This is the second of a two-part interview with Keita Whitten. Click here to read  Part One.

SE spoke openly about terms like “transference” and “counter-transference,” reminding us this is ALWAYS occurring. Yes, professional protocol and ethical practices of standards are important to guide our professional relationships. The truth is --when you embrace the science of epigenetics--elements and their environments are not static and they are constantly shifting, exchanging information--even in a sterile room. And, rather than ignoring this, what I now know is that every interaction with a person, an environment or an animal involves a certain amount of transference and countertransference of information through adaptation--in this case the nervous system. In reality our nervous systems are constantly responding and adapting to environmental cues, internally and externally, all the time. In contrast, traditional psychology and allopathic medicine teaches that we--the practitioners-are the experts, and that, to guard against biases, we must remain objective--distant from the other, “the client” and that  environments are to be controlled/ manipulated in order to have untainted outcomes.

I know I am veering off subject, but I think is an important divergence. I would go a step further to say, transference and countertransference are how we understand how things work or don’t work. We, people, animals, are constantly evaluating and adapting to the world around us. SE taught us how we do this through our nervous systems each day, each moment. You can’t shut it off. And when we try to, we are missing vital sensory information. For example, we all talk about cognitive dissonance, right? There are lots of explanations about what it is and why it happens, right? Let’s’ agree for a moment with the basic understanding-- it’s a mental discomfort resulting from a clash of values or beliefs. Here’s the thing: What if I said there is also sensory dissonance? No, scratch that. I propose cognitive dissonance is actually a result of sensory discomfort--a stress response to a threat in the external environment. And it shows up as cognitive dissonance when we have overridden our sensory information.

When I have worked with clients who experience explosive anger, I now call it "sensory dissonance." What that means is that they are receiving cues both internally and externally, but trying to override this with reason. Ultimately,  whatever they are trying to override with reason--fear, despair or the feelings of betrayal-- will manifest as sideways behaviors and cognitive dissonance. Working through an SE lens, I help people to identify sensory cues both inside and outside of themselves--cues that are often become overridden and lead up to these sideways expressions such as explosive anger and rage.  Here's another way to look at this: By the time one is raging, it’s usually because the person has already overridden the sensory inputs--including the role of transferences and countertransferences. Today, somatic psychology is a lens through which I observe everything, everyone--including myself.

Coming back to your question, SE and Yoga were ways that helped me frame an embodied holistic approach with the science to back up how it worked. Teaching yoga taught me the importance of mindfulness, the ability to slow down and to practice awareness of our embodied consciousness. With SE, I now had the science to demonstrate these connections between embodied consciousness with stress responses and how to support the body’s own healing process. Early on in my practice, I  learned this level of practice would ultimately uncover an adversities and traumatic experiences. In the ACEs study with Kaiser Health and the CDC, they found that, out of 17,000 participants (white and upper middle class with access to private health care), about 70% had like  adverse experience scores before the age of seven.

Dr. Nadine Burke, now the first appointed Surgeon General for the state of California, educates about the vital health implications of toxic stress and the wear-and-tear on the immune system, when we do not address trauma and ACEs from a biological, embodied approach.  

This data made me pause and think for a moment. I then started to realize that the way we diagnose people is all wrong--the DSM5 is wrong! And, we (therapist, counselors, psychiatrists, all of us) are continuing to prescribe pills, diagnoses and apply psychology like all Western allopathic medicine--WE TREAT SYMPTOMS, not root causes.

For example, one of my clients taught me a different way to understand bipolor disorder. Assessment took months to uncover contributing external factors like the fact she was exposed to longterm neglect before the age of seven, manipulation like gaslighting,  and rape and other sexual abuse--and therefore the needed treatment was not pharmaceutical (in some cases medication may be required initially to calm/stabilize a “wacked” nervous system), but required a holistic approach based an understanding of ACEs and  mind-body-soul synergy to support the creation of balance/homeostats. Over time this client began to discover the need for changes in her lifestylem including proper rest, diet changes, and letting go of toxic relationships. With these changes, our sessions, and additional support from homeopathy, she was able to lower her lithium dosage, and her symptoms--including manic flares--began to minimize, which were possible due to her new understanding of the "pain body." The difference was this: These behaviors were there, but less intense, so that she was able to build the capacity to recognize the buildup before the flare-up, allowing   the pain body to chillaxe  and begin to heal its soul wounds.  

Then I realized, another profound aspect of the ACEs study: What about ALE (Adult Lived Experiences)? If the ACEs study surveyed a majority white population, then what would be true for people of color, women, and women of color? What would external stress factors such as poverty, racism, and oppression-- including substance abuse and domestic violence play in the role mental /physical health and dis-ease? While genetics does not determine health and emotional well-being, epigenetics does!
 
You  asked about my new THRIVE initiative for 2019. Based on this new understanding, I knew then I could not see all clients because I no longer wanted to do "bandaid work." I wanted to help heal soul wounds. I instantly became aware I had to change how I practiced, including who I saw. And this why today I only work with trauma. Back to the original ACEs population study: With all the recent research about health disparities for communities of color, including women, I realized I wanted to serve the most vulnerable populations--that is, girls and women of color.

CW:  I am seeing more and more healers who are not taking insurance. Can you talk about that?

KW: Why don't I take insurance? The simple answer is, SE a, like acupuncture, reiki or homeopathy does not provide enough “empirical” evidence to support how it works for insurance companies to pay for our services. Insurance companies need justification to pay for services. With this justification comes the demand for qualitative, evidence-based practices using levers of variables to determine outcomes. Clinicians have to provide a diagnosis during your first visit, then write up goals and objectives that support the diagnoses, and the come up with arbitrary phrases like, "Client/subject will manage emotional outburst by 50%, by learning how to express their feelings."

We clinicians spend numerous hours trying to add it all  up to justify services, and  many make it up, and we all know it's BS--but it’s the only way one can get paid. There are insurance discrepancies in terms of what gets paid out, based on what is called "pay-out tiers," which are different with every company.  For example, one company might pay you $99 while another might pay you only $65--for the exact same service. And confidentiality? There is no confidentiality with insurance companies.  Your information belongs to them to use to qualify or disqualify you.

When I was taking insurance, I received a notice stating  I was over-using a diagnostic code based on the demographics of my colleagues who practiced in the area! Can you guess what it was? The code for trauma. This was  a real eye-opener! Apparently my colleagues in the field really do not have an informed lens on ACEs and trauma. To be fair, it's probably more of a billing issue, but this means I can't record what I see and suspect, because I will not be paid, and I will not be paid for using a model like SE, because it’s not  sanctioned by Big Pharma and the medical communities.
 
When I feel doubt about what I do, I like to recalled the words of one of my clinical supervisors, “You may not have chosen to work with trauma, but trauma has defiantly called you!"  Looking back on my life, I would agree. Each experience has been very informative. And because of my story, I feel I am able to relate to people’s pain, which disarms the power imbalance very quickly.

Nadine Burke says that when people ask her how she can you work with trauma,  she gets excited and replies, “because its fundamental hopeful work.” I would agree, and this is especially so working with women of color.  I’d like to end with a reference to the works of Anne Wilson Schaef’s book, Meditations For Women Who Do Too Much.  Her daily affirmations are a reminder of the vitality of why I do what I do. I  know intergenerational healing will take two generations. I will not live to see it, but through the work I do I have hope my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will experience healing through collective and conscious community parenting. I am still unpacking fifty-three years of experiences,

Ashe

Redefining Therapy website

Keita Whitten…  one of the most amazing women I have ever met, and it’s my privilege to interview her today! Keita is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Masters in Social Work, specializing in trauma. She is launching an initiative in her practice to focus on women and girls with trauma/PTSD history, especially women of color.
 
What is so radical and so powerful about Keita is that, in an age of hyper-specialization where every malady must be micro-coded for the insurance companies and superficial resolution, she is conscientiously doing the opposite—slowing down and widening the concept of diagnosis to look at all aspects of the mind-body-spirit connection, as well as the socio-politico-economic-environmental contexts that are impacting her clients.

CG: So… Keita… I love the description of THRIVE, your new healing initiative with women and girls. But before we get to that, can you fill us in on your journey toward finding your niche in the world of counseling and healing.  It’s been a journey with some seeming dead-ends and detours, and I think that these are an important part of your perspective today.
 
KW: Yes, and you’re right the journey of how I have come to build “Thrive” is a personal journey which is also reflected in how I approach my art and my writing. The reasons I shifted from a traditional therapy practice to a practice that involves healing includes a very personal journey of unpacking and healing my own soul wounds.
 
The idea of focusing on women and girls started in the late 80s, after I suddenly found myself violently divorced after just 3 years of marriage. I was living in the bohemian artist community of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, New York.  Looking back I now realized I had severed these ties, because I had bought into the belief I had to grow up- “Adulting” is the term my second son (now a Man) uses to describe putting his own art on the back burner to “be a responsible productive adult.” I cringe every time I hear him use this word. It’s a word I still struggle with to justify why I do not embrace my own art.

I can recall the immensity of the financial stress, we were shouldering as new parents. We were not making it on his electrician’s apprentice salary. And I remember feeling personally responsible for our financial situation. After all, I was a stay-at-home mom. I remember thinking I could be like the frontier wife from The Little House on the Prairie. She did everything by hand. She took care of their home, never complained, while he built their home, hunted worked at the mill. They were partnering, a team. I so desperately wanted them to be us—a team. In addition to the night feedings, cloth diapers, homemade baby food, all domestic duties- involving a 3-story walkup each day (with an infant and stroller), carrying laundry to the laundromat, going to the grocery store, getting up at 5 AM to prepare his breakfast, packing his lunch (with little notes of appreciation and encouragements tucked inside), planning and preparing dinner, and then cleaning up afterwards! I began searching for ways to bring in extra income to help alleviate my husband’s erratic mood swings. I discovered I could take in other people’s children – so they could go to “work”—to help provide extra income for my family.  Deep inside I wanted to pursue my art too, but it was a luxury “we” just could not afford.

Adulting meant I had to continue to prove I could take care of myself without being a burden. I keep searching for options. Around this time, I began attending Boricua College. One of our required classes was called “colloquium.” Looking back, I now realize this class was designed for student success and retention. I enjoyed colloquium. It was the only place I could connect with other adults and check in about our experiences in school and lives outside of school. A couple of times after class my instructor would pull me aside, asking me about comments I had made about my home life, and husband. One day after class she handed me a Domestic Violence Wheel. I had no idea what it was. This was the first time I had ever heard anything about domestic violence. I didn’t even know there were names for the things I was experiencing.  I just thought the sudden violent moods swings, the yelling, the drunken episodes, and disappearing acts were all part of normal everyday married life. I can recall thinking I had to hide this wheel at home and read it when he was not around.
 
I want to fast forward for a moment. In my field of somatic trauma phycology, we identify 4 responses to threat, AKA “adverse and/or traumatic experiences.” Most only know about “Fight or Flight.” There is also Freeze and Fawn.  Today I will focus on Fawn because I view Fawn as an opposite response to Fight with gender specific implications. For example, in traditional forms of psychotherapy Fawn responses are often people who are misdiagnosed as codependent or victim. Characteristics include Appease / Submit / Resignation /Befriend. Fawn people adjectives include pleasing others, scared to say what they really think/feel, talking about others instead of self, are Angels of Mercy, overcaring, suckers, easily exploited by others, hugely concerned with what others think of them, a yes person. A collage of mine describes Fawn this way: It [Fawn] has also been referred to as the Stockholm syndrome, and historically more females respond in this way than males, who tend to have the physicality to fight or flee more easily. It takes self-blame and shame out of the equation, for example, when the victim is befriending and going along with the abuser/ perpetrator and not understanding later why they acquiesced in the situation and didn’t respond with  fighting or fleeing.

Looking back to my experiences today I realize how sad it was to know back then I had no realization, no connection to what I was feeling inside me—or around me—and how living this way was guiding my actions, my decisions about life and related behaviors. I was simply in survival mode. It wasn’t until about 20 years later, living in Maine, training with the Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute (when we as students were required to unpack our own lives), I started to understand my lived adverse experiences with trauma and abuse were also shaped by the intersect of gender, race and heteronormativity. The holding pattern of Fawn reminds me of the macro shift out of the Goddess era in response to rising concerns regarding “male fragility”. This shift fueled by misogyny gave birth to patriarchy as a means to secure male leadership and dominance. As a society we continue to pay the high price of this legacy.

So how did you get from "super mom/abused woman" to the amazing healer that you are today?
 
I arrived in Maine in 1995 with a five-year-old, broke, pregnant with my second child, homeless- fleeing another abusive relationship. I decided to try college again for the third time.  I just had to get it right. There were two children depending on me. And I despised the shame of public housing and welfare. I had an opportunity to go to school under the Parents as Scholars Program (PAS). [PAS was a Maine initiative in response to the 1996 Personal Responsibility Act (under the Clinton Administration) championed by a Republican Olympia Snowe (go figure!) to create educational opportunities for TANF (welfare) eligible recipients.] Even with transferable credits, it took me six semesters—not including summer school—years to finish. I was excited about my BSW—yes! No more welfare! However, my first professional social work job was a child protection agent. (Yep—we even had badges) This lasted only eighteen months before I realized I could not stomach the work.  Colleagues who managed to survive for decades did so using anti-depressants or drinking,  or they suffered from a superiority complex. I knew I wasn’t actually helping “these” mothers or their broken families (who also came from broken families). Instead, what I did see in them were bits and pieces of me. So decided I needed to go back to school to get a better degree.

Needless to say, grad school was disappointing. I found myself taking expectational notice of the language used to teach “human behavior” and psychology, which ultimately blamed and pathologized people—especially women—for their current circumstances. These were the same words (language) used in macro and micro economic classes to describe poverty and who poor people were. I remember having a visceral reaction to a male instructor who glorified himself for his work with “welfare (black- single women) families” back in New York City, as if he was the great White Hope for these poor black families. The more I would try to question  these perspectives as points of concerns, the more hopeless, frustrated, and sickened I began to feel about wanting to “now” become a therapist. And forget about trauma—trauma was not even in the syllabus. I didn’t even know about trauma until my therapist diagnosed me with PTSD—whoa! Looking back, I guess it was naiveté on my part to expect a school of social work to be exempt from the willingness to explore the significance of race, gender, class, and white privilege as crucial underpinnings informing identity politics, juxtaposed against the backdrop of continuous and laborious debates concerning the rights of “the deserving” vs the “undeserving” poor. Having had multiple experiences of being that “population” on the other side of the table, I decided I could not participate in good conscience being yet another “good intentioned” practitioner. I vowed if I made it out of my MSW program, I would not practice therapy.

The reason I am an LCSW today is because of Yoga. After my graduate school experience, I took up adjunct work and Kripalu yoga. And surprisingly I found both very healing. One day in yoga class I literally sprang off my mat and announced to my instructor I wanted to teach, and next thing you know, the resources I needed to attend found me and there I was at Kripalu undergoing my teacher training. When I began to teach yoga I started witnessing emotional shifts occurring within my students on the mat. Some would begin to weep, others would burst out in laughter. I wanted to understand not only what was going on but how could I use “it” to help other people.
 
This led me to rethink my LCSW. However, 3+ years had passed since graduation, and trying to find a clinical track to be supervised proved to be more difficult than I imagined. I was bummed but determined. I had to work my way back into the field starting with BSW entry positions. Finally, I landed a grant position with Community Counseling Center who agreed to supervise my LCSW. This was the same time I heard about the work of Dr. Gabor Maté When The Body Says No and Peter Lavine’s Walking the Tiger: Healing Trauma and brought these two books into my interview stating how I intended to explore these concepts as a therapist in training. My supervisor at the time chuckled, you may not have chosen to work with trauma, but trauma has definitely called you! Little did we both know at the time, she would be spot on. About six months later I found myself registered in the first session SEP training session.

 You see, what I really believe is, it was divine interference through yoga coupled with my graduate school experience and Somatic Experiencing Trauma trainings that called me back to work with people to support their trauma healing journey.

CG: When you were talking about your work, you named Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot and her influence on your thinking. Who is she and what was it about her work that inspired you?
 
KW: Oh yes, one of the requirements of my master’s program was to create a research project. Knowing me, I couldn’t just do a simple quantitative study—no! LOL— I had to explore things, probe and search for deeper understandings. Besides I hated statistics and SPS! I needed something tangible, relatable and alive. When I heard we could conduct a qualitative study, this peeked my interest. My core instructor however was mired in the postpositivist approach to research and told me something to this effect, “qualitative research is merely a quasi- form of research conducted in the field that is not reliable due to the fact that the environment containments the findings unless its conducted in a controlled environment…” I then proceeded to the department dean who tried to reframe what “He meant”. I paused and then announced I would consider a quantitative study if I could explore the implications of psychoimmunology as a lens for clinical intervention in social work. She stood speechless for a second, rolled her eyes and proceeded to tell me that it would be too hard for me, and besides I would have to be a medical student to do that type of analyses. I pouted. I felt like the cat who just lost its prey (huh, looking back on this I can now see how this would have begun a preliminary exploration into what we now call ACEs—“Adverse Childhood Experiences.” No longer feeling enthusiastic about research, I dropped the course until the following semester.

Little did I know there were new instructors recently hired who heard about my research ideas and wanted to support my qualitative endeavors. This is when I was introduced to feminist and womanist ideologies and participatory action research and deconstructing methodologies, which lead me to a qualitative style of research called Portraiture by Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot.  Her method is a social science inquiry that is able to blend art, environment and science, “capturing the complexity, dynamics, and subtlety of human experience and organizational life.”  Of course, that made sense to me—I am an artist, right? Needless to say, I created an elaborate explorative thesis that took more than two semesters to complete, documenting the results of a multicultural program called Dialogues in Diversity at the University of Southern Maine by attempting to combine all approaches. Oy vey!

All this to say, what I took away from this experiment is the fact that Portraiture provides an in-depth layering of how to approach any subject and debunks the idea that environments are sterile. In fact, the researcher is a major part of an environment too, who views and makes meaning of the world based on her own schema, which can and does influence the outcome.  Portraiture taught me to always view things from the eagle’s eye down, the from-the-ground-up view of an ant, and the surrounding context one one’s environment including culture, his-story, art, religion, sociostatus, and geographical location, including climate. And now with my SE training I also include the internal environment of the nervous system. This is what I mean when I say I take a holistic view of trauma and ACES.
 
End of  Part 1
Click here for Part 2

Redefining Therapy website

I wrote The Princess of Pain as an act of solidarity for a friend of mine who had a condition which, back then, was called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy. It’s now referred to as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). This is a chronic illness characterized by severe burning pain, usually in the extremities, and extreme sensitivity to touch. Nobody really understands CRPS, and there is no cure. My friend told me that so many members of her support group had committed suicide, she had to stop attending. She told me how some victims of CRPS went so far as to have their limbs amputated in an effort to stop the burning, but even with the limb gone, the pain would persist. She was no longer able to tolerate painkillers like Ibuprofen, because chronic use of them had damaged her liver. Confined to a wheelchair because the pain had impaired her mobility, my friend was living a constricted life of extreme suffering, with no prospect of relief.

Struggling with my own chronic illness, myalgic encephalomyelitis (aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME/CFS.), I wanted to be a supportive companion. My burdens seemed light in comparison with hers.
 
But here’s the thing:  Processing trauma is just that—a process. Even though I knew better, I still found myself compulsively suggesting things that might “fix” my friend: changes in diet, nutritional supplements, different forms of meditation, counseling focused on unearthing hidden memories, a spiritual reframing of the experience…  as if my friend, in her agony, was not sufficiently motivated to have explored everything on the planet that held out even the remotest hope of relief. As if I, with my recent and superficial understanding of her condition, was somehow more of an expert than she! But still, every time I saw her, I would be overwhelmed by a desire to offer unsolicited advice.

What was going on? I hated it when people did that to me, and, believe me, with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome you hear it all. Everybody is an expert. They are especially big on the psychiatric theories about the disease. Crazy and lazy. Control freak. Narcissist. Malingerer. Diseases that are poorly understood provide ripe fodder for the ableists of the world.

So I knew that what I was doing was oppressive to my friend. What I was really communicating with all these brilliant suggestions, was that I could not accept her truth. I really could not accept her. I was letting her know that I thought she wasn’t trying hard enough, that she was giving up too soon, that she was trusting unreliable authorities. I was telling her that she needed to… to what? What was it I thought she needed to do? In fact, she had done and was doing exactly what she needed to do. She was accepting every minute of every day a grossly unfair, undeserved, unrelentingly cruel and vicious life sentence of literal, physical torture.
 
I was the one in need of fixing. I wrote The Princess of Pain as an apology and as an amends to her, to acknowledge her strength and courage and to acknowledge the work I still needed to do.

The Princess of Pain is about the fundamental conundrum of trauma: “It has to be accepted; it cannot be accepted.”
 
The answer for “How do I do this?” is not a simple one. Everyone’s journey with trauma is different. Maybe we cover much of the same ground, but we all cover it differently, in our own way and in our own time, and we cover parts of it over and over again. “How do we come to terms with trauma?” Daily and never.

The Princess of Pain has her confrontations with the Powers That Be in her cosmos. They may distract her, or soothe her, or misunderstand her, or frustrate her, or torment her, but they never provide her with the answers she wants. That’s the truth about trauma. 
 
The Princess of Pain is my fairy tale to end all fairy tales. Life is filled with injustice and meaningless suffering. They are not manifestations of some mysterious will of God, where all things work together for good and we are just too limited to see the Big Picture. They are not the result of some manifestation of karma from an unremembered criminal past life. They are not the result of some prenatal contract that our soul has made in order to learn the great lessons and glean the beneficent gifts of experiencing overwhelming pain and horror.

I don’t know that I have ever made my peace with the trauma in my life, but I consider it a huge victory to have abandoned many of the seductive ideologies that used to give me a fake sense of control over random events in my life at the expense of authentic empathy. I have acquired a deeper appreciation for the courage it takes to resist the strategies of denial and the callousness of cynicism, to take on a quest to accept the unacceptable.

            ___________________________________________________

Much gratitude to Sudie Rakusin, for her exquisite illustrations, and to Mary Meriam and Headmistress Press for publishing The Princess of Pain.

Click here to order.