practicewebsite, and so there's contact
me information there.
My email address is there.
It's all my contact information.
I also have a Psychology Todayblog that you can take a look at

(01:02:33):
, and my information's there aswell.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:02:35):
Wonderful.
Do you have time for one lastquestion?
Sure, I like to ask people whatbrings you hope.

Dr. Robert T. Muller (01:02:43):
What brings you hope.
It's tough in this day and age,eh, I mean yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I guess the biggest thingis those four words that can
make you happy when you're sad,and sad when you're happy.
This too shall pass, you know.
I mean, when we're up, we'renot always going to be up, we're

(01:03:04):
going to go down again.
So that's sobering.
But when we're down, we're notalways going to be down, we'll
go up again.
So this too shall pass one wayor the other.
And that's something that givesme hope and also, like I said,
makes me happy when I'm sad andsad when I'm happy.

Lisa Danylchuk (01:03:23):
Yeah, yeah, just noticing the impermanence of,
of emotion and everything,everything, yep, my dogs agree.
You can hear them barking.
Thank you so much for coming onthe show.
Thank you for contributing somuch of your wisdom here.
Yeah, and I really appreciateit my pleasure.

(01:03:46):
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(01:04:29):
or diagnosis.
Your decisions are in yourhands and I encourage you to
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(01:04:50):
support this podcast directlyand indirectly.
Alex, shout out to you fortaking care of the babe and the
fur babies while I record.
Last but never least, I'd liketo give a shout out to my big
brother.
Matt passed away in 2002.
He wrote this music and itmakes my heart so happy to share
it with you here.

(01:05:33):
Thank you.