Episode 278: Looking Back at Our Trauma to Move Forward (w/ Byron Kehler)

“When trauma is our teacher, we are ill-equipped to live healthy lives in healthy environments. What we learn, we live.”

We know that trauma often accompanies children when they enter the child welfare system. Usually, we talk about the effects of trauma and how caregivers can respond with support. Today, we’re looking at trauma through the lens of personal history to understand how individuals can discover, address, and heal the trauma in their own stories.

Joining us to offer insights on “Story-Informed Trauma Therapy” (SITT), the method he created, is Byron Kehler. Byron is a Trauma Therapist with a private practice in Portland, Oregon. He’s here to help us understand the stories that lie behind hard behaviors and explore how we can respond with compassion, wisdom, and hope.

In this episode, you’ll hear how best to help children while keeping their stories in mind, the power of helping children who have endured trauma maintain a sense of control, why our pasts can have such a big influence on our patterns today, and much more.

Find resources mentioned and more in the show notes for this episode: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/byron-kehler-278/