In Conversation With Dr Joan Samuels-Dennis
Interview by Zahra Mohamed
After completing your Master’s in Community Health Nursing, what inspired you to pursue a PHD in Nursing and Mental Health Promotion, and in turn eventually open up your practice?
When I became a nurse I got a job with a program called families first that was in the Region of Peel. I worked at Peel Region, and I was doing home visits with single mothers. They were all on social assistance, all pretty well crippled by whatever mental health issues that they were experiencing. When you're trained as a nurse, you of course, don't have the psychotherapeutic underpinnings but very quickly, people would say to me, oh, Joan, you're acting more like a therapist than you are a nurse. At first, I was kind of like, okay, what does that mean, exactly but the thing I was concerned about with that group of women was the number of traumas that they had experienced in their lifetime. Also, beyond that, the child abuse issues that they had to face and so many instances of sexual abuse. It was persistent, like you go in kind of expecting sexual abuse to be part of these women's history and what goes along with sexual abuse, once I started really diving into the field, is, of course, intimate partner violence.
So I started asking the question, how do I help these women overcome their traumas? I wasn't looking for medication, because I saw that medication was not the answer. So I started asking that question and that led me to do my masters, and then my PhD. During my PhD, I actually wanted to develop that trauma intervention that would help these women but it didn't quite come the way that I anticipated it would. It was when I actually started my own healing journey, that I would discover the method that was to become the Becoming method and that's what I call my therapeutic process now. So from the PhD, I studied intimate partner violence, I studied exposure to childhood abuse and I looked at its impact on women's mental health. Then I also looked at what were the factors, even if you were exposed to that, what were the factors that would help you to overcome? I think I've answered that question now and so I'm continuing with the work, but more at a community level. I also go into work environments and I'm really asking the question, what helps a community to become healthy. I'm sending the message to work environments, that you're a community, I know you think you're just here to make money or whatever the case may be. But you got a whole lot of people here, and you're actually a community. So how do you actually help them to be healthy?
2. How does storytelling play a part in the process of healing?
I actually came up with a theoretical framework, it's called smashing the mirror. When we are exposed to difficult or you might say, adverse, or even traumatic events, anything that causes us to feel overwhelmed, feel afraid, even feel like we're being punished, that becomes recorded on our bodies. There's books out there now like The Body Remembers, The Body Keeps Score, all of those books are bang on in terms of understanding how our bodies actually record. We think trauma records only in our thoughts and in fact, when we talk about trauma, most people pursue mental health support as the only response to trauma. You actually have a mental response, or kind of a thought response and then you have a spiritual response, which is why so many of us are afraid. For the most part, most of us will tell a story and we'll say it over and over again to ourselves if to no one else. The story is, someone has harmed me, they have done something very, very wrong and in that process, I will have started a war, if not externally with that other person, I will have started a war with myself and that's where guilt and shame and blame has its part in our stories. Now, when we start doing our healing work, the secret is to remember the moments before the trauma actually happened. Just before, because you always remember that, what was supposed to happen, what were you about to do? What is the thing that you know, somebody was supposed to do? Where were you going? What was the experience supposed to be? Five minutes before, 10 minutes before, even two hours before you encountered this person, this thing, this animal that caused you harm, what were you on your way to do? That is an important part of our story. It's usually the last part of our story that we actually pay attention to, but it's so pivotal to recovery.
There is a part of our storytelling, which is called the trauma triangle and we have to start recognizing that there are some pivotal roles within our traumatic stories. That is the role of myself as a victim, somebody else as a persecutor, and somebody else who is supposed to rescue me, but didn't. That trauma triangle is something that we loop through over and over and over again, it becomes a pattern that is instilled. When we do our healing work, the way we come out of that pattern and that storytelling pattern is to then pursue a forgiveness that makes us consciously aware of all the elements of the story. From there, after we heal, there's another story to be told and that is how did that moment actually impact me? How did I overcome it? Every single one of us has an overcoming story if we pay enough attention to it, there are these little nuggets that are real for us. It is in knowing those nuggets, then that we can then transfer the knowledge of healing to other people.
3. In the Quran it mentions that those who forgive the most have the biggest homes in heaven. How do you incorporate spirituality and your faith into your therapy especially since not all of your patients may be spiritual or religious?
What I tend to talk to people about is the path of Christ, as opposed to this ‘Jesus’ that the Western world has come up with and concocted; that is, in a lot of ways, an idolatry kind of practice. I tend to talk to people about spirituality being a journey of self-discovery because as you discover yourself, you actually discover who God is and what I mean by that is there's an aspect and a character of God that is in every single human being and what we're called to do is to evolve into that character. What that also means is that we are spiritual beings, and that we then pursue a knowledge and an awareness of that spiritual being that we are.
When I talk to my clients, I talk to them about spiritual awareness and spiritual ways of being. There's really two essential ways of being as spirit, that is, a fear based, fear filled individual, or a person who loves themselves, loves others, and loves God. That's kind of the golden rule that's woven into every religion across the world, regardless of what your stance is on Christ. From there, the way that I tend to interact with my clients is not a religious stance, it's more of, okay, so why don't we just help you overcome every single fear that you have, because then your spirit lights up, and it becomes a beacon for other people. That's how I tend to approach it. Of course, there are certain principles within the Christian religion that are good ways to live life. I emphasize that as we move through a healing journey as well, but it's not always specific. For example, there's a statement that Christ makes, and I'm just going to kind of pull the first one that's coming to mind; there's a statement that Christ makes about not throwing your pearls to swine. One of the things that I like to say to my clients, especially those who've been traumatized is, you don't need to go back into a relationship that's absolutely going to suck everything from you. The people who are not willing to progress to a new level with you, or the people who continue to abuse you, you don't need to go back there. You don't need to give them the good stuff from your life. You can simply forgive them, and you can move on.
3. How can we talk about mental health and our well being without the stigma that exists in black cultures?
One of the things I think we need to be able to say to one another, is we've all been traumatized. Racism is a trauma, and the enslavement experience is a trauma. Whether you feel that you've been racialized, or experience(d) racism, or not, it's there in your blood. It's just something that needs to be healed. What I tend to do is, I start with the message ‘what if we stopped talking about mental health and what if we just started talking about trauma recovery?’. Because that trauma is going to impact your grandmother, and she's going to have diabetes, cancer, or any of these other ways that we’re physically impacted by traumas, and then it's going to impact you. It might manifest as depression, as anxiety or just feeling agitated and stressed. Or it's going to impact somebody else, and they're going to totally shift and disappear in terms of who they naturally are. They’ll become somebody else for a little while until they do their healing journey or you become so afraid that you stop living all together, right? So why don't we just stop talking about it as this mental health issue, and we just talk about it in all the ways that it impacts us. Then we’ll totally stop the stigmatization that happens.
4. How do you incorporate non western forms of healing in your practice?
When I work with my clients, we're standing. When I work with them, I'm using their body to isolate the moments we should talk about. So, in Western ways of doing therapy, you come, you're talking about the thing that's really bothering you. And the question I always have is ‘okay, where and when did that struggle begin?’. This is when I use the person's body to identify not just what's happening in their present moment, but what has happened in their past. Your body records every moment in time that requires healing. So, I will isolate that, using your body, and something called the muscle strength test, the month, the year, and the day when something happened to you that requires healing or forgiveness. Once I isolate that moment, so I'll say for example, ‘oh, when you were five, it was in July, and it was on this day of the month. I can even tell you the time of the day’. I’ll do that not through some psychic way of being or anything like that. It is just your body, and the strength that you hold in your body at specific moments in time. Based on you being in a space of weakness, or fear, or strength and love, I can then isolate the moments that you need to forgive. I go back to the earliest moment where a person needs to forgive. We grab hold of that moment, and we resolve it. But then we also collect pieces of information from that moment, that then initiates a pattern that the person is still experiencing today. Once we see the connection between the two moments in time, the person goes ‘oh, that's what I've been doing all of this time’. That person is then able to release the pattern immediately. This is why the process works so well, right? Because I'm not relying on you speaking information to me that you think is important. I'm relying on the information that your body knows is absolutely important. That's where we go with our healing.
We stand in front of a mirror when I do my therapy with my clients. I’m not the one that they're looking at, they're looking at themselves, and it shifts the perspective completely. Because when you're looking at me, you don't have access to information that's about you. But when you're looking at you, and you're talking about you, you can't lie to yourself. Unless you really, just want to lie. But you can't lie to yourself, even if you say out loud, something to me that you know it’s not true. As you look at yourself, you will know it's a lie. The mirror is powerful and I'm just there as a guide the whole time.
5. What are the origins of the strong black woman identity?
That's a coping pattern. It takes a while to overcome that particular identity as well, because it's got so many layers to it. The thing about the healing work is that for the first little while, you're just dealing with different layers of the same problem. You might be saying, well, I dealt with that, I forgave it, why is it still creeping up? The important thing is to then look at which layer of it is creeping up right now because your brain will protect you and only allow certain information in at the time when you are ready for it. Now you're ready for this deeper level, or this other aspect that you weren't prepared to look at before. That's part of this journey, I think, for black women, we have pushed through. There's also nothing wrong with pushing through while being totally vulnerable and crying your eyes out. It's the pushing through that is important for all of us, because that's where most of us get stuck.
I think for a long time, the black woman in particular, has relied on herself to heal. I don't have time to deal with it, I've got this to do and this to do. They've kind of used faith and hope but regardless of how much faith you have, or how much hope you have, if you have healing work to do, you simply have to heal. It's a requirement of the human body, mind and spirit. Healing work is important. It's not something to be ashamed of, it's important to face it and overcome it. As that message goes out, you'll see the shift begins to happen and the demasking of the strong black woman character.
6. How do you work with men seeking healing through trauma therapy?
Yeah, the men do really well with the healing journey. The problem is they don't seek it. Or they don't seek it in, in a way that's public or in a way that's therapeutic. Traditionally, what I have found is that the women come first, and then the men come after. Every woman that has come to see me, if they're in a relationship, they will naturally begin to speak to their partner about it, their partner will begin to see the changes in them. Once the partner begins to see the changes, then they're like, oh, you know what, I think I could try that. Now, once the guy comes, the great thing is the uptake is almost immediate. It's like, I don't have to convince them of anything. Like, it's just like drinking water. And then they accelerate into the process. And they take on the process, and they do really well with it. I think for women, it's not hard to get them to come to the table, women tend to get trapped in their trauma triangle. They tend to make up excuses why they can't leave that trauma triangle, they want to be the victim, and they tend to prolong it. Whereas a man will say, oh, I don't want to be the victim and he'll immediately make the decision to end the trauma triangle and he'll come out of it.
7. What is different about this form of therapy compared to others?
Quite frankly, not all therapy is good. It's just kind of sitting in a pool of the same old stuff that you've always done and it does not move you forward.
What makes this form of therapy very different is that, I'm a guide, you're the one who is healing yourself. By the time we are done, you're going to know what I know, not at the same level, but you're going to know the technique, and you're going to be able to use it on yourself. You don't have to come back to me unless you absolutely need it. That is an important thing.
There are people who are doing therapy out there, they call it cognitive behavioural therapy, talk therapy, narrative therapy, the list goes on and on and on. All of those rely on the individual to speak whatever is to be the truth, so they say, but the body never lies. Unless the therapist is using the body to isolate based on what the person is discussing right now, where do we actually begin the process? You could go in circles for years. There are people who say I've been in therapy for seven years. How does that happen? How? If you're with somebody for longer than a year, that's too long. If you're with them for about six months, I think that's more reasonable but they should be giving you a technique that you can use yourself. That's so important. That's empowerment.
8. What are some episode recommendations from your podcast you would like to share?
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/hey-im-listening-with-dr-joan/id1651769640?i=1000603064493
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/hey-im-listening-with-dr-joan/id1651769640?i=1000597636379
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/hey-im-listening-with-dr-joan/id1651769640?i=1000591199979
