welcoming & working with our triggers as therapists of color group

Are you a therapist of color looking for a peer group that helps you work with your triggers and come into better relationship with yourself and clients?

Together we will create a brave, intimate community of therapists & practitioners of color who collectively build 5 core skills to show up as supported, honest, flexible, and skilled with clients.

about the group

This group is all about coming into relationship with yourself when you are triggered so that you can return to connection.

  • Clinical trainings help us feel more skilled and competent, yet they are likely not helping us in moments we are triggered and feeling deskilled with our clients.

    This group will aim our focus on moments we feel deskilled, lost, scared, and triggered with our clients. If we come into relationship with ourselves in these particular moments, we will discover wisdom about what’s going on inside us, and between us and clients. This wisdom can unlock creativity and clues to what needs to happen next with clients and what supports we need in place for ourselves, so that we are not getting in our own way while supporting clients’ journeys.

  • Triggers is shorthand for feeling lost, stuck, scared, wrong, inadequate or deskilled. Our triggers are parts of us. They offer us wisdom.

    We are triggered way more often than we think we are as therapists.

    We can’t stop our triggers from starting given our autonomic nervous system is faster with its processing. But, we can have a new relationship to them.

  • As therapists, we know curiosity and compassion are at the core of our work, but we don’t often get a chance to practice in detail how to embody true curiosity and compassion when we’re in hard, sticky spaces with ourselves and clients.

    This group will create the space to practice.

  • What our clients need from us is to be with them with curious and compassionate presence in whatever moment we find ourselves in.

    What makes that really hard? Well, when we’re triggered, we leave ourselves and clients.

    When we’re triggered, we either subconsciously want to change the thing or distance ourselves from the thing that’s triggering us. Subconsciously, our assessment of the threat is usually our client. When we move into this space with clients, we can get in the way of client’s innate capacity to be with themselves.

    That’s why, how we greet ourselves as therapists is shown to be one of the biggest factors in yielding best therapy outcomes (more here).

  • Practice welcoming and working with our triggers so that we can return to connection with ourselves and clients when we are triggered.

    When we greet ourselves with compassion, we can come out of threat response, access more parts of ourselves, and have more space to be curious and creative.

    When we can be more okay with our triggers and support our triggers as they happen, we can be a regulating force for our clients to move into deeper spaces with themselves.

  • First, we do not mean acquiring skills in the way we have been taught by western colonial models of therapy. We welcome challenging all ideas that are steeped in power over domination, white supremacy, and colonialism.

    We mean building our innate capacity to be in touch with patience, curiosity, respect, being with, acceptance, love, and honest sharing of our messy human existence.

    In our efforts to be power-with facilitators, we’re hoping to not be experts, but gatherers of collective wisdom of the group.

  • Collaborative dialogue: We will discuss our subjective experiences of triggers, curiosity, and compassion. We will explore our relationship with ourselves and gather collective wisdom of what helps increase curiosity and compassion. We will endeavor to feel less alone as therapists of color swimming in these colonized waters of therapy. We will practice how to be with each other as good messy humans - something that is so ancient and true. We will co-create a space of safety and belonging that can hold all of our experiences and growth.

    Experiential work: Each of us will be invited to bring in a hard, sticky therapy moment to be held in the group container.

    With each moment we will practice these 5 skills:

    • 1) notice the trigger as it shows up as feelings, thoughts, muscle/joint movement, sensations, imagery, energy

      2) come into contact with the trigger

      3) land in curious space with the trigger

      4) extend compassion to the trigger

      5) create a plan to greet the trigger in session and in life

  • Less burnout

    More shared power with clients

    Better space-holding for clients

    Deeper trust in our ability to meet ourselves in unknown and lost therapy moments

meet the facilitators

  • Bokyung is a queer Korean therapist and her work centers queer trans diasporic people of color. Her training is in IFS, Interpersonal Neurobiology, and Somatic Abolitionism. She is a lover of trees, full-embodied yes experiences, ancestral wisdom, grief work, parts work, somatic creativity, and neuroscience. She loves being in space with therapists and healers who are curious to decolonize and revolutionize the healing space into one that is truly safe for self-discovery and relational transformation.

  • Sanaa is a therapist working mainly with South Asian couples and individuals. She uses an integrated approach, informed by relational and somatic therapies, and interpersonal neurobiology to help clients find meaning, self esteem, and healthy boundaries. Sanaa uses her lived experience of trauma, being first generation, being muslim, being a mom (among many other identities) to connect deeply with her clients. As part of her many identities, Sanaa is an artist and enjoys working with clients and other therapists who are also creative entrepreneurs.

more about the group:

    • What do I do if I’m triggered when I’m with my client?

    • Why do I feel deskilled sometimes?

    • What skills are missing for me?

    • What can I do to create change for my client? (Hint: it’s not what you’ve been taught)

    • Witness what is happening for you and track the different ways your brain & body communicates to you (i.e., thoughts, sensations, images, muscle/joint movement, feelings)

    • Have a plan to greet yourself and use skills while being triggered 

    • Know how to get back into relationship with yourself and client after being triggered

  • A workbook that includes 

    • resources and research findings on factors that yield best best therapy outcomes

    • an outline of core skills we’ll learn and practice

    • worksheets and practice guides

    A community space where you can belong as your full authentic self alongside other therapists of color who are liberation-oriented

    • You find yourself in the same sticky moments with clients and you’re not sure how to get out of it

    • You want to access your creativity and intuition in session but you are not sure how 

    • You want to better understand your triggers and how they show up in session 

    • You find yourself with not enough pause between what you feel and what you do in the therapy room and sometimes make reactive moves 

    • You care about being a power-with, anti-oppressive therapist but you sometimes find yourself frustrated, wanting to change your clients, or too attached to outcomes

    • You have pursued multiple trainings but still find yourself feeling de-skilled when you’re triggered

    • You are feeling alone in your work and looking to feel less alone as a therapist of color

    • You want your sessions to go consistently deeper but they don’t 

    You are not alone in your experiences as a therapist of color. We are here to join you in your experience and say, me too.

logistics

Update as of 4/2024: Please complete the form if you’d like to be added to our next round of group!

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Cadence: We will meet biweekly (12 sessions in total) over the span of 6 months from March to August 2024.

Time & Dates: Thursdays 12-1:30pm ET on 3/28, 4/11, 4/25, 5/9, 5/23, 6/6, 6/20, 7/11, 7/18, 8/1, 8/15, 8/29.

Fee: Tiered rates: $25, $50, $75, or $100 per meeting. We trust what rate works for you. We ask for full payment for the group to be completed before the group begins; but if needed, we can work out a payment plan!

For who: Coaches, social workers, healing practitioners, and all levels of experience as therapists are welcome!

Size: 7 participants max. If the group is full, you’ll be added to a waitlist for the next cohort.

Your responsibility: We look forward to creating an intimate and vibrant community experience, so once you’ve committed to the group, you are responsible for showing up to the group sessions and for the fee. The meetings will not be recorded, live attendance is required.

watch the facilitators be in dialogue around themes the group will explore

how to be with triggered moments that happen in sessions so that it doesn't pull us out of the work but deepens the work with our clients

being okay with not knowing and trusting what happens next will unlock creative curiosity in the therapy space

how do we be in our own skin as a human while encountering problems in the therapist chair

1) what happens when we are in 'fix it' energy in the therapy room?

2) being human is about being in shared creativity and curiosity

undoing aloneness with ourselves and our clients as fundamental to doing good therapy work and being a good messy human and relational being