“Safety” in therapy: how to start healing your nervous system
Reviewing therapists’ websites you might see a lot of statements about creating “safe” and non-judgmental spaces. You might be wondering what this means and why it’s important. Obviously you want to make sure your practitioner isn’t judgmental, or mean, or dangerous in any way. But it goes much deeper than this.
In my own experiences seeing practitioners – whether for counselling, trauma therapy, or body work – I didn’t realize what felt “safe” and what didn’t until I started to do my own work and training in counselling and healing modalities. There are the obvious things: someone with a kind and compassionate presence feels “safe” for me. Someone who tells me I need to work on something or risk never getting better does not feel “safe”. However, as I developed a greater understanding of trauma-informed work and my own nervous system, I realized how nuanced (and sometimes fleeting) a feeling of safety can be. You may not consciously recognize when your internal sense of safety has been compromised by a practitioner, or what safety feels like.
If you’re new to therapy, and especially if you have any history of trauma, creating safety is about more than the oft used words of a “confidential, non-judgmental space”. For the therapist, it means being carefully attuned to what is happening for you, the client, and helping you to navigate what comes up in each moment. It means ensuring that our own nervous systems are regulated so that we can act as safe harbors for co-regulation: helping you find an anchor in a sea of overwhelm or emotion. Knowing when to slow things down for you, and when to stop. Carefully eliciting feedback and helping you to learn and identify your own cues of when something is too much. Of course, we want to find opportunities for you to build your capacity, heal and grow – but a “safe harbour” for you as a unique individual enables this growth to happen in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you.
Why is this so important? Because safety can be transformational in its own right. A relationship with an attuned therapist where you are witnessed and met exactly “where you’re at” can provide a completely new experience. It may be the first time you’ve been able to do things in your own time, in a way that feels just right for you, without external expectations or pressures. This safety offers the opportunity to come into deeper relationship with yourself and perhaps the parts that have been wounded or kept locked away because it felt dangerous to allow these to surface. Research has shown that the therapeutic relationship is, in many cases, the foundation for change, irrespective of the modalities used.
Polyvagal theory proposes that the establishment of safety in relationship permeates our body language, facial expressions and vocal tone. These are interpreted by our nervous system typically without our awareness. If your therapist is “regulated”, and attuned to your experience, then your nervous system will likely interpret us as safe. Then, you can ideally lower automatic defenses, creating the conditions for new learning and growth (Geller and Porges, 2014).
This is a process that must be worked out for each client individually, and not every client will respond to the same cues or processes. For example, if you have experienced trauma, your nervous system might interpret safety and relaxation as “unsafe”. If you did not experience safe attachments in your infancy or childhood, or have had to adapt to complex traumas, a state of vigilance and hyperarousal may be how your system creates safety for you. Trying to move out of hyperarousal might be counterproductive when we’re first seeking to establish safety. The early stages of therapy might focus more on helping you develop awareness of your felt state, and noticing when your body feels safe, hyper or hypo-aroused (without going too deeply into any of these states if they cause distress). Further explorations into trauma therapy can help inform the variety of ways in which safety can be established for your unique nervous system.
If safety can be established, and a secure partnership formed between you and your therapist, healing can occur that may have been too much for you to take on alone. In this way, safety becomes much more than just a descriptive word and becomes a transformational embodied experience. This is why I say healing happens in connection!
Reference
Geller, S. M., & Porges, S. W. (2014). Therapeutic presence: neurophysiological mechanisms mediating feeling safe in therapeutic relationships. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 24(3), 178.