Restorative storytelling
“We humans are storytellers, meaning-making beings, and it is through our autonomic nervous systems that we first create, and then inhabit, our stories.”
Developmental and Relational Trauma (DART)
Living with developmental and relational trauma is like swimming with jellyfish. As you learn about and explore your developmental experience you may come to recognize how early moments have influenced, shaped, and stalled your life course. With childhood woundings, you may now find yourself as an adult experiencing a reality that seems stunted with difficulty identifying when your worry, fear, panic, loneliness, or anger began. Perhaps even questioning yourself, “Why can’t I get past this?” or “What’s wrong with me?”. These experiences are the nearly invisible tentacles of complex childhood trauma that you’ve been tangled in.
Developmental immaturity, formerly known as codependency, is the stunting experience resultant of childhood trauma.
Identifying your personal woundings with self-worth, boundaries, reality, self-care, moderation, and interdependence will gently support you in moving through your experience and untangling yourself from the pain you’ve been caught in. Additionally, building awareness of and habits with core practices to respect yourself and others will support you in navigating the open waters of your life with greater stability, ease, and authenticity.
Healing Our Core Issues (HOCI) is an embodied storytelling framework for the treatment of developmental and relational trauma that supports you in connecting with historical parts of yourself, reparenting through your wounding experiences, and standing in your truth. Learning what you've experienced, accepting your comprehensive narrative, and taking ownership of your life is an essential piece of healing and recovery.
This is the foundation of both individual and couples therapy with me.
Let’s get your story straight.
What is Developmental and Relational Trauma?
Developmental and relational trauma is the experience of psychological and somatic repercussions of a less than nurturing childhood. Felt as a wounding or injury to Selfhood, this is an internally painful lived experience. Often referred to as complex trauma, this experience is also commonly connected to intergenerational trauma as well.
Childhood experiences of abuse and neglect, enmeshment, tragedy, or adversity may all contribute to the experience of developmental and relational trauma. This is not an exhaustive list. To learn more, I encourage you to visit the CDC | Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).
What are Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) | CDC (cdc.gov | 2021)
Types of ACEs | CDC (cdc.gov | 2021)
ACEs Can Accumulate | CDC (cdc.gov | 2021)
ACEs Can Increase Risk | CDC (cdc.gov | 2024)
ACEs Can Echo Across Generations | CDC (cdc.gov | 2021)
What is the HOCI model?
pronounced hawk-eye
The HOCI framework is a structured perspective that outlines birthrights as the very nature of a child, the developmental limitations that arise as symptoms to inadequate provision of birthrights, and the core practices to integrate to shift your life direction and purpose.
This framework is an evolution of the work of Pia Mellody, a founding pioneer in the field of co-dependence and Core Issues work. The HOCI model further integrates perspectives in Attachment Theory through the work of John Bowlby and Phillip Shaver, Body-Based Neurobiology through the work of Peter Levine, Dan Siegel, Steven Porges, and Mindfulness through the work of John Kabat-Zin and Buddhist teachings.
How might HOCI help you?
If your childhood experience was marred with times that you had to “grow up fast”, you in fact didn’t grow up and the stalled development of your maturation into adulthood is holding you back from a fulfilling purposeful life. The good news in all of this, is that we can change our brain and we can change our life trajectory. Science shows us that the brain is plastic, moldable, and changes based on our experiences. This is the concept of neuroplasticity. “The actual physical architecture of the brain adapts to new information, reorganizing itself and creating new neural pathways based on what a person sees, hears, touches, thinks about, practices, and so on. Anything we give attention to, anything we emphasize in our experiences and interactions, creates new linking connections in the brain. Where attention goes, neurons fire. And where neurons fire, they wire, or join together” (Siegel and Payne-Bryson 2018).
Bringing together your learnings of witnessing your nervous system, noticing your body, and identifying Core Issues welcomes a greater capacity to be with the reality of your story rather than repeat your story. Therapeutically sharing of your lived experience in your childhood allows for the formation of a cohesive narrative arc, one in which you are able to clearly see yourself, repair and reparent yourself, and learn to hold yourself with love, respect, and care while also doing the same for others.
[Source: Siegel, Daniel and Payne Bryson, Tina. The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child. New York, Bantam Books, 2018]
Wondering if HOCI is the right fit for you?
You can learn more about this model through the resources shared and you can also feel welcome to contact me directly to talk through your specific questions and needs to see if we may work well together in achieving your goals through this integrative model.
Healing Our Core Issues Institute
Gifts From a Challenging Childhood by Jan Bergstrom, M. Ed, LMHC, SEP co-founder of HOCII
Click ‘play’ for a brief video introduction to the Healing Our Core Issues (HOCI) model with Jan Bergstrom, M. Ed, LMHC, SEP, DARTT and Dr. Rick Butts, LPCC-S, EMDR, SEP, DARTT creators of HOCI Institute.
About my training and specialization:
I am a certified Developmental and Relational Trauma Therapist (DARTT).
I have trained in Levels 1 and 2 with HOCII founders Jan Bergstrom, M. Ed, LMHC, SEP, DARTT author of Gifts From a Challenging Childhood and Dr. Rick Butts, LPCC-S, EMDR, SEP, DARTT. I am in routine consultation with Jan Bergstrom, M. Ed, LMHC, SEP, DARTT for integrating this work with individuals and couples.