Dear Therapist #4: Awakening to Yourself and Training the Skills to Find Yourself Again

Hi Dr. Ham, 

I wanted to reach out as you were a large reason why I made the switch to the field of therapy. I was hoping to see whether you had any training opportunities as I embark on this new career path, or any advice. 

I had been increasingly experiencing this inner psychic fragmentation due to the events going on in the world around me, the worldviews of my family vs. the professional circles I found myself in, my own unresolved trauma. Eventually I made my way to a workshop on trauma and healing, and was, by chance, chosen to undergo a Dick Schwartz demo of IFS (as a “client”). That session was very powerful for me. What I remember from the session is how I felt afterwards — a sense of mental acuity, and openheartedness, that I couldn’t remember feeling last. I felt as though I had had another sense awakened, through which I could perceive the states and defenses of others—their protectors and managers, in IFS terms, and hold them with such love and understanding. 

Of course, the ‘blissful’ part of the post-demo state didn’t last. Walking around with a heart wide open meant that I was also much more sensitive to, and hurt by, the micro-aggressions and colonization that were also very much present at the retreat.  

I don’t quite have the words for it, but it exposed me to something that felt ‘magical’ about the therapy process. I returned from this retreat without having made the leap to join the therapy field, because I hadn’t found myself in any of the approaches of the programs and practitioners that I had seen. That is, until I came across the podcast episode that featured you and Darrell Hammond, and shortly after that, “What My Bones Know.” I then looked up your page and resonated with the way you conduct therapy, and the way you think about trauma healing, as what I can only describe as a soul-based level. Realizing that there were people in the field who practice in a way that I would like to practice, I applied to a few programs and chose the one at XX, which brings me here. 

I was wondering, Dr. Ham, whether there was any possibility that I would be able to train with you. If not, I’d be so grateful if you could recommend some other sites, or practitioners, who practice in a similar, relational way that is attuned to what is arising in the present moment. (And who are just as nerdy, artistic, experiential, and process-driven about the work as you seem to be. Or at least are willing to accept an intern like that.) 

I’m at XX now, and finding what I’m learning here to be, frankly, quite rigid and manualized and not particularly useful. I was hoping for some guidance on where to look to really learn how to be a better therapist. Of course, I am still navigating my own journey of healing, and continue to do so in parallel with this new professional path. 

Whatever wisdom you might be willing to share, I humbly solicit it. 

Dear therapist in training,

Congratulations on experiencing such a magical moment of open-hearted awareness through that exercise with Dick Schwartz. That is exactly the kind of experience that I've had myself through various forms of healing and that I hope to achieve with my patients. You're right. It's very elusive and hard to maintain, but I've come to think that we’re not meant to remain open all the time. Rather, I think the opening and closing are meant to cycle and undulate like every other process in life, and maybe the goal of life is greater and greater suppleness and allowing, like an ease in returning to breath after exertion and effort.

As for community and training, it makes perfect sense that you'd be looking for others to help you get in touch with that awareness again. I wish I had an answer for you. I'm thinking of creating some community of like-minded learners in the near future. 2025 will be a time of change and transition for me so we'll see what new opportunities might arise. In the meantime, you might try to train with others focused on moment to moment process—maybe those training in couples, family, or group process. But, the awareness piece you might have to train through adjacent fields, such as mindfulness, circling, acting, mysticism, shamanism, somatic experiencing, holotropic breath work, and maybe even psychedelics (through legal means of course). 

Oh, and, do please learn all the rigid, "manualized" ways you are learning right now. Think of them as foundational exercises to train your clinical muscles, like learning to dribble or swing a racquet. Every time you master one level of play, your awareness will move up to the next level. Eventually, you will master enough levels that your mind can float above the whole game. Time slows down, and you act without strain. Your heart will open up again and experience the world with less worry or fear. Or maybe you’ll better allow it to close when it needs and get good at opening up again.

Think of this heart opening that you experienced as your higher self calling to you to come find yourself again. You'll find her by climbing the ladder of whatever skills and practices begged to be learned in this moment. These skills and practices will help you build your higher self a home inside your heart—a home with a warm southern view, built on solid ground, and opened to the wonder of the night sky.

Profoundly Touching and Remarkable Thank You Note

The note below was sent to me this morning. It left me moved and stunned that one of us humans could be so heroic and courageous. It is shared here with permission.

Dear Dr. Ham,

I hope this message finds you well. …I felt inspired to reach out to you in gratitude today, after almost two years of following, learning from, and being touched by your work.

Today I attended the first session of family therapy I have ever tried with my mom. She immigrated with her family in the 1960s; she and her siblings were the only Asian students in their entire school growing up. In her life she has endured an unspeakable amount of loss, hardship, and violence--violence that, sadly, she then took out on my siblings and me. Our relationships as a family are so fractured now, and the deepest pain I've ever known has been feeling disconnected from my siblings and my mom--misunderstood and unwanted. For me it was a ray of hope that she was finally willing to try a therapy session together when I asked her.

While driving to the session today (it was a ways away from where I live), I decided to re-listen to your interview with Dan Harris on "Ten Percent Happier," to help calm my anxieties about how the session might go (my mom has never been to therapy before and has historically had, let's just say, some doubts about the merits of psychology as a field). I'd listened to this episode and been so comforted and enlivened by it before, but when it got to the part where you were talking about holding the other person with your gaze, where there is nothing else left to say, your words pierced my heart anew. I thought, I can dwell in this love.

While the session was an absolute failure as far as us being able to communicate or get anywhere regarding our relationship--my mom would barely look at me and stormed out at the end--I somehow didn't leave feeling the knifing shame and self-disgust I usually feel after difficult interactions with my mom. I wondered why that was, and I also realized I hadn't felt afraid at all during the session, even though her anger used to frighten me more than anything else in the world. Throughout the session, I had simply been trying to hold her with my gaze while she spoke, even when she wouldn't look in my direction, and to try to send my love toward her so she would be able to feel it. I don't think that she is in a place to feel or receive it at this moment, but in trying to send this love toward her I realized I could see her sitting there as so many versions of her younger self: the little girl who was bullied mercilessly at school and beaten at home, who was raised mostly by relatives and daycares because her mother was working to keep them afloat and her father was sick; the young woman who lost her first child and wanted so much to be a mother again that all she has tried to do is hold on to her living children at all costs, in the only ways she knows how. I saw a person who is afraid of being alone and abandoned and my heart ached for her. I feel so much love for my mom.

I have sometimes wondered why it is worth it for me to keep living if my own family doesn't want me anymore, and in the past I hadn't really been able to articulate a true reason that would allow me to go on without numbness or despair. Today, because of you, I was able to feel that true reason. Thank you for all the work you do to make your voice and ideas available to people who may never have the opportunity and good fortune to be your patients. Thank you for reminding me that there is goodness we can search and work for in the world, in others, and in ourselves. I am grateful and humbled to have found your work and to be able to grow and open my heart because of it.

With admiration and gratitude, and my warmest and best wishes to you always,

Dear Therapists #3: how do we attend to our heart wanting to close?

New comment from Azra on Guest Appearance on The Courageous Life Podcast with Joshua Steinfeldt:

I'm curious about ways that we as therapist need to close during sessions with clients. Often I feel badly about it, because it makes me less present with the client as I notice it happening inwardly, and because of the closing I am less willing/wanting/ able to connect to others. Curious how you attend to this is the moment when you notice your heart wanting to close in the moment with a client as a therapist?

Hi Azra, 

This is a wonderful question and a beautiful sentiment. I hear you about feeling bad about the closing, but you have to be careful with feeling bad. Feeling bad could be a north star coming from your heart, saying I want to stay connected with them, but it could also turn into shame and should’s which might only interfere with your clarity and discernment. You’ll have to feel into which your own ‘feeling bad’ is or wants to be. 

Now as for what I do, I try not to judge the closing. I let it spark my curiosity. Why is this coming up? Is this my stuff, their stuff or something in between us? My stuff: am I preoccupied with something else? Their stuff: are they closing up because shame, embarrassment or self-consciousness is arising and I am mirroring their own closing? Something in between: are we closing up to each other because something just happened between us that wasn’t noticed or acknowledged?

Should I mention that I feel this way now and let us be curious together? Or, should I see where it goes and wait until I know that they are open to being curious about it with me? In that regard, is the ‘feeling bad’ my body’s way of warning me that they won’t receive it with curiosity? See, so much to feel into! 

As I’m awakening my curiosity, I re-read your question and return to the emotion of ‘feeling bad.’ This is the most interesting point of the conversation, not all the other technical ways in which I remain curious about my own closing. If we were talking, I would have us both feel into this part of you that feels bad. And that inquiry itself would both tend to the part of you that feels bad and return us to the state of curiosity that is all that there really is or needs to be. Then, I bet your question would evaporate and you would feel okay in the not knowing and waiting to see how things unfold. 

What do you think? Maybe?

Help fund a film about trauma recovery

Someone I know is creating a documentary film about her journey recovering from childhood trauma and needs our help finishing it. There are layers and layers of creativity that are used for healing. First, she is transforming her father’s artwork with the help of a community of artists (37 and counting). This process itself is an incredible act of love and healing for the filmmaker and the artists themselves. Then, the works will be displayed in a gallery and the whole process is being documented through this film. I’m sure that those of us who watch the film will be transformed as well. It’s an epic act of communal healing and transformation.

Here is the official film synopsis:

Filmmaker Sarah Hanssen finds herself in possession of her deceased father’s abstract expressionist paintings. Growing up in his studio, surrounded by the smells of gin and turpentine, ever-shifting canvases, and a string of young girlfriends, the works contain mixed messages of obsession, secrets, freedom, and selfishness. Something doesn’t feel right about displaying these paintings around her home anymore, as if they are haunted objects, holding her back. After a lifetime of suppression, the time has come to confront the secret of sexual abuse. The filmmaker embarks on a journey to paint in what is missing: the tortured artist, nude women, cigarettes, ashtrays, beer cans, gin bottles, various pets, raucous house guests, and herself. The project soon expands to involve collaborations with additional artists, revelations about other women still affected by their relationship with her father, and the destruction of a devastating mythology and healing through collaborative creative expression. Many of these individuals are sharing their own experiences with trauma along the way.

Disclosure: I was interviewed for the film but otherwise have no stake in the film.

Dear Therapists #2: How can I learn to work in a raw, experiential, process-driven way?

Dr. Ham,

I felt the need to reach out to you, for one thing simply to tell you how impactful it was for me to hear your perspective on the Being Well podcast and thank you for doing so. I also wanted to see if you may be able to offer any words of wisdom about my path towards becoming a therapist. It only took me listening to about 18 minutes of the podcast before I was moved to tears. You so insightfully and powerfully vocalized so much of what I've been feeling but not fully able to put into words.  

I know deep down that I want to work with people who are seeking support for their suffering and trauma, but also overwhelmed by the idea of doing so. This is in large part because, as you so poignantly expressed on the podcast, there are no manuals, nothing specific to "do," no modalities, no diagnoses, no self-care regimens, that will truly help someone who is deeply suffering. 

In turn, this also triggers my past traumas, where great anxiety resulted from feeling out of control and helpless. This has been making me concerned that specializing in trauma work may be too triggering to me as a therapist, because I would feel dysregulated just as the client is when I can't intellectualize or manualize their suffering to make it feel "manageable." Yet I feel like ultimately, this is the type of work I want to do, and am in fact called to do. 

With that in mind, I'm wondering if you may be able to offer any feedback about how I can begin to build a foundation as a therapist-in-training to do this kind of work-- the process-driven, experiential, artistic, personalized, raw type you describe. Maybe in terms of any thoughts about being a therapist who is able to support others who are suffering while also experiencing one's own suffering (past and/or present) at the same time. 

Thank you so much for your time and consideration, and for what you are doing in the mental health field. 


Dear therapist-in-training,

I totally get what you are saying. It’s such a gift that we get to continue growing as we help others grow, and it is imperative that we do so, so we can hold and release the dark material that our clients will need to hold and release. 

I’m so happy to hear that you have an aching yearning to do this kind of work and feel conflicted and cautious about it at the same time. That is the exact right feeling you should have and that you should listen to. When I’ve lost that mix of feelings is when I myself have lost myself to pride and arrogance, which can still happen if I’m not careful. I can tell you that you are much further ahead than I was at your stage of development. I didn’t even know it was possible to work with heart and from the heart. My only inspiration when I was in training was Yalom’s work, but we never studied his techniques. I only read his books for leisure outside my academic work. 

I feel like I’ve only gotten the hang of doing this type of work in the past 5-7 years (and I started seeing clients in 1995). Maybe you won’t take as long as I did but I hope you give yourself as long as you need. 

I think you already know what you need to do to grow. The next step for us is always right in front of us, if only we would slow down and listen. Listen to our hearts and listen to our bodies. My guess is that your heart knows that you have to do more of your own work. More holding and releasing of your own traumas. More grieving and loving. More dysregulation and return. We don’t get rid of our traumas, we change our relationship to it. We let it flow through us with witness and love.

The beautiful thing is that all you can do is your own work, but know that doing your own work does work for everyone else ,and having the privilege of watching others do their own work helps us all in our own work. This is the way. A virtuous reciprocity blossoms and flaps a butterfly’s wings when our intentions are properly set to only doing the work right in front of us. The work alive in our bodies and hearts right now and nothing more. Can you feel it stirring?

I hope this is helpful and thank you for becoming who you already are.

Dear Therapists #1: How Should I Start a New Therapy?

Dear Dr. Jacob Ham,

Where should I start, there is so much I would like to write to you and ask you...

First of all, perhaps a little about my context: I live in Germany near the woods and the fields, very beautiful. I have been an ACT therapist with all my heart. In my small private practice I receive my clients, who are very close to my heart. I love my work and I very often doubt my abilities.

So a few weeks ago I read Stephanie Foo's book "What my bones know" and what can I say, from the moment it was about her therapy with you, I was so incredibly touched and at the same time so full of longing to do the kind of work you do with your being and work.

I have a wonderful supervisor. This week for the first time I had the courage to really show myself with the painful thoughts and doubts about our relationship (between me and my supervisor, if I am worth him supervising me etc.), tears are running down my face as I write this because it feels so important and painful at the same time. ...You gave me the necessary courage to really be vulnerable and show my insecurities, and the necessary motivation for change.

And one more thing: In a podcast episode (I think it was the "Being well" podcast), the person opposite you asked something along the lines of how you prepare for the session and you answered something like "I'm working from scratch", from moment to moment, with what shows up in the here and now, process changes, breaks, ruptures, shifts etc. This little phrase "I'm working from scratch" rings in my ears and I tried it both last week and today with my clients. Today's session was so intense, beautiful, connecting and fulfilling, and I have you to thank for that, among other things and to a decisive degree! I have also often paused with my clients to formulate a mutual intention for the session - what a powerful, centering and bonding moment, which I have also learned from you :)! Even though I am just starting out with this type of therapeutic guidance, I have now gotten a real sense of what it can feel like and I want more of it! A thousand thanks to you, Dr. Ham!

Finally, I have a small question:

What do you say to your clients in the first session about how you work? Something like informed consent, so that the client knows what they are getting into? Or do you say nothing at all concerning the way you would work with them?

Hi Julia,

Thank you so much for sharing your journey of growth as a therapist. The work can be so amazing and beautiful and yet so solitary! So few of us get to share the wonder of it with anyone else. I’m glad to be a witness to yours.

As for what I say to my clients, I try to tell them in words tailored for each person, and definitely show them through action, that the way I work is relational, meaning that I think a lot of the work happens through the here and now of our own relationship. Everything we need to know and understand shows up right here in front of us.

So, I invite them to tell me whenever they have an emotion rise up during our interaction, even the uncomfortable ones. Every emotion is a signal of something important. Sometimes, the emotions tell us that there is something bad happening in our relationship that I definitely want to make better. At other times, it tells us we are on the right track and we are moving into more emotional poignancy. Still other times, it tells us that something from the past has awakened to be witnessed, understood and released. Many times, all of these things could be happening all at once, and we have to look at any and every layer of the experience as they ascend.

In return, I will be more honest and transparent about my emotions and experiences in the relationship because they too can often signal something meaningful happening in our relationship and in the work. I won’t just say everything. I focus on sharing the things that serve the work of helping the client (and not serving my own needs).

I end by asking their permission and invitation to work this way. And, when it actually happens, I ask them how it was for them to do it. This is an act of on-going attunement and informed consent.

Sometimes, I don’t say any of this, but just ask if we can start working, and we dive in, and we do this whole process through our bodies, our expressions, and our gestures.

Hope this is helpful to you on your journey!

Jacob

My Friend's Beautiful Ibogaine Experience

My friend, Josh White, wrote a brief summary of his experience healing with the aid of ibogaine on Lucid News. It’s definitely worth a read for anyone dealing with unremitting complex trauma.

https://www.lucid.news/i-arrived-for-my-ibogaine-journey-ready-to-die-now-my-inner-child-is-free/

Ten Percent Happier Podcast Appearance with Ms. Foo and Me

Dan Harris had Stephanie Foo and me on his brilliant podcast, Ten Percent Happier. We did separate interviews. Hers is out Monday, May 23, while mine comes out Wednesday, May 25. Her episode goes over her recovery process and discusses the therapy with me in a way that feels very representative and informative. My episode is much more esoteric in that I keep refusing to be specific about approaches and tools. Still, I think it may be helpful for others to hear.

Here’s her episode. I’ll post mine on Wednesday when it drops.

New Must-Read Memoir: What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

Stephanie Foo, an award winning journalist, has written a beautiful memoir about her journey healing from complex trauma. A couple of chapters near the end include snippets from a brief stint of psychotherapy I provided to help her consolidate what she had learned through this journey. It’s one of those books that make you cry and cheer all on the same page.

Podcast: 20 Years of "Never Forget" | Not Past It

On the eve of 9/11, I was asked to help Simone Polanen work through her complex feelings around the event and figure out a way to talk about it in a way that helps us all talk about it… I developed such a deep admiration and appreciation for this remarkable woman and the good she is putting into the world.