Working with Your Parts: Complex PTSD, Dissociation, and Hypervigilance with Elizabeth Ferreira

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 December 2024

⏱️ 81 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Somatic therapist Elizabeth Ferreira joins the show to discuss complex trauma, dissociation, and working with challenging emotions. Forrest and Elizabeth start by exploring the relationship between Internal Family Systems and somatic therapy, including how we can apply a somatic lens to working with our parts. They then apply that framework to complex PTSD, cognitive bypassing, emotional numbing, hypervigilance, and other difficult experiences. Other topics include issues around comparing trauma, windows of tolerance, appreciating individual needs, and Elizabeth’s own journey of becoming a therapist while managing C-PTSD and ADHD. About our Guest: Elizabeth is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist working in California. She specializes in somatic approaches to trauma work. You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 1:15: What is the crossover between IFS and somatic therapy? 12:25: What helps a psychologically literate person who struggles to have a felt experience? 19:05: How can I track my capacity and needs in social situations before dissociating? 35:05: Why do I feel numb, and how can I move past it and feel my feelings again? 41:05: How can I address hypervigilance and stay present with my feelings without catastrophizing? 48:40: How do I respond to friends (or clients) who minimize their own pain or trauma? 58:55: What has supported Elizabeth in pursuing her vocation amidst challenges with trauma and neurodivergence? 1:10:40: Recap I am now writing on Substack, check out my work there. Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/beingwell. Trust your gut with Seed’s DS-01 Daily Synbiotic. Go to Seed.com/BEINGWELL and use code 25BEINGWELL to get 25% off your first month. Transform your health with the ZOE Science & Nutrition podcast. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. OneSkin focuses on delivering more than superficial results for your skin. Get started today with 15% off using code BEINGWELL at oneskin.co. Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month! Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, welcome to being well.
0:09.0	I'm Forrest Hansen.
0:10.0	If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us today.
0:13.0	And if you've listened before, welcome back.
0:15.0	Today is a very special episode of the podcast.
0:17.0	Returning to the show after getting engaged to me for reasons that
0:21.7	still passed my imagination, but I'm glad she said yes, is Elizabeth Ferreira. Elizabeth,
0:26.7	thanks for joining us today. Thanks. I'm glad to be back on, you know, the pod, pod nation.
0:31.6	Pod nation, yes, as our friends, Matthew and Taylor, who are now our housemates, refer to it all
0:36.2	the time. Shout out to Matthew and Taylor. So if you don't know, Elizabeth is an associate MFT associate therapist in
0:43.8	California. That means that she's working toward her license. She focuses on somatic work with people
0:48.5	in particular. And the populations of people that you work with are often dealing with issues related to trauma, complex PTSD, dissociation, attachment wounding, a lot of different stuff like that. And so the questions that we got for this mailbag all sort of orbited those different topics, as you would probably imagine. And I'm just really looking forward to doing this with you.
1:09.3	Yay. I'm excited. Okay, to doing this with you. Yay. I'm excited.
1:12.6	Let's, okay, let's talk about trauma.
1:20.1	Jeez. Okay, so the first question that we got was about internal family systems therapy,
1:24.2	which Elizabeth uses a fair amount in her practice. Yeah. Yeah, as a general model.
1:29.9	And the relationship between IFS and somatic therapy. So here we go. I listened to your recent episode on Internal Family Systems with Dr. Richard Schwartz. He's the guy who created IFS.
1:35.2	The OG. Yes, the OG himself. And of course, your earlier episodes with Elizabeth, is there any
1:39.8	crossover or relationship between IFS and somatic therapy. How do they work together?
1:45.6	Oh, okay. This is actually a complicated question. Yes. So they're all complicated
1:52.0	questions, Elizabeth. Don't worry. So for starters, if people are interested in a more somatic
2:00.1	approach to IFS, I would look up Janina Fisher's
	...

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