September 5, 2025 • 32 mins
Dr. Arielle Schwartz is a licensed psychologist and leading voice in the healing of trauma. She is an internationally sought-out teacher and author of eight books including The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook, Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma, and Applied Polyvagal Theory in Yoga.
As the founder of the Center for Resilience Informed Therapy, she offers a mind-body approach to therapy for trauma and informational mental health and wellness updates through her writing, public speaking, social media presence, and blog.
She believes that the journey of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.
In This Episode
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
The Trauma Therapist Podcast: I interview thought-leaders in the fields of trauma, mindfulness, addiction and yoga such as Peter Levine, Pat Ogden, Bessel van der Kolk and Bruce Perry. https://bit.ly/3VRNy8z
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You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
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Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
As the founder of the Center for Resilience Informed Therapy, she offers a mind-body approach to therapy for trauma and informational mental health and wellness updates through her writing, public speaking, social media presence, and blog.
She believes that the journey of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.
In This Episode
- https://drarielleschwartz.com/
- www.resilienceinformedtherapy.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/drarielleschwartz/
- https://www.instagram.com/arielleschwartzboulder/
- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5LUxnXbReV7I5cEzvb46sQ
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
The Trauma Therapist Podcast: I interview thought-leaders in the fields of trauma, mindfulness, addiction and yoga such as Peter Levine, Pat Ogden, Bessel van der Kolk and Bruce Perry. https://bit.ly/3VRNy8z
---
Thank you to our sponsor Jane App - Practice Management Software for Health & Wellness Practitioners.
Use code GUY1MO at check out.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Trauma Thepist podcast. My name is got Macpherson.
I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go
five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back
to the podcast. I'm very excited to have us my
guest today, Doctor Ariel Schwartz. Ariel, welcome, Thank you guy
(00:23):
to Doctor Schwartz is a licensed psychologist and leading voice
in the healing of trauma. She's an internationally sought out
teacher and author of eight books, including the Post Traumatic
Growth Guidebook, Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma, and Applied Polyvegel Theory
in Yoga.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
As the founder of.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
The Center for Resilience and Informed Therapy, doctor Schwartz offers
a mind body approach to therapy for trauma and informational
mental health and wellness updates through her writing, public speaking,
social media presence, and blog. She believes that the journey
of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.
All right, Ariel, before we get go in here, share
(00:59):
with our listeners where you're from originally and where you
are currently.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
All right, that's that's a lovely place to start. I'm
originally from Stonybrook, New York, on Long Island.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah know it, well, do you?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah? And you know, spent spent my first eighteen years
on Long Island, just outside the city, and a lot
of time in the city as well, and slowly made
my way out west. I went to college in Ohio,
moved out to Colorado, which is where I am now,
and I've been here for thirty years.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
All right, So look, you've got so much going on,
You're all over the place, You're you have this incredible reputation,
You've written these books.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
How did this start for you?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah? I think that so often our journeys as therapists,
and especially trauma treatment specialists, begins with a bit of
our own journey, right and navigating how we come through
our own childhood and our own developmental experiences. I think
one of the things for me around that journey, and
(02:10):
I've spoken pretty openly about it over the years in
various places, and I'm always looking for, like, what's a
different piece to share so that I'm not just repeating
myself and people don't get tired of my story. But
I think that the piece that stands out for me
is that there is a certain way in which we
also come in somewhat primed to become who we are,
(02:34):
right Like, there's a way in which I think I
came into the world as one of those very sensitive
people that has that feels a lot, And in fact,
I know that's true about me, and I also when
you look at kind of the combination of elements, not
only did I come in with my sensitivity, but there
(02:56):
was a lot going on in my really early life.
My parents were in high strife and they separated by
the time I was three. They were divorced when I
was four. I had, you know, blended families and complexities
around me, and as someone who took in a lot
of information, processed a lot, felt a lot. I think
(03:19):
I started to kind of carry a lot on behalf
of all of the people around me, or at least
that's how it felt inside of me, Like I felt
so deeply the emotions of my mother, of my father,
of their conflict, of what was happening, and I think
that very kind of you know, kind nature really wanted
(03:42):
to help, just wanted to relieve their suffering.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, for a second, if I so you're talking about
your childhood here? What age are we talking about around?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
You know, all of this began literally from before I
was even born. There was strife in their relationship in utero.
I kind of pop out into the world into a
very mixed bag, right, like both parents who really wanted
me and really loved me, and who didn't have enough
(04:20):
of their own stability, especially my father, to really be
a grounded foundation. And so I think his what I
would call fragmentation or unintegrated wounds were present and in
the room and informing the earliest experiences, the earliest imprints.
(04:42):
So you're asking what age, I'm going to say infancy
until eighteen, right, like the entire range.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Right right, right?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So were you, I mean, to what degree were you
aware of all of this that you were carrying or
were you even aware of it? And was there a
point where you're like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
You know right, I don't think that I had the
words for it, despite the fact that my mom's a psychologist,
right like, she was doing her best, and my stepdad,
who eventually came into a family, a social worker. So
they tried, I think, to help find language. But in
a sense, when you're still swimming in that particular ocean.
(05:24):
You can't see it for what it is until you
start to come out of it. And for me, that
tipping point was when initially when I went to college
and I started to feel a lot of anxiety. I mean,
I think I had it all the way through, but
like that anxiety was blocking my ability to feel comfortable socially,
(05:46):
to navigate the world around me, to be confident, to
feel worthy. And I had a lot of depression, and
so I was kind of going between anxiety, depression, lack
of self work and so forth, carrying a lot of shame.
And I started therapy thankfully right like that that was
part of the journey. I also was going to yoga classes,
(06:10):
and like like, I had a good amount of support.
I had a lot of you know, kind of built
in capacity and strengths within my background to be able
to kind of navigate enough to start to look and
see who I am and how I became that way.
(06:33):
But I would say, like that those planted the seeds.
I didn't really get a clear view of myself and
my own complex trauma, which I now know that's what
it was, until I want to say, my thirties, Like
at that point, and after many years of committed, being
committed to my own therapy and then becoming a parent,
(06:58):
did I start to really see clearly like, oh there
were some things that were really not okay.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah. Yeah. When did you start to Sarah?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
When did you say, all right, I want to start
I want to help people, I want to whatever that
language for you was such that you were like you
went to school and started doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, you know. I when I graduated from my undergraduate program,
and I was like, what am I doing next? And
I and I go out into the world and I
started working with adjudicated youth and I loved it. Loved
it is intense, right, I loved it, and I was
good at it, and the kids connected to me and
(07:41):
I connected to them, and there was some feeling of
like like that. You know, sometimes people say we have
kind of natural therapeutic traits, right, and we also train
and we build those skills. But I think I was
naturally therapeutic by nature, and I was just always one
that was paying attention to what people were feeling around me, right,
(08:01):
And like some of that really trained in my early childhood,
Like you know, I came by it, honestly.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that is an intense position to start off working with.
But what do you think besides that feelingness or in
addition to that, what do you think allowed you to
do that well? Do that work well or get in
there and appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, and that might speak to the resilient side of
the story, right, Like, there was some way in which, again,
growing up with my mom a psychologist, my stepdad a
social worker, we had an orientation towards feelings and those
conversations in our household, and so I think I came
also came out with a pretty good somatic and emotional
(08:49):
intelligence that endowed me to feel pretty comfortable in myself
as I sat with other people who were suffering, and
that Like, after a few years of working between my
undergrad and graduate I kind of hit an edge where
I'm like, Okay, I like doing this, but I need
more skills. And so I went back to school and
(09:12):
I studied sematic psychology, Like I had such a strong
desire to understand why so much of my anxiety showed
up in my body and showed up as my own
kind of health consequences and brain fog and things that
I was I was suffering, and so sematics felt like
the wisest next choice. I also because I had a
(09:37):
lot of brain fog and a lot of my own dissociation,
a lot of struggles. I really didn't know I was smart. Like,
I know it sounds kind.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Of like, but yeah, I get it, I keep going.
I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But that it's such a heartbreak to say it. That's
so true, And it wasn't. And I went into ROW
and I love neuropa, and don't get me wrong, like
it was the right choice for me, And I think
I also chose it because it felt safe, like I
could learn through my body, I could learn kinesthetically and
I didn't trust my intellectual mind because I couldn't hold
(10:16):
concepts well enough. Yet it wasn't until I did a
lot of what we'll call bottom appealing of really continuing
to unwind my complex trauma that I actually realized I
was also intellectual. I also loved and could grasp concepts,
(10:39):
and so that was a really tremendous turning point for me.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Wow, the way you just articulated that those experiences in
your life is pretty profound.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I think.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know when you said you were really kind of
pull to understanding somatics and getting more into that. I
was thinking, that seems kind of a little bit before
it's taught. A lot of people weren't doing that. Yeah,
And certainly when I started getting into this, I was
(11:14):
not like when people were like, fill into your body, like.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
What are you talking about? I was not that at all.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
But you also said you kind of felt home there
because you felt you weren't smart intellectually. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Wow, yeah, a lot in there. You know. For me,
one of the ways in which I'll say kind of
dissociation manifested for me, if that's the right framing of this,
is that I would go into such profound freeze states,
and in the freeze state, my mind couldn't think, I
(11:56):
couldn't verbalize, I would just all of this would shut down.
But what I did feel was a lot of intensity
inside that couldn't come out, that got kind of stuck.
And so I was very prone to either not feeling
or flooding. And so the experience of where so much
(12:21):
sematically for me got stuck or bogged down, I think
because of that it almost amplified my relating to my
felt sense. And then I had some early experiences of
introductions to sematics, both through yoga, and I became a
yoga teacher in nineteen ninety six when I was twenty two.
(12:43):
I was like, I want to do that. And then
I had some experiences with body mind centering and movement
practices that gave me this felt sense of like home
or wholeness, and I was like, I want that. And
so a friend of mine told me about neuropis sematic
program well before semantics was popular.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
So you go there, and are you thinking about becoming
a therapist or psychologist and what does that journey look like.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I'm sure that at some level I was thinking of
that because obviously my mom modeled is in a sense
my mom's psychologist and my stepdad, and so I knew
that was a professional trajectory that I could take, and
it again felt safe and that I think I was
still in survival in that initial graduate program. I know
(13:36):
I was still in survival. I was still trying to
locate myself and come out of these kind of extreme
states that I was pretty stuck in. And then it
wasn't until and thankfully we were required to be in therapy.
Like hallelujah, right, So again like just going every week
(13:58):
and unpacking and winding and making sense and collecting recollecting myself.
And there's a tipping point that I think can happen
when we have complex trauma and we are just walking
that healing path and we go again and again and again,
(14:19):
and we sit in the discomfort, and there was a
tipping point in which IES just started to feel like
I had a self.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I mean, that's like an amazing thing to cultivate when
at some point we feel like we've lost that like
to or never got to build it in the first place.
And I don't think that was one hundred percent true
for me. I think I had a lot of self
in there that was just very, very layered upon and
(14:49):
covered up for me from a lot of trauma.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
And that tipping point was what happened as a result
of that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
We're out to that.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, tipping point that changed I think things for me
both personally and professionally. I felt like I could maintain
enough of a self to build a relationship with now
my husband, we've been married for almost, you know, twenty
five years, we've been together for longer. I was able
(15:19):
to have enough self to actually trust that I wanted
to go back to school again and go get a
doctorate in clinical psychology at a APA accredited program and
kind of like, go this much more traditional route and
that I wasn't going to feel like I was floundering
because I couldn't think, you know, so I was able
(15:41):
to really integrate that intellectual curiosity with my embodied sense,
with a social relational capacity, like those are all things
that I had to really strengthen and cultivate and trust
within myself. I think all of those, you know, were
(16:02):
part of that tipping point of health and well being.
And then I just started to write like NonStop once
I found that love for writing and that it helped
me heal. My first book, The Complex PTSD Workbook, was
a book that I was writing in just as much
because those were the tools that helped me put myself
(16:25):
back together right. And that book has still remained a
best seller. It's you know, just done incredibly well. And
the feedback that I continue to get over It's been
almost ten years since I wrote that book, and the
feedback that I receive over these years is extraordinary, Like,
(16:45):
you know what it's like to be me? This helped
me beyond measure.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
That's so amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I mean, it's so inspiring and so beautiful because as
you're talking, you can you can feel your experience and
how that has manifested in the books you've done and
the work you do, which is which is amazing. I
just want tomind everyone I'm speaking with doctor Eric Schwartz.
(17:10):
One of the things you had mentioned, you know, I
asked about what one of the things you want to
talk about, and you'd mentioned intricative trauma treatment and modalities
and stuff. And it's so you can from everything, from
what little you've said and how much you've said, you
can feel how all these pieces fit together in the
(17:33):
work you do. As we sit here now. I mean,
obviously there's so much out there now, so much happening
in terms of trauma treatment modalities. When when I when
I say to you, what is that? What does intricative
trauma treatment mean? What do you say? Yeah, go go
(17:56):
for it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So for me, integrative trauma treatment is the recognition that
just one modality, especially for complex trauma, is typically not enough,
and that if we are too wetted to the lane
of just one modality, we might be more wetted to
our protocols than to the people that are sitting in
(18:18):
front of us. And so the integrative approach is really
about having enough of a ground in. It's all rooted
in relationship. Like nothing. None of the modalities that we
might integrate, whether it's somatics or EMDR or parts work
therapies or applied polyvagal theory, and all of those are
part of the model, but none of them really hold
(18:40):
water if we don't know how to really sit with
ourselves and sit with another person. So it starts there, yeah,
and then from there we can start to recognize, Wow,
I think that this person that I'm sitting with has
some dissociative fragmentation. I feel comfortable working with that because
(19:01):
I know how to be with that and to do
compassion work and do parts work and really attend to
the parts that got lost in trauma time. And I
have that depth of understanding. I know how to bring
in EMDR and how EMDR can be helpful both for
like a single incident trauma, but also for the kind
(19:24):
of messiness of complex PTSD fanatic sits at the heart
of all of this, right, Like, we're going to keep
back to that felt sense.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I want to ask you about an early clinical error
and before I do, I mean you talked about the
importance of the relationship as a starting point, and from
what you said about your early work with educated youth,
you sound like you might be one of those incredible
people who just developing the relationship was just purely natural.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Was that is that true for you?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
And right like, like you know, that doesn't mean I
can't think of clinical errors.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well let's go there.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I'm interested in what those were like for you.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, I would say, like the thematic piece around
the clinical errors. And thankfully, like I've had great supervision
over the years, I've had a phenomenal mentor that I've
been able to really learn from and process process those
places where we get stuck. And I would say that
one of the biggest themes for me had to do
(20:33):
not with the inability to form a relationship, but that
I could form the relationship so well I could even
sense what might be needed by the other person, but
sometimes it would lead me to actually override some of
my own boundary needs or my own recognition of like
(20:55):
when actually to pull back. I think that I was
one of those kind of like like give it all
kind of people and so sometimes getting myself into situations
where I was offering too much pro bono work, too
much attending to the needs of the other person in
(21:15):
ways that actually facilitated a little bit of their dependency
on me, versus really staying kind of clinically separate enough,
not that that open heart isn't a great gift to
bring to therapy, but clinically separate enough to actually recognize
(21:36):
when we were done, recognize when actually that kind of deep,
well intentioned goodness in me wasn't enough to get someone
to that next stage of their process. It's an interesting
piece to think about, Like there's a lot that we
(21:56):
bring is kind of naturally therapeutic, but sometimes I think
I needed to pull back more and reflect on the
fact that, like, maybe I'm actually not helping this person anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Mm hmmmm hm. It reminds me of one of my
early experiences when I was starting out and.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I was so.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Excited about showing my clients what I knew, you know,
and and bringing in these new interventions, and I sat
down with one of my first supervisors and I was
so frustrated and because my client, this one particular client,
wasn't listening to me and you're not doing what there's
(22:41):
what I'm what I want.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Them to do.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And she looked at me and she's like, God, let
me tell you something. Let me ask you something. What
makes you think they need to listen to you?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah? Like and I was like, it just it kind
of like was that was? That was that?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It just stopped everything for me And that was a
big learning point for me. It's so very interesting this
concept of therapy. You know, what do you see your
role as?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah? I love that story. Guy, It's a really powerful
one because I think that, especially as someone who is
a writer and a teacher and loves to teach about therapy,
like I actually have to really remind myself to take
off that hat so that when I'm showing up with
another person and that beautiful, you know, perspective of like
(23:39):
so much of what we do in that clinical seat
is listen and listen deeply and listen meaningfully, and listen
in a way that helps other people really find and
feel themselves through that clear mirror that we can offer
not because we have the right technique, the right information,
(24:02):
the right psycho education, but because we see them right.
And I think that in some ways that's answering your question.
When I'm in that seat of the psychotherapist, it's to
be that clear mirror.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm assuming a part of that came naturally to you. Yeah,
what I mean? You shared some of your experiences growing up,
you know, disclosing that to clients, sharing that with clients,
(24:40):
revealing certain vulnerabilities to clients. What was that like for you?
How did you learn to juggle that.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
In a sense?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Right? And it's an interesting question too, because, like you know,
this this interview being a perfect example of like, I'm
pretty out there who I am in the world. It
doesn't take much for someone who's working with me to
find some of my stories out there. And sometimes I'll
use self disclosure, right if it's if it's valuable to them,
(25:15):
I'll put self disclosure in the mix. But I think
that for the most part, the knowing of myself helps
me be as aware, not perfect, but as aware as
I can be about what I might be bringing into
the room and how that might be part of the
(25:37):
mix of the exchange, both on the healing side, what
I might be bringing into the room that's beneficial, but
also sometimes what I might be bringing into the room
that might be interfering. And this is where you know,
good clinical supervision and consultation can really come in. Is
like what am I missing? What am I not seeing
about myself and how I might be contributing to this
(26:00):
dynamic or to where my client is not making progress.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
You know, obviously we have a lot of listeners who
are therapists of all different kinds hearing you talk. You know,
we talked a little bit about intrigative treatments and so forth,
and you mentioned somatics and MDR and parts work for
those listening, how the hell do you start?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Where do you start?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Maybe I should I need to do what doctor Eryel
Schwartz is doing. Where do you what do you recommend
to people? What do you suggest?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Right? And I'm thinking that you're asking, like where do
I start in regards to like my training, or like, yeah,
how do I put this toolbox together?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Thank you for clarifying my question.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, so, I, you know, start where it feels most
natural and in the way that's going to best support
your growth. Like if I were to name the various
pieces of training that I've done over the years, I have,
you know, years of training in sematics. I have a
(27:08):
yoga teacher certification. That again, those go back thirty years.
I did my EMDR training in two thousand and one,
so again it's been a while. And then I've been
in mentorship and in trainings in geshtalt work for sixteen
seventeen years. So a lot of this was kind of
(27:30):
following what lit me up, what helped me find more
of an understanding about myself. Why did I do an
EMDR training because it changed my life? Like EMDR was
magic for my own personal development? Why did I go
(27:50):
to sematics? We talked about that already, but also because
I needed to find the ground underneath me. So like
we get to keep being lifelong growers, learners, healers, healing
themselves in a sense, right, so we get to follow
I know so many people that are like, I'm going
(28:12):
to go to this IFS program because it's helping me
work with my own parts. Great, right, Like, get to
know what helps you because that will also help you
help others. How So, because if we don't have a self,
(28:33):
how do we help someone else find that? And if
we haven't done work on what we might call our
own blind spots, we won't be able to see those
places with others love it.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Damn, why did it take you so long to get
on this podcast?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
That's what I want to know.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Thanks for bringing me in. I've really been looking forward
to this.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
All right, Look, you've got so many books out. As
we kind of wind down here, where are you at now?
What's present for you? What's on the top of your
mind or the forefront of your mind in terms of
the work you're doing.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, I really love teaching the integrative model, and I
think that the experience in particular. One thing we didn't
quite mention, and I'll bring it in here is that
I call my work resilience informed therapy. Why resilience informed
therapy because as someone who's trained so much in trauma
treatment modalities, what it felt like was that putting all
(29:42):
of our attention on what was wrong? What are the symptoms?
What are the problems? It became all that I could
see and all that my clients can see. And so
I teach this resilience informed therapy approach, which is the
integrative approach, because it also builds in how how are
we identifying what's already working? What are the strengths, what
(30:04):
is the beautifully endowed kind of spiritual nature of this
person sitting in front of me. What are their gifts? What?
What are they going to teach me?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Right Like?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
It's so beautiful to have this opportunity to sit with
someone else. It's such an honor and to actually discover
the beauty that lives inside of you, right Like, That's
what keeps me going in this work. And So if
it's just about kind of like like checking off another
box about a training, right if it's about another way
(30:37):
to like feel inspired to sit with other people and
be inspired by other people, beautiful follow that. So, you know,
whether it's the trainings that I offer in you know,
any one of those specific modalities somatic EMDR or the
whole model, the resilience informed model, or the therapeutic yoga
(30:58):
as we bring that into psychotherapy, or applied polyvagel theory
as we bring that into places like those are the
works that I put out there, but they're all essentially
housed in this resilience informed approach that recognizes that not
only can we heal trauma, but we can grow from it.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Wow, Ariel, what is the best way for people to
learn more about what you're doing?
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Here's the good news. I'm kind of easy to find.
Look for doctor Ril Schwartz and you'll find me right.
Whether it's doctor Oriol Schwartz on Facebook, whether that's my website,
doctor Oriol Schwartz. You can look up Resilience Informed Therapy.
Instagram's different because it's Aril Schwartz Boulder. The YouTube YouTube
has a lot out there. Dr Oriol Schwartz again, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Okay, we'll have all this linked up here at the
show notes page at the Trauma therapistpodcast dot com. Ariel,
You're welcome back anytime. I mean that sincerely. You're freaking inspiring.
My god, thank you so much for being here. Thank
you to all Right club a
Welcome to the Trauma Thepist podcast. My name is got Macpherson.
I interview incredible people who dedicated their lives to helping
those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go
five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome back
to the podcast. I'm very excited to have us my
guest today, Doctor Ariel Schwartz. Ariel, welcome, Thank you guy
(00:23):
to Doctor Schwartz is a licensed psychologist and leading voice
in the healing of trauma. She's an internationally sought out
teacher and author of eight books, including the Post Traumatic
Growth Guidebook, Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma, and Applied Polyvegel Theory
in Yoga.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
As the founder of.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
The Center for Resilience and Informed Therapy, doctor Schwartz offers
a mind body approach to therapy for trauma and informational
mental health and wellness updates through her writing, public speaking,
social media presence, and blog. She believes that the journey
of trauma recovery is an awakening of the spiritual heart.
All right, Ariel, before we get go in here, share
(00:59):
with our listeners where you're from originally and where you
are currently.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
All right, that's that's a lovely place to start. I'm
originally from Stonybrook, New York, on Long Island.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah know it, well, do you?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah? And you know, spent spent my first eighteen years
on Long Island, just outside the city, and a lot
of time in the city as well, and slowly made
my way out west. I went to college in Ohio,
moved out to Colorado, which is where I am now,
and I've been here for thirty years.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
All right, So look, you've got so much going on,
You're all over the place, You're you have this incredible reputation,
You've written these books.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
How did this start for you?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah? I think that so often our journeys as therapists,
and especially trauma treatment specialists, begins with a bit of
our own journey, right and navigating how we come through
our own childhood and our own developmental experiences. I think
one of the things for me around that journey, and
(02:10):
I've spoken pretty openly about it over the years in
various places, and I'm always looking for, like, what's a
different piece to share so that I'm not just repeating
myself and people don't get tired of my story. But
I think that the piece that stands out for me
is that there is a certain way in which we
also come in somewhat primed to become who we are,
(02:34):
right Like, there's a way in which I think I
came into the world as one of those very sensitive
people that has that feels a lot, And in fact,
I know that's true about me, and I also when
you look at kind of the combination of elements, not
only did I come in with my sensitivity, but there
(02:56):
was a lot going on in my really early life.
My parents were in high strife and they separated by
the time I was three. They were divorced when I
was four. I had, you know, blended families and complexities
around me, and as someone who took in a lot
of information, processed a lot, felt a lot. I think
(03:19):
I started to kind of carry a lot on behalf
of all of the people around me, or at least
that's how it felt inside of me, Like I felt
so deeply the emotions of my mother, of my father,
of their conflict, of what was happening, and I think
that very kind of you know, kind nature really wanted
(03:42):
to help, just wanted to relieve their suffering.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Yeah, for a second, if I so you're talking about
your childhood here? What age are we talking about around?
Speaker 3 (03:59):
You know, all of this began literally from before I
was even born. There was strife in their relationship in utero.
I kind of pop out into the world into a
very mixed bag, right, like both parents who really wanted
me and really loved me, and who didn't have enough
(04:20):
of their own stability, especially my father, to really be
a grounded foundation. And so I think his what I
would call fragmentation or unintegrated wounds were present and in
the room and informing the earliest experiences, the earliest imprints.
(04:42):
So you're asking what age, I'm going to say infancy
until eighteen, right, like the entire range.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Right right, right?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
So were you, I mean, to what degree were you
aware of all of this that you were carrying or
were you even aware of it? And was there a
point where you're like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
You know right, I don't think that I had the
words for it, despite the fact that my mom's a psychologist,
right like, she was doing her best, and my stepdad,
who eventually came into a family, a social worker. So
they tried, I think, to help find language. But in
a sense, when you're still swimming in that particular ocean.
(05:24):
You can't see it for what it is until you
start to come out of it. And for me, that
tipping point was when initially when I went to college
and I started to feel a lot of anxiety. I mean,
I think I had it all the way through, but
like that anxiety was blocking my ability to feel comfortable socially,
(05:46):
to navigate the world around me, to be confident, to
feel worthy. And I had a lot of depression, and
so I was kind of going between anxiety, depression, lack
of self work and so forth, carrying a lot of shame.
And I started therapy thankfully right like that that was
part of the journey. I also was going to yoga classes,
(06:10):
and like like, I had a good amount of support.
I had a lot of you know, kind of built
in capacity and strengths within my background to be able
to kind of navigate enough to start to look and
see who I am and how I became that way.
(06:33):
But I would say, like that those planted the seeds.
I didn't really get a clear view of myself and
my own complex trauma, which I now know that's what
it was, until I want to say, my thirties, Like
at that point, and after many years of committed, being
committed to my own therapy and then becoming a parent,
(06:58):
did I start to really see clearly like, oh there
were some things that were really not okay.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah. Yeah. When did you start to Sarah?
Speaker 1 (07:10):
When did you say, all right, I want to start
I want to help people, I want to whatever that
language for you was such that you were like you
went to school and started doing this.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yeah, you know. I when I graduated from my undergraduate program,
and I was like, what am I doing next? And
I and I go out into the world and I
started working with adjudicated youth and I loved it. Loved
it is intense, right, I loved it, and I was
good at it, and the kids connected to me and
(07:41):
I connected to them, and there was some feeling of
like like that. You know, sometimes people say we have
kind of natural therapeutic traits, right, and we also train
and we build those skills. But I think I was
naturally therapeutic by nature, and I was just always one
that was paying attention to what people were feeling around me, right,
(08:01):
And like some of that really trained in my early childhood,
Like you know, I came by it, honestly.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that is an intense position to start off working with.
But what do you think besides that feelingness or in
addition to that, what do you think allowed you to
do that well? Do that work well or get in
there and appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, and that might speak to the resilient side of
the story, right, Like, there was some way in which, again,
growing up with my mom a psychologist, my stepdad a
social worker, we had an orientation towards feelings and those
conversations in our household, and so I think I came
also came out with a pretty good somatic and emotional
(08:49):
intelligence that endowed me to feel pretty comfortable in myself
as I sat with other people who were suffering, and
that Like, after a few years of working between my
undergrad and graduate I kind of hit an edge where
I'm like, Okay, I like doing this, but I need
more skills. And so I went back to school and
(09:12):
I studied sematic psychology, Like I had such a strong
desire to understand why so much of my anxiety showed
up in my body and showed up as my own
kind of health consequences and brain fog and things that
I was I was suffering, and so sematics felt like
the wisest next choice. I also because I had a
(09:37):
lot of brain fog and a lot of my own dissociation,
a lot of struggles. I really didn't know I was smart. Like,
I know it sounds kind.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Of like, but yeah, I get it, I keep going.
I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
But that it's such a heartbreak to say it. That's
so true, And it wasn't. And I went into ROW
and I love neuropa, and don't get me wrong, like
it was the right choice for me, And I think
I also chose it because it felt safe, like I
could learn through my body, I could learn kinesthetically and
I didn't trust my intellectual mind because I couldn't hold
(10:16):
concepts well enough. Yet it wasn't until I did a
lot of what we'll call bottom appealing of really continuing
to unwind my complex trauma that I actually realized I
was also intellectual. I also loved and could grasp concepts,
(10:39):
and so that was a really tremendous turning point for me.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Wow, the way you just articulated that those experiences in
your life is pretty profound.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
I think.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know when you said you were really kind of
pull to understanding somatics and getting more into that. I
was thinking, that seems kind of a little bit before
it's taught. A lot of people weren't doing that. Yeah,
And certainly when I started getting into this, I was
(11:14):
not like when people were like, fill into your body, like.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
What are you talking about? I was not that at all.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
But you also said you kind of felt home there
because you felt you weren't smart intellectually. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Wow, yeah, a lot in there. You know. For me,
one of the ways in which I'll say kind of
dissociation manifested for me, if that's the right framing of this,
is that I would go into such profound freeze states,
and in the freeze state, my mind couldn't think, I
(11:56):
couldn't verbalize, I would just all of this would shut down.
But what I did feel was a lot of intensity
inside that couldn't come out, that got kind of stuck.
And so I was very prone to either not feeling
or flooding. And so the experience of where so much
(12:21):
sematically for me got stuck or bogged down, I think
because of that it almost amplified my relating to my
felt sense. And then I had some early experiences of
introductions to sematics, both through yoga, and I became a
yoga teacher in nineteen ninety six when I was twenty two.
(12:43):
I was like, I want to do that. And then
I had some experiences with body mind centering and movement
practices that gave me this felt sense of like home
or wholeness, and I was like, I want that. And
so a friend of mine told me about neuropis sematic
program well before semantics was popular.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
So you go there, and are you thinking about becoming
a therapist or psychologist and what does that journey look like.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I'm sure that at some level I was thinking of
that because obviously my mom modeled is in a sense
my mom's psychologist and my stepdad, and so I knew
that was a professional trajectory that I could take, and
it again felt safe and that I think I was
still in survival in that initial graduate program. I know
(13:36):
I was still in survival. I was still trying to
locate myself and come out of these kind of extreme
states that I was pretty stuck in. And then it
wasn't until and thankfully we were required to be in therapy.
Like hallelujah, right, So again like just going every week
(13:58):
and unpacking and winding and making sense and collecting recollecting myself.
And there's a tipping point that I think can happen
when we have complex trauma and we are just walking
that healing path and we go again and again and again,
(14:19):
and we sit in the discomfort, and there was a
tipping point in which IES just started to feel like
I had a self.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
I mean, that's like an amazing thing to cultivate when
at some point we feel like we've lost that like
to or never got to build it in the first place.
And I don't think that was one hundred percent true
for me. I think I had a lot of self
in there that was just very, very layered upon and
(14:49):
covered up for me from a lot of trauma.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
And that tipping point was what happened as a result
of that.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
We're out to that.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, tipping point that changed I think things for me
both personally and professionally. I felt like I could maintain
enough of a self to build a relationship with now
my husband, we've been married for almost, you know, twenty
five years, we've been together for longer. I was able
(15:19):
to have enough self to actually trust that I wanted
to go back to school again and go get a
doctorate in clinical psychology at a APA accredited program and
kind of like, go this much more traditional route and
that I wasn't going to feel like I was floundering
because I couldn't think, you know, so I was able
(15:41):
to really integrate that intellectual curiosity with my embodied sense,
with a social relational capacity, like those are all things
that I had to really strengthen and cultivate and trust
within myself. I think all of those, you know, were
(16:02):
part of that tipping point of health and well being.
And then I just started to write like NonStop once
I found that love for writing and that it helped
me heal. My first book, The Complex PTSD Workbook, was
a book that I was writing in just as much
because those were the tools that helped me put myself
(16:25):
back together right. And that book has still remained a
best seller. It's you know, just done incredibly well. And
the feedback that I continue to get over It's been
almost ten years since I wrote that book, and the
feedback that I receive over these years is extraordinary, Like,
(16:45):
you know what it's like to be me? This helped
me beyond measure.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
That's so amazing.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
I mean, it's so inspiring and so beautiful because as
you're talking, you can you can feel your experience and
how that has manifested in the books you've done and
the work you do, which is which is amazing. I
just want tomind everyone I'm speaking with doctor Eric Schwartz.
(17:10):
One of the things you had mentioned, you know, I
asked about what one of the things you want to
talk about, and you'd mentioned intricative trauma treatment and modalities
and stuff. And it's so you can from everything, from
what little you've said and how much you've said, you
can feel how all these pieces fit together in the
(17:33):
work you do. As we sit here now. I mean,
obviously there's so much out there now, so much happening
in terms of trauma treatment modalities. When when I when
I say to you, what is that? What does intricative
trauma treatment mean? What do you say? Yeah, go go
(17:56):
for it.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So for me, integrative trauma treatment is the recognition that
just one modality, especially for complex trauma, is typically not enough,
and that if we are too wetted to the lane
of just one modality, we might be more wetted to
our protocols than to the people that are sitting in
(18:18):
front of us. And so the integrative approach is really
about having enough of a ground in. It's all rooted
in relationship. Like nothing. None of the modalities that we
might integrate, whether it's somatics or EMDR or parts work
therapies or applied polyvagal theory, and all of those are
part of the model, but none of them really hold
(18:40):
water if we don't know how to really sit with
ourselves and sit with another person. So it starts there, yeah,
and then from there we can start to recognize, Wow,
I think that this person that I'm sitting with has
some dissociative fragmentation. I feel comfortable working with that because
(19:01):
I know how to be with that and to do
compassion work and do parts work and really attend to
the parts that got lost in trauma time. And I
have that depth of understanding. I know how to bring
in EMDR and how EMDR can be helpful both for
like a single incident trauma, but also for the kind
(19:24):
of messiness of complex PTSD fanatic sits at the heart
of all of this, right, Like, we're going to keep
back to that felt sense.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I want to ask you about an early clinical error
and before I do, I mean you talked about the
importance of the relationship as a starting point, and from
what you said about your early work with educated youth,
you sound like you might be one of those incredible
people who just developing the relationship was just purely natural.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Was that is that true for you?
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
And right like, like you know, that doesn't mean I
can't think of clinical errors.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Well let's go there.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
I'm interested in what those were like for you.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, I would say, like the thematic piece around
the clinical errors. And thankfully, like I've had great supervision
over the years, I've had a phenomenal mentor that I've
been able to really learn from and process process those
places where we get stuck. And I would say that
one of the biggest themes for me had to do
(20:33):
not with the inability to form a relationship, but that
I could form the relationship so well I could even
sense what might be needed by the other person, but
sometimes it would lead me to actually override some of
my own boundary needs or my own recognition of like
(20:55):
when actually to pull back. I think that I was
one of those kind of like like give it all
kind of people and so sometimes getting myself into situations
where I was offering too much pro bono work, too
much attending to the needs of the other person in
(21:15):
ways that actually facilitated a little bit of their dependency
on me, versus really staying kind of clinically separate enough,
not that that open heart isn't a great gift to
bring to therapy, but clinically separate enough to actually recognize
(21:36):
when we were done, recognize when actually that kind of deep,
well intentioned goodness in me wasn't enough to get someone
to that next stage of their process. It's an interesting
piece to think about, Like there's a lot that we
(21:56):
bring is kind of naturally therapeutic, but sometimes I think
I needed to pull back more and reflect on the
fact that, like, maybe I'm actually not helping this person anymore.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Mm hmmmm hm. It reminds me of one of my
early experiences when I was starting out and.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
I was so.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Excited about showing my clients what I knew, you know,
and and bringing in these new interventions, and I sat
down with one of my first supervisors and I was
so frustrated and because my client, this one particular client,
wasn't listening to me and you're not doing what there's
(22:41):
what I'm what I want.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Them to do.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And she looked at me and she's like, God, let
me tell you something. Let me ask you something. What
makes you think they need to listen to you?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah? Like and I was like, it just it kind
of like was that was? That was that?
Speaker 1 (22:58):
It just stopped everything for me And that was a
big learning point for me. It's so very interesting this
concept of therapy. You know, what do you see your
role as?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
Yeah? I love that story. Guy, It's a really powerful
one because I think that, especially as someone who is
a writer and a teacher and loves to teach about therapy,
like I actually have to really remind myself to take
off that hat so that when I'm showing up with
another person and that beautiful, you know, perspective of like
(23:39):
so much of what we do in that clinical seat
is listen and listen deeply and listen meaningfully, and listen
in a way that helps other people really find and
feel themselves through that clear mirror that we can offer
not because we have the right technique, the right information,
(24:02):
the right psycho education, but because we see them right.
And I think that in some ways that's answering your question.
When I'm in that seat of the psychotherapist, it's to
be that clear mirror.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I'm assuming a part of that came naturally to you. Yeah,
what I mean? You shared some of your experiences growing up,
you know, disclosing that to clients, sharing that with clients,
(24:40):
revealing certain vulnerabilities to clients. What was that like for you?
How did you learn to juggle that.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
In a sense?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Right? And it's an interesting question too, because, like you know,
this this interview being a perfect example of like, I'm
pretty out there who I am in the world. It
doesn't take much for someone who's working with me to
find some of my stories out there. And sometimes I'll
use self disclosure, right if it's if it's valuable to them,
(25:15):
I'll put self disclosure in the mix. But I think
that for the most part, the knowing of myself helps
me be as aware, not perfect, but as aware as
I can be about what I might be bringing into
the room and how that might be part of the
(25:37):
mix of the exchange, both on the healing side, what
I might be bringing into the room that's beneficial, but
also sometimes what I might be bringing into the room
that might be interfering. And this is where you know,
good clinical supervision and consultation can really come in. Is
like what am I missing? What am I not seeing
about myself and how I might be contributing to this
(26:00):
dynamic or to where my client is not making progress.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
You know, obviously we have a lot of listeners who
are therapists of all different kinds hearing you talk. You know,
we talked a little bit about intrigative treatments and so forth,
and you mentioned somatics and MDR and parts work for
those listening, how the hell do you start?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Where do you start?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Maybe I should I need to do what doctor Eryel
Schwartz is doing. Where do you what do you recommend
to people? What do you suggest?
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Right? And I'm thinking that you're asking, like where do
I start in regards to like my training, or like, yeah,
how do I put this toolbox together?
Speaker 2 (26:44):
Thank you for clarifying my question.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Yeah, so, I, you know, start where it feels most
natural and in the way that's going to best support
your growth. Like if I were to name the various
pieces of training that I've done over the years, I have,
you know, years of training in sematics. I have a
(27:08):
yoga teacher certification. That again, those go back thirty years.
I did my EMDR training in two thousand and one,
so again it's been a while. And then I've been
in mentorship and in trainings in geshtalt work for sixteen
seventeen years. So a lot of this was kind of
(27:30):
following what lit me up, what helped me find more
of an understanding about myself. Why did I do an
EMDR training because it changed my life? Like EMDR was
magic for my own personal development? Why did I go
(27:50):
to sematics? We talked about that already, but also because
I needed to find the ground underneath me. So like
we get to keep being lifelong growers, learners, healers, healing
themselves in a sense, right, so we get to follow
I know so many people that are like, I'm going
(28:12):
to go to this IFS program because it's helping me
work with my own parts. Great, right, Like, get to
know what helps you because that will also help you
help others. How So, because if we don't have a self,
(28:33):
how do we help someone else find that? And if
we haven't done work on what we might call our
own blind spots, we won't be able to see those
places with others love it.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Damn, why did it take you so long to get
on this podcast?
Speaker 2 (28:56):
That's what I want to know.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Thanks for bringing me in. I've really been looking forward
to this.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
All right, Look, you've got so many books out. As
we kind of wind down here, where are you at now?
What's present for you? What's on the top of your
mind or the forefront of your mind in terms of
the work you're doing.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, I really love teaching the integrative model, and I
think that the experience in particular. One thing we didn't
quite mention, and I'll bring it in here is that
I call my work resilience informed therapy. Why resilience informed
therapy because as someone who's trained so much in trauma
treatment modalities, what it felt like was that putting all
(29:42):
of our attention on what was wrong? What are the symptoms?
What are the problems? It became all that I could
see and all that my clients can see. And so
I teach this resilience informed therapy approach, which is the
integrative approach, because it also builds in how how are
we identifying what's already working? What are the strengths, what
(30:04):
is the beautifully endowed kind of spiritual nature of this
person sitting in front of me. What are their gifts? What?
What are they going to teach me?
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Right Like?
Speaker 3 (30:14):
It's so beautiful to have this opportunity to sit with
someone else. It's such an honor and to actually discover
the beauty that lives inside of you, right Like, That's
what keeps me going in this work. And So if
it's just about kind of like like checking off another
box about a training, right if it's about another way
(30:37):
to like feel inspired to sit with other people and
be inspired by other people, beautiful follow that. So, you know,
whether it's the trainings that I offer in you know,
any one of those specific modalities somatic EMDR or the
whole model, the resilience informed model, or the therapeutic yoga
(30:58):
as we bring that into psychotherapy, or applied polyvagel theory
as we bring that into places like those are the
works that I put out there, but they're all essentially
housed in this resilience informed approach that recognizes that not
only can we heal trauma, but we can grow from it.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Wow, Ariel, what is the best way for people to
learn more about what you're doing?
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Here's the good news. I'm kind of easy to find.
Look for doctor Ril Schwartz and you'll find me right.
Whether it's doctor Oriol Schwartz on Facebook, whether that's my website,
doctor Oriol Schwartz. You can look up Resilience Informed Therapy.
Instagram's different because it's Aril Schwartz Boulder. The YouTube YouTube
has a lot out there. Dr Oriol Schwartz again, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Okay, we'll have all this linked up here at the
show notes page at the Trauma therapistpodcast dot com. Ariel,
You're welcome back anytime. I mean that sincerely. You're freaking inspiring.
My god, thank you so much for being here. Thank
you to all Right club a
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