By Lauren Dockett - Could the insights psychedelic and empathogenic drugs bring—the sense of spiritual grounding and vaporized defenses—finally help trauma survivors and those suffering from common clinical issues turn their lives around? One woman shares why psychedelic-assisted therapy was "the most profound healing she ever experienced."

Often we hear things from clients like “My relationship ending was so traumatic for me,” or “When my uncle passed away, I was totally traumatized.” With the word trauma being used so loosely and for such a wide range of problems, how do we know what it actually means anymore?

Often, our attitudes toward anxiety symptoms are misguided, says Richard Schwartz, the originator of Internal Family Systems. By understanding responses like cold sweats and heavy breathing, for instance, as positive expressions of a wish to protect oneself, rather than simply negative symptoms, Schwartz says, trauma survivors are in a better position to begin the process of healing.

By Joyanna Silberg - Working with dissociative children can be unnerving. As important as it is to have a theoretical understanding of what’s happening, a clinician needs a pragmatic, strength-based, problem-solving focus to feel prepared to treat such entrenched dissociative reactions.

By Jeffrey Von Glahn - Many clinicians are unaware of the difference between clients' therapeutic crying and situations in which clients are forced to deal with an overwhelming incident. Just a minute or two of deep therapeutic crying can bring about profound changes. And facilitating therapeutic crying isn’t complicated. Most of the time, the less the therapist does, the better.

By Alison Lighthall - Despite good intentions, therapists working with combat veterans face several challenges. To start with, engaging combat veterans in counseling of any kind. The first session may afford your only opportunity to ease the suffering of the veterans you encounter. You have to make every interaction with them count. Here's a blueprint for making it happen.

By Kevin Anderson - This is the story of one of the most turbulent storms in my personal and professional life. After the storm, I learned there’s something about healing from deep emotional suffering that feels like death and rebirth—the kind that asks us to be open to changing our contract with life.

In our own small way, the Networker has tried to revive the ancient, tribal practice of storytelling. At our third annual Symposium storytelling event, Kirsten Lind Seal shared the story of her attempt to rescue an immigrant client in a desperate situation.

Among the first to fully realize that humans have an innate psychophysiological capacity for overcoming trauma and recovering physical and emotional wholeness, Peter Levine developed Somatic Experiencing, a simple yet profoundly effective mind-body healing technique. In this video clip, he shows how simply noticing a client's body sensations can lead to therapeutic breakthroughs.

By Lisa Ferentz - In the early days of the trauma field, clients were seen as one-dimensional bundles of dysfunction and pain, who needed to relive their trauma before progress could be made. But an increased interest in post-traumatic growth has allowed many therapists to see that insight and healing can occur not only in the midst of devastating experiences, but even because of them.