Hello, is this thing on? Introduction to the trauma therapist, the work, the purpose.

Welcome, welcome, welcome! What does one write about in their first blog post? Well, you probably have no idea who I am! So much of what I do as a therapist is grounded in who I am, and I want you to know me. Allow me to give an introduction and share a bit about what I do and why I do it.

I like water and lily pads.

I am a licensed clinical social worker in Texas who just made the leap (big leap for me) into private practice after a years of agency work. Tohwikeli is my shiny new trauma-focused private practice (with new professional accounts - friend/add/follow/whatever me!). It is nice to meet you and reintroduce myself to those of you I know 👋

It is my hope that this blog is informative, normalizing, fun, and real. And I'll be fairly uncensored aside from the slew of cuss words that run through my head on a daily. Anyone else? Look, words are a form of emotional expression, and the word fuck is just too versatile not to use! And who decided cuss words were cuss words anyway? Ah, save that for another blog, another day.

Here's a gif because I'm an elder millennial and we do that.

So, let's rewind about 13.5 years, back to when I fell head over heels in love with trauma work quite unexpectedly and in my first job post licensure. I came home to north Texas after graduating from the University of South Carolina with my master's degree in social work excited, scared, eager, and ready to work... with kids! I enjoyed working with young children in my internship and thought I'd keep doing that. Wrong. I accepted the first therapy job I was offered, and I had no previous experience or known passion for this population. I am so. stinking. glad. I said yes. Passion for serving survivors of international torture and trauma exploded. It was a very small nonprofit... at one point, I was the only full-time employee at my location. But this was one of those touchstone experiences for my career. I was humbled in a way I didn't know was possible, I experienced empathy like never before, I did so many new things, learned SO MUCH, and I got really good at self-care. The stories I heard of strength, resilience, and compassion made the stories of brutality, injustice, and pain more bearable. The most important thing, though, was that I felt like I was actually helping. People I worked with were feeling better and their life was changing right before my eyes. It was amazing to see their power in action. I stayed there until we lost the grant award that paid my salary. Such a bummer. And it's not like I could go down the street and do the same work for the same people. So, then I took what I often refer to as "a detour" into psychiatric hospitals.

I think I use the word detour because I just kept getting further and further away from direct trauma work thinking that if I was in leadership, I could somehow bring it to the forefront of whatever were doing in partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, or inpatient clinical programs. I tried and failed over and over. I could see the underlying trauma in the folx participating in those programs and for lots of reasons, we couldn't get to it. It felt like band aid after band aid was applied without cleaning and healing the wound. We did the best we could within the limitations and with what we had. And that's not to say I didn't learn anything useful to trauma work and survivors, because I absolutely did. And the detour eventually led me back on track doing direct trauma work.

Back to a nonprofit, but this time, it was with survivors of all sorts of violence and abuse - intimate partner violence, sexual violence, childhood abuse, etc. It was another touchstone experience in my career, one I could write an entire book about. Overall, my work there affirmed what I always knew - I am at my best when I am facilitating trauma healing from the inside out. My last position there was perfect for me in so many ways and I genuinely thought I would never leave. Until I did.

Now, I'm doing my own thing with the mission to

light the way to healing and peace for individuals, groups, and communities by intentionally using available internal and external resources through therapy, education, supervision, and consultation.

I want to make the parts of healing that don't necessarily need to happen in the context of a client/therapist relationship more available and accessible to folx that want it. Things like education and information, tools, resources, options, and encouragement. A lot of those things will end up right here, on this blog.

I am leveraging all of my skill sets, clinical and otherwise, and intentionally weaving them together to point people in the direction of healing. This is happening primarily through therapy, supervision, and consultation, but with an added special interest in innovative and creative methods that give way to more healing for more people. I've got some things happening and ideas marinating... more later.

I have this great big vision for what Tohwikeli can be. This vision is fundamentally rooted in bringing healing to people in a broader way than I have ever been able to before. Hopefully what Tohwikeli puts out into the world contributes to a future where everyone has access to the awareness, understanding, and resources needed to support healing. That means working toward lasting, sustainable change that brings about safer and more secure relationships with self, others, and the world.

How do people end blog posts? Do they have a sign off? Until I figure that out, thanks for reading and I hope you come back 👋 tr

trauma therapist introduction