Research shows us that trauma is stored in the body. But how does this happen, and why? Here, trauma expert Janina Fisher weighs in using the case example of her depressed client Ben, and explains why knowing how trauma functions can help us understand our own stress reactions to the covid-19 pandemic.
As Fisher mentions, it’s especially important for therapists to validate their clients’ losses right now, especially the absence of physical contact with friends, family members, and coworkers.
She also offers a strategy for helping them manage. In her recent Networker article, “Nine Simple Interventions for Depression,” Fisher breaks down concrete, proven interventions—all easily worked into video sessions.
Janina Fisher
Janina Fisher, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and former instructor at The Trauma Center, a research and treatment center founded by Bessel van der Kolk. Known as an expert on the treatment of trauma, Dr. Fisher has also been treating individuals, couples and families since 1980.
She is past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, an EMDR International Association Credit Provider, Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former Instructor, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fisher lectures and teaches nationally and internationally on topics related to the integration of the neurobiological research and newer trauma treatment paradigms into traditional therapeutic modalities.
She is author of the bestselling Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma: A Workbook for Survivors and Therapists (2021), Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation (2017), and co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma.(2015).
