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A trainer and mentor of mine recently said, out loud, on the internet, that she wasn't sure "trauma therapist" was even a thing anymore. That got under my skin enough to build an entire episode around it.

So what does that title actually require? Not vibes. Not a worksheet and some confidence from a weekend training. This episode breaks down the Adaptive Information Processing model — the actual clinical framework behind EMDR — and why knowing trauma exists when it walks in the door is not the same as being trained to treat it. (Yes, there's an orthopedic-surgeon-diagnosing-diabetes bit. Yes, I know the medical model comparison is rich coming from a therapist.)

We get into the gap between knowing something and your nervous system actually believing it, why EMDR is a full psychotherapy model and not just finger-waving, and why "trauma-informed" has become the McDonald's-added-a-parking-spot of clinical language. Some dark humor, one Taco Bell reference, and a hard line on what this title should mean if we're going to keep using it.

Structure & Scars
Unfiltered dialogue about the structures that shape us.

✉️ Continue the conversation: nikki@perspectivestherapywi.com

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Four songs. Still on playlists. Still in content. Still being used as sound beds for things that have nothing to do with why they were written.

Santayana said those who do not confront the past are condemned to repeat it. We're going to talk about what happens when the confrontation gets turned into a vibe.

SHOW NOTES / REFERENCES

Songs discussed in this episode:

War Pigs — Black Sabbath (1970). Album: Paranoid.

Fortunate Son — Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969). Album: Willy and the Poor Boys.

Ohio — Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1970).

For What It's Worth — Buffalo Springfield (1967).

On the history:

Geezer Butler on War Pigs — Mojo, 2017; Songfacts, 2024

Neil Young on Ohio — Decade liner notes; Rolling Stone

John Fogerty on Fortunate Son — multiple interviews; NPR

Stephen Stills on For What It's Worth — NPR American Anthem series https://www.npr.org/2017/09/19/551766018/for-what-its-worth-the-story-of-a-protest-song-that-almost-wasnt

Kent State, May 4, 1970 — May 4 Visitors Center, Kent State University https://www.kent.edu/may-4-visitors-center

On collective memory:

Santayana, G. (1905). The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. Scribner's.

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Structure & Scars
Unfiltered dialogue about the structures that shape us.

✉️ Continue the conversation: nikki@perspectivestherapywi.com

Send us Fan Mail

It's the center square on the buzzword bingo card. It's on coffee mugs and conference lanyards and LinkedIn skill sections. It's in every training, every debrief, every organizational wellness initiative that's ever been handed down from someone who will never have to use it.

Resilience. We're going in.

Resources referenced in this episode:

Southwick et al. (2014) — Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338

Papazoglou et al. (2020) — Moral injury and PTSD in law enforcement: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00310

PMC10742391 — Stress, prevention, and resilience among first responders: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10742391/

perspectivestherapywi.com

ironstarpeersupport.com

Structure & Scars
Unfiltered dialogue about the structures that shape us.

✉️ Continue the conversation: nikki@perspectivestherapywi.com