Navigating The Complexities Of Healing From Trauma Through Trauma-Focused Care With Meshanette Johnson-Sims, Ph.D.

 

Trauma can leave more than just a lasting impact. It can also affect life performances and even ripple its effects towards friends and family. But through deeply understanding trauma and its root, we can help each other find healing and meaning on the path to recovery. In this episode, Dr. Meshanette Johnson-Sims, an LMFT and an International Psychologist with a Trauma specialization, shares her journey and passion from years of service in the behavioral health field. Dr. Johnson-Sims explores the topic of trauma, trauma-focused care, and the importance of understanding the personal and cultural context of trauma. She talks about the ripple effects of trauma on families and the significance of feeling supported by loved ones. She also explores the concept of Complex Trauma Recovery and how it can assist in the healing process. Through her professional expertise and personal experiences, Dr. Johnson-Sims gives us an engaging and insightful discussion on the complexities of trauma and the path to recovery. Tune in to not miss out!

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Navigating The Complexities Of Healing From Trauma Through Trauma-Focused Care With Meshanette Johnson-Sims, Ph.D.

Dr. Meshanette Johnson-Sims has twenty years of experience supporting vulnerable populations, namely children and adults who have endured trauma, severe mental illness, and/or exploitation. She is an administrator, international psychology researcher, and licensed psychotherapist in the State of California. Most proudly, she is a wife and mother of five children.

She believes that providing culturally appropriate and trauma-informed clinical treatment, crisis intervention, and after-care support services are both clinically necessary and gratifying work. Her responsibilities include senior behavioral health leadership within local government. She has oversight of the Transitional-Aged Youth and Child Full-Service Partnership program, the Juvenile and Adult Forensic Mental Health Services, the Crisis Continuum of Services. She chairs Napa County Suicide Prevention Council. She’s also an adjunct professor who teaches courses such as Counseling Theories and Techniques, and Introduction to Public Child Welfare at Napa Valley College.

—

It’s delightful to have you join us here. Thanks for your time.

Thank you, Tim.

Start us off by telling us a little bit about how you got into the work you’re doing and what drives your passion for it.

I’ve been at this work for many years. What got me into it is interesting. I’m one of those people who when asked that question earlier on in my career was hard-pressed for an answer that I felt other people would be okay with. Since being grounded in it, I’ve always been the person that people have come to with whatever concerns they had. In elementary school, I’d be with my friends doing cartwheels and they’d tell me about their parents’ divorce or what was going on in their lives, be walking, sitting at a bus stop and someone would start talking to me.

I almost felt compelled to go into the work because it was almost like, “People are going to be sent to you, so what are you going to do when they encounter you? How are you going to help them?” I’ve gone into the work and got my Master’s and PhD, but it was all coming from a place of wanting to help people and make sure that when I encounter people that are hurting, I can help them.

You got the Master’s and PhD in what specialty?

I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist. My PhD specifically is in International Psychology with an emphasis on Trauma Services. The way that came about was I was working in a Partial Hospitalization Program for adolescents and came across a client that helped open my eyes beyond my local community. She was adopted by a fairly wealthy family who was on a mission trip and came to befriend her mom.

Her mom had a terminal illness and passed. When this family learned of what happened to her mom, they decided to take in this child who is my adolescent client. She was in a Psychiatric Partial Hospitalization Program because she was self-harming and had a real preoccupation with wanting to die. What it boiled down to was that she was feeling remorse for having left her siblings in Africa, where she was from. She was living a very good life. She was in a prestigious school. She was cared for well, and she didn’t know how her siblings were doing.

It reminded me of all of the people who want to help or trying to help but may not see things in context and how helping can hurt as well. They love this girl. The family did. By no means am I faulting them, but wanting to know more about the context and how to help people in context. That is culturally appropriate for what they’re going through. In my specific program, I traveled to two different locations. One in the Philippines and one in Ghana so that I could learn in context what help looks like. Also, wanting to make sure that I was more versed in that as far as my career is concerned.

You mentioned a specialty in working with trauma. Can you talk about trauma and what your specific interest in it is?

When working with people, I feel like we’re oftentimes looking at people without considering that they may be presenting with more than what they’re sharing at the time they encounter a helping professional. What I’m interested in is looking at trauma-focused care and being knowledgeable about what it means to survive, not just a trauma but multiple traumas and complex trauma. Looking at the experiences and how they compound to shape people’s perspectives or the barriers that they encounter to healing.

For instance, one of my first jobs in the field was working as a child abuse investigator and working with families who had been in very difficult circumstances, whether there was abuse or substance abuse, physical abuse, all of those scenarios that impacted the children and the families that I was serving. I would be investigating one piece of it. It didn’t tell the whole story of what the child had gone through. Because I was already looking for a traumatic experience in how they were surviving it and trying to pull strengths out of their story to help them utilize that to overcome their difficulties, it was easy for me to learn of other traumas they experience.

When I was in private practice, I encountered someone who maybe had struggled to get over the fact that they aborted a child earlier on in their life and they were struggling to move past it or accept what they’ve done. Wherever they came from, that was one specific trauma but that was not indicative of their whole experience. There were sometimes other traumas that made their experience of what they were currently going through even more difficult for them to hold. It was almost the straw that we were looking at, the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and not seeing the wealth of information and experiences that make healing a little harder for some.

As you’re talking, I’m thinking about watching this field. It’ll be 49 years in June 2023 that I’ve been doing therapy in one form or another. Let’s talk about they would look at people like straw people or clay. They would look at what symptoms are coming out of the person and give a diagnosis based on the symptoms. No credence is given to context, culture, or trauma. It’s so delightful over the years I’ve been in the field to see the development of a much more complex and interrelated system of looking at people.

For instance, The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harris. This book talks about the importance of ACEs or Adverse Childhood Events. There are more and more people who will talk about trauma-informed, but very few people build their approach to dealing with people in a way that’s open enough to incorporate, “Was there trauma? What kind? Would I have considered that a trauma? No, but this person felt the most important thing in their life. How does that fit in their culture? Did their family accept it as trauma or consider them weak because they couldn’t move right past it?”

All of these things, when you pull them together and you’re learning to deal with a person and help him or her recognize the strengths they had to have to survive, and build that up while acknowledging there might still be trauma resolution work to be done but at the same time, helping them understand that the fact that they’re still breathing and functioning at all is a testimony to their strength and resources. It’s delightful to find more and more people, as I interview like you, who have a growing awareness of how to integrate this into your clinical work.

It’s foundational. To witness it, I don’t think that it is acknowledged and celebrated in the field as it should what it means to simply witness someone’s experience and how they manage to survive. It’s a big deal for people to talk about traumas and their expectations of what trauma is measured by their personal or cultural experience. The trauma as it relates to the individual is what matters. It’s what dictates whether or not it was a traumatic event.

I don’t get to say that’s not a traumatic event and you shouldn’t respond that way. Sometimes cultures do say, “You should have been strong enough to handle that because, from our culture, this is what we expect you to be able to handle. That is our strength. We’re survivors.” They’re not allowed to have the experience that they’re having, and that’s important.

It's a big deal for people to talk about traumas and their expectations of what trauma is measured by their personal or cultural experience. Click To Tweet

Clinically, for me when I’m working with people, it’s far more important for me to help them communicate with me, not so much the event but what they made it mean. It’s this constellation of energies and beliefs about themselves and the physical, mental, and emotional energies that they download as they go through an event. That’s what we call trauma later on.

The wonderful way for me of defining it is here’s an event. It doesn’t matter what the event is. Here’s a person living their life. As they go through this event, if they decide to change some of their fundamental beliefs or they feel like they’ve been forced to change or question some of their fundamental beliefs about themselves, their safety in the world, the nature of the world as a threat or safety, if that changes after this event, we call this event traumatic event.

This event might be how you like to use the example of the Oreo cookie trauma. Johnny and Jimmy are identical twins. They’re five years old and from a good family. They come home from their kindergarten. The thing about Johnny is he knows his mother always tells the truth. Remember, these are identical twins. Jimmy never paid any attention to that too much, but Johnny thinks about it all day, every day, “My mother always tells the truth.”

He comes in, sees a plate of Oreo cookies on the table and yells out, “Mom, can we have an Oreo cookie?” Mom says, “You know the routine. Go upstairs, undo your backpacks, wash your hands, put your homework out, come back down, and you can have a cookie.” They’re a good family. They dutifully go up the stairs, do that thing, and come back down. They’re three steps from the bottom when Johnny looks over and sees an empty plate of cookies because the pre-teen and teen cyclone came through and ate all the cookies.

Johnny’s life is never the same, “My mother lied to me.” Jimmy never focused on that. He doesn’t skip a beat, “Mom, they ate the cookies. Can I have a banana?” Johnny’s life may never be the same because of what he made that mean. Regardless of the mom being like, “I’ll go to the store. I’ll get you one. It’ll be all right. Have a banana with Jimmy.” It’s what Johnny makes it mean at that moment. I might have gone through things in my life that nobody in my family thinks is traumatic. Yet, when that stuff gets resonated, it can drive my behavior as an adult.

It can have rippling effects on your family and what it means to feel like you’re supported by the people that matter most to you. It is foundational as far as the work I do to focus on what is trauma, how it drives meaning-making for the individual and what it means for their healing.

 

What I like about that definition and approach is it helps the clinician validate the individual. Perhaps no one else in their life would validate it as being significant, life-altering, and/or traumatic because it isn’t the event so much as what the person downloads energetically and emotionally.

The experience of it in and of itself.

Talked about working for the county. What’s the largest trouble area or the specific clinical focus for you in working with the county?

It’s important to work in county mental health but specifically, what a lot of people are not aware of is that the mental health that is provided through the county is considered or called specialty mental health. These are people who are moderate to severe for the most part, not managing daily living tasks and feeling like they’re not able to cope without more acute intervention, maybe multiple times a week as opposed to every two weeks or every week outpatient who sometimes need a little bit more support, whether that’s with individual therapy or case management. Oftentimes, they find themselves being assessed for an inpatient stay.

In the county, I’m working with predominantly that population. However, there’s a community response that serves the entire county in our mobile response unit. They’re going out, deploying, and partnering with the police sometimes and other times in lieu of the police so that families can see someone outside of a law enforcement uniform that is responding to the home to see whether or not they can deescalate right then and there, and keep them at what we call the lowest level of care or whether or not it needs a 5150 or 5585 evaluation that allows them to get a further assessment for a hold.

That is the community response where you don’t necessarily have to be a client but you are in need as a community member or you are brought in because you have experienced acute needs to severe or experience of trauma that we get involved in that is a little higher care than an outpatient provider in the community or sometimes at your medical provider level.

In the county you serve, what would you call the top 2 or 3 issues that people are struggling with?

I would say severe depression and isolation. Also, suicidal ideation and substance abuse. That is predominantly what I’m seeing. Especially since COVID, people have been used to isolating themselves a little bit more. That’s been helpful for some but for others, not so much. Some people are still not comfortable with coming out of it in a way that other people have celebrated like coming out socializing and integrating more and feeling like they can be a part.

Also, there’s more talk of mental health issues since the pandemic began. People are okay, to some extent, talking about it, but the help and reaching out for help is what I’m not seeing a lot of. It’s making sure there’s outreach, trying to get the word out about 988, and being able to talk and text to the suicide hotline so that even upon the thought of it or if they tend to perseverate on the thought of dying, they begin to feel comfortable with talking about it and then link them to help with a local provider. That is what we’ve been trying to get the message out about and making sure that we find new avenues to reach people so that they can feel that help is actually available to them.

Is there a popular intervention or template for addressing suicidal ideation that you have found that gets implemented in your county?

Not specifically a template of sorts but what we’re trying to do is make sure that we utilize a means to make sure that we’re reaching what we call populations that are most impacted, and that is our older population and teens. We’re making sure that our LGBTQ population is getting the message and feels comfortable with accessing resources as well. We’re trying to train people on how to identify the signs through QPR or Question, Persuade, Refer.

Our goal is to make sure that the whole community knows how to question, ask the questions, understand how to be available and link people to care, and also that there are resources between not just the county but other community partners that can provide support to these communities so that they can have access to care.

Your QPR sounds like Emotional CPR. Are you familiar with that?

Yes, Emotional CPR or psychological safety, 911, or something like that.

There was a program that they developed. It’s similar to what we did back when I was in graduate school. They used to call it a peer counseling program. We would go into the community colleges and get students who were interested in sociology or psychology to take a class, learn how to listen, identify a certain few hot-button topics, and then be able to make a referral if needed. It’s boots on the ground, educated and tuned into the signs that somebody might be struggling or trying to hide a struggle. It helps licensed professionals to get access to those people sooner.

That’s exactly what we’re hoping to do is to make sure that not just licensed folks or professionals have the keys but also your peer group. Oftentimes, adolescents are going to their peers first. We’re not going to stop that trend, so we might as well educate everyone.

Also, use it.

They’re going to go to them first. They may not have the tools to help them address their unhelpful thinking and what has brought them to the point in their lives where they’re considering suicide, but they can be a resource that can say, “I can handle you telling me and I’ll make sure to hold your hand on the way to getting help.” That’s the message.

You can find the Emotional CPR at Emotional-CPR.org. I interviewed one of the founders, and they created this. They train people in different countries. It’s based on good listening. It’s training people on being present, being aware of their internal response, and listening well. It’s quite useful. There’s no specific silver bullet to wipe out suicidal ideation or intent.

We are witnessing a lot more people who are struggling through the isolation of the pandemic and the difficulty of constantly staring at screens. People are getting isolated in various ways without good social skills training. Are there any patterns you’re seeing or movements in therapeutic tools that you are finding of value that you share with people on a regular basis?

I believe that in talking with people, it’s important to make sure that we’re bringing to light their tendencies to whether it exaggerates the situation or confusing what is a high and low probability of events focusing on the most harmful outcomes. Often, people tend to over-personalize the situation, not being able to see that there are other possibilities or explanations for what they’re going through that don’t involve self-blame.

Often, people with trauma tend to over-personalize the situation, not seeing that there are other possibilities or explanations that don’t involve self-blame. Click To Tweet

Also, jumping to conclusions without having all of the facts and not relying on their assumptions of what is getting them down but getting all the facts and looking for exceptions to their situations feeling like, “It’s always been this way. It’s always going to be this way. I only have experiences with this.” Having the opportunity to say, “When was that not the case?” Look for the exception. It’s okay to have thoughts of sadness, even sitting with that sadness for a bit and making meaning from it, but to also remember the positive, to not exclude the good attributes and experiences that they’ve experienced to make sure that there’s room to hold both.

As mental health professionals, we go in and make sure that those are areas in which we can bring to light what’s happening for them to validate the true sadness and sometimes unfortunate experiences, but also to make sure that other aspects are brought to light and have their day in the sun to say, “These are exceptions to that. This is how well you handled the situation. This is what is possible because of what you’ve endured and to give space for that.” I feel like the hugest barrier is getting the individual to the care. That’s the biggest thing. Once they’re there, challenging these unhelpful thoughts and making space for other feelings and experiences that can add to the life they’re wanting for themselves.

 

Being able to get them to see more than just a tunnel vision of negativity that may fall.

Even the community that has a space of realization that anyone can find themselves in this space that needs support and normalizing that has been a lot of work but it’s needed. If there’s anything to think about the experience that we’ve come out of the pandemic, it is the normalization that we all need to mind our mental health and make space to encourage others to do the same.

It’s great that you’re mentioning, and we have people like the One Million Lives Program. This engineering company with thousands of employees woke up and realized, “Mental health is an important part of our people being able to remain highly functional.” They developed this little check-in that you can do. There’s a 7-minute one and a 15-minute one.

They used to use it just for the people in their company. They said, “What about our vendors and their families?” The next thing they said is, “We’ve got this thing. It’s online and not costing us anything. Why don’t we leave it open?” It’s free. Anybody can go on there, put their names in, answer a series of questions, and get a status check on, “How are you doing in your social life health, physical life health, diet life health, exercise life health, and depression life?”

The recommendation is to do this every week. Do it a couple of times a week if you want if you’re starting to feel down so you can figure out, “Here’s a little quick check-in. Here’s where I’m falling down. Here’s where I’m succeeding. Here’s where I might tweak this a little.” Get people to wake up to what they might do personally to improve that mood or they get to the point where they realize, “I’m down in 3 or 5 areas. Maybe I should ask for help.”

I’ve been seeing more apps for people for mindfulness and taking a moment to consider how they want their day to go and going through breathing exercises to help ground them. I’m happy to see more and more of it because it’s not just something that you do when there’s an ailment or the symptoms have shown you that you need some attention to it, but something that we can do like exercise to manage our mental health and overall wellbeing. There are campaigns like, “There is no health without mental health.” Grabbing hold of the fact that we do have supports at our fingertips even, and like the one you mentioned to help us to maintain our well-being and mental health.

People should grab hold of the fact that we do have support programs at our fingertips that can help us maintain our well-being and mental health. Click To Tweet

Do a status check. People can go to OML.world. Another one that’s got some nice free resources is SameHereGlobal.org. They’ve got a little thing that they use in the schools that is a check-in like, “Am I thriving or am I sliding?” It lets people give very simple language for check-in to communicate instead of saying, “Hi, how are you?” “I’m fine.” It’s like, “Where are you on this scale?” “I’m thriving. I’m exceeding. I’m excelling. I’m sliding. I’m stuck.”

Giving them words for it, I love that.

It’s a simple way to communicate with friends and family about it so you don’t have to struggle to come up with the words, “How would I say how I’m feeling today? I’m feeling off.” Some people easily talk about that. Others feel like it’s a strange language.

It gives a language to talk about these things. It normalizes it and also lets everyone know, “That’s very different from where you were three weeks ago.” There’s enough information there that says, “Let’s pay attention to this even more so.”

I greatly appreciate the work you’re doing with people in the county out there and your willingness to share with us. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been a pleasure meeting you. I look forward to hearing if you have any big updates to share. We’ve talked about how you might have some changes coming up in your life.

I will fill you in.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much, Tim. Take care.

—

Dr. Meshanette Johnson-Sims has twenty years of experience supporting vulnerable populations, namely children and adults who have endured trauma, severe mental illness, and/or exploitation. She is an administrator, international psychology researcher, and licensed psychotherapist in the State of California. Most proudly, she is a wife and mother of five children.

She believes that providing culturally appropriate and trauma-informed clinical treatment, crisis intervention, and after-care support services are both clinically necessary and gratifying work. Her responsibilities include senior behavioral health leadership within local government. She has oversight of the Transitional-Aged Youth and Child Full-Service Partnership program, the Juvenile and Adult Forensic Mental Health Services, the Crisis Continuum of Services. She chairs Napa County Suicide Prevention Council. She’s also an adjunct professor who teaches courses such as Counseling Theories and Techniques, and Introduction to Public Child Welfare at Napa Valley College.

On the road to her current position, her passion has grown from her decades of experience in specialty mental health services for SED and SMI populations. Just over 9 years of experience has been in Mental Health Management, 7 years of training clinical practitioners, 3 years of private practice, and 13 years of public service work. With a targeted focus, she has dedicated her education and career to providing support to people at vulnerable times as well as people who are part of vulnerable and marginalized populations. Promoting and ensuring equality and access to mental health wellness is a value she embodies and elevates.

 

Important Links

• Dr. Meshanette Johnson-Sims
• Napa County Suicide Prevention Council
• The Deepest Well
• Emotional-CPR.org
• Previous Episode with Lauren Spiro
• OML.world
• SameHereGlobal.org

 

About Meshanette Johnson-Sims, Ph.D.

Meshanette Johnson-Sims, Ph.D. has 20 years of experience supporting vulnerable populations, namely children and adults who have endured trauma, severe mental illness, and/or exploitation. She is an administrator, international psychology researcher, and licensed psychotherapist in the state of California. Most proudly, she is a wife and mother of five children.

She believes that providing culturally appropriate and trauma-informed clinical treatment, crisis intervention, and aftercare support services is both critically necessary and gratifying work. Under her current responsibilities in senior behavioral health leadership within local government, she has oversight of the Transitional-Aged Youth and Child Full-Service Partnership program, Juvenile and Adult Forensic Mental Health Services, Crisis Continuum of Services, and chairs Napa County’s Suicide Prevention Council.

She is also an adjunct professor who teaches courses such as Counseling Theories and Techniques and Introduction to Public Child Welfare at Napa Valley College. On the road to her current position, her passion has grown from her decades of experience in specialty mental health services for SED and SMI populations. Just over nine years of experience has been in Mental Health Management, seven years of training clinical practitioners, three years of private practice, and 13 years of public service work.

With a targeted focus, she has dedicated her education and career to providing support to people at vulnerable times as well as people who are part of vulnerable and marginalized populations. Promoting and ensuring equity and access to mental health wellness is a value she embodies and elevates.

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

Join the On Your Mind Community today:

• journeysdream.org
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube