Being a Witness for Someone with Trauma

Excerpt: Helping Helpers - Session 3

Section: Trauma - Being a Witness for Someone with Trauma

Speakers: Cathy Loerzel

The Role of Being a Witness in Trauma Work

When engaging in trauma work, your role is fundamentally that of a witness. This involves a careful balance of listening, reflecting, and supporting without imposing your own interpretations or becoming the expert on their story.

Mirroring and Reflecting

Listening Without Judgement

As a witness, you are there to mirror back what you hear, helping the person make sense of their story. This means reflecting their words and emotions without adding your own judgments or assumptions.

Holding Up the Mirror

Your job is not to tell their story for them but to hold up a mirror, allowing them to see their own experiences more clearly. This involves recognizing and validating their feelings and memories, even when they are complex or contradictory.

Navigating Ambivalence and Complexity

Acknowledging Conflicting Emotions

People often come with stories that involve mixed emotions. For example, someone might feel both love and resentment toward a dying parent who was both kind and cruel. Your role is to help them see that it’s okay to hold these conflicting emotions simultaneously.

Creating Space for Complexity

Encourage them to acknowledge all parts of their experience. By doing so, you help them integrate these conflicting emotions into a more coherent and truthful narrative.

Staying Within Your Limits

Knowing Your Boundaries

Remember, you are not a therapist. Your role is to provide support and empathy, not to offer professional psychological advice. Be mindful of your own limits and know when it might be necessary to suggest professional help.

Empathy Over Expertise

Offer deep empathy and understanding, sometimes even more than they can offer themselves. This empathetic presence can be incredibly healing and supportive as they navigate their trauma.

Practical Example: Ambivalence in Grief

Listening to Their Story

Imagine someone is struggling with ambivalence over a dying parent. They recall both positive and negative memories, feeling torn between love and resentment. Listen carefully as they share these stories.

Reflecting Their Experience

Reflect back their feelings: “It sounds like you have many cherished memories with your father, but also some painful ones. It’s understandable to feel conflicted and to have both love and hurt in your heart.”

Validating Their Emotions

Validate their experience without trying to simplify it: “This is a complex relationship, and it’s okay to hold both the good and the bad together. It’s part of your truth.”

The Essence of Being a Witness

Supporting Their Truth

Your primary task is to help people tell a more truthful story. This involves listening with empathy, validating their experiences, and allowing all aspects of their story to coexist.

Empathy and Understanding

Provide a compassionate presence, understanding that your empathy can help them process emotions they might find difficult to handle alone.

By being a witness, you offer a safe space for individuals to explore and integrate their experiences, fostering healing and self-understanding.

The Share the Struggle Helping Helpers Course is designed for helpers & leaders both formally (pastors, small group leaders) and informally (family, friends, volunteers), giving a practical and safe framework for coming alongside someone well in the middle of their struggle(s). The Share the Struggle L.E.S.S. (Listen, Explore, Share, Support) framework equips helpers with the tools for active listening, root cause exploration, 3-story discipleship, and when to involve other forms of support. Furthermore, helping helpers walks listeners through the specific considerations and tools for helping someone through anxiety, shame, trauma, miscarriage, pornography addiction, grief, eating disorders, and suicide prevention.

Share the Struggle Courses are topical expert led video courses to help you understand life’s greatest struggles and provide you with tools for navigating them. Moreover, STS courses create a space for you to connect with others struggling with similar things, experience belonging, and encounter God’s nearness in a place of wilderness in your life (pain, confusion, healing journey).

Here at Share The Struggle we believe Jesus is present with us in the middle of our pain and mess, and it is in that place that we often experience and encounter Jesus most deeply.

We understand the unique challenges faced by Christians dealing with mental health. Our mission is to bridge the gap between faith and mental health support, providing a platform where individuals can find resources, coaching support and guidance, all tailored to their spiritual life and emotional needs.

We invite you to explore our resources, share your journey, and find the support you need to overcome the struggles you face.

Share The Struggle is an initiative of Taming Mustangs, a 501(c)3) Non-Profit