09/12/2025
𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟮/𝟱 - 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝘂𝗺𝗮 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗮𝘄𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁
Beneath professional warmth, clinical precision, and evidence-based fluency, another trauma response thrives, always agreeable, always nodding, always learning, always serving
𝗙𝗮𝘄𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴
Not the freeze of shutdown, not the fight for reform, but the hyper-attunement that says something like..
If I stay valuable, likeable, needed… I’ll stay safe
In many therapy rooms, this looks like the expert therapist. Constantly upgrading their credentials, sitting in supervision like it’s a performance, speaking fluently in theories, but unable to hold boundaries or inhabit true presence.
𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝘁 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲
For many of us, especially those raised in unpredictable or emotionally unsafe homes, fawning became a survival strategy. Hypervigilance masked as empathy, over delivering masked as care, people-pleasing dressed in professionalism (𝗪𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗲𝗿, 𝟮𝟬𝟭𝟯)
Also, this pattern is rewarded by the system, clients like you, colleagues validate your dedication, certifications applaud your lifelong learning, but under the surface?
Collapse
Dysregulation
A complete disconnection from your own nervous system
From the relative lens, we might say
This is burnout, codependency, enmeshment
But from the absolute, it’s simply a misunderstanding of identity, a self constructed to survive relational rupture. When identity is built on being needed, there’s no space for being yourself. Focus becomes narrowed to service and safety, its biological survival
This pattern doesn’t just happen to clients, it plays out within the therapist, too
Healing here isn’t another training, it’s the quiet work of returning to awareness, of noticing the collapse behind the smile. Of inhabiting the discomfort of not being the expert, the helper, the solution
And noticing...Am I here, or am I performing safety for someone else’s benefit?
In my own work, I’ve seen this show up in sneaky ways, nodding too much, rushing to give insight, feeling the urge to rescue a client from silence. Each time, I had to notice the urge behind the action, and take it into my own inquiry, not the next intervention.
The paradox is that, we can be both deeply skilled, and still unravelling survival roles we thought were professionalism. We can hold a powerful therapeutic container, while also being human beings re-learning how to belong to ourselves
𝗦𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳?
That the very role of being a therapist or professional was, at times, a trauma response itself?
And if so… how do we unlearn the role, while still offering something meaningful?
I’m here for the honest conversations with those willing
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𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟯 - 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘁, comment below if you want to be tagged.