08/09/2025
In therapy, we encounter many faces of survival.
Some clients please and placate, smoothing over conflict to secure safety.
Some lie, twist, or manipulate, believing distortion is the only way to stay in connection.
Some shout, wound, or rage and demand their only way to ensure they can have their needs met.
Though they look different, each behaviour is a trauma response, a strategy born from the uncertainty of survival. And each carries its own relational weight.
*The Therapist’s Challenge
-With the pleaser, authenticity is hidden. The therapeutic relationship may feel warm on the surface, while deeper wounds remain inaccessible.
-With the manipulator, trust falters. The therapist may feel disoriented, left questioning what is real.
- With the demanding, safety is tested. The intensity can overwhelm, leaving the therapist struggling to stay grounded and compassionate.
Working with these responses isn’t only technically demanding,it is emotionally painful.
As therapists we may feel a myriad of things with its foundations based in our own relational trauma.
The Way Through
The task is not to fix or erase these patterns, but to see them as adaptations, the best strategies a person could find to survive.
When we recognise survival logic, compassion becomes possible. Not just for the client, but also for ourselves as practitioners navigating the difficulty.
This is the paradox of trauma therapy: Trauma responses create relational difficulty, And they are also if handled properly provide the gate way for clients healing.
Holding both truths is where healing begins.
