Quotessence
Home / Authors / Bonnie Badenoch

Bonnie Badenoch Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllHealingPerson CenteredMental HealthTrauma HealingHopePsychological SafetyImplicit MemoryTherapyCoregulationTraumaAttunementTrustEmpathyPresenceTherapy TipsSafe PresenceSelf AcceptanceCo RegulationEmbodied SafetyBody Wisdom

Famous Bonnie Badenoch Quotes

“Depression always brings to mind the possibility that the person's SEEKING system may have been turned off ... Our mutual trust in his system's wisdom kept us from being swept away by the despair he felt. We began to ask, "what is this depression, this one who is so still, wanting to tell us?" Then we waited. We stayed with the one who felt dead inside, acknowledging his protective value even when though we had no cognitive awareness of who and what he was sheltering.”

HopeTrustDepressionWelcomePresenceTrauma RecoveryPerson CenteredBody WisdomSomatic Healing
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“This was the unexpected ... unforeseeable resolution of the paradox ... her personal goodness was no longer the issue because it had been replaced by the sweetness of relationship.”

SpiritualityHopeTrustMental HealthPresenceHealing TraumaDeep ListeningPerson CenteredPerson CentredTherapy Case Study
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“This is where all the work we have done with ourselves to sense the connection between our bodily sensations and implicit memories comes to help our person. Our conviction that this is the doorway to the deeper places provides a foundation, through resonance, for him to slow down and attend to his body.”

HealingTrustSafetyTraumaPresenceResonanceImplicit MemorySomatic
Book:The Interpersonal Neurobiology of Group Psychotherapy and Group Process
Create image

“It wasn't that I gave up on her healing, but, as she continued to struggle to get in the door and actively needed her self-hatred to stay functional, I began to realize more deeply that her patterns had meaning and that it wasn't useful for me to predetermine what recovery might look like for her.”

HealingSelf LoveResistanceSelf AcceptancePresenceSelf HatredSelf HarmRadical AcceptancePsychological Safety
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“It is rather paradoxical for our task-focused self when it isn't the quality of the practice, but our honest and humble acceptance of the emerging moment, that prepares us for nonjudgemental, agendaless presence with another. Being kind to ourselves can be helpful as we seek to practice this way of being, because it places us at cross-purposes with our culture, where performance and improvement are so valued and the limits and variability of our humanness are cause for criticism and correction. Many aspects of our training as well as our everyday experience in this society urge us to take control to achieve a particular result, and this can become so implicitly ingrained that it feels wrong to sink toward our innate humanity. Again, just listening with kindness to the competing voices inside is good preparation for extending this attentiveness and kindness to all aspects of the person about to come in our door.”

WelcomeControlSelf AcceptanceImperfectionPresenceTrauma HealingOpen HeartednessSelf Compassion For Therapists
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“The seminal work of Stephen Porges ... suggests that presence becomes possible when there is a felt sense of safety ... When we are in the role of practitioner, if our autonomic nervous system is receiving what it needs to have a neuroception of safety (our system's felt sense, below the level of conscious awareness, that we are safe) then our social engagement system (the ventral vagal parasympathetic) will be alive in the room as our patients arrive. In this state, we become a potentially safe landing strip for them. When we are able to offer this safe haven, the possibility of the other person moving toward a similar felt sense of safety awakens the healing space between us through resonance.”

HealingMental HealthPresenceNervous SystemPolyvagal TherapyTips For TherapistsParasympathetic Nervous SystemTips For Psychologists
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“More important than the words or silence is my inner stance of making room for what is stirring within him, becoming alertly still enough inside that his inner world senses safety, the precursor to him opening into vulnerability.”

ListeningSafetyTherapyPresenceTrauma HealingPsychological Safety
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“if our attention is what we're going to do next to accomplish a specific goal (often decrease a symptom) rather than openness to what the other person is bringing to the moment, we have stepped into our left hemispheres and out of relationship- and our patient will feel that as a kind of subtle abandonment. This interchange will likely happen below the level of conscious awareness and yet lead our person to step back a bit internally, awaiting the arrival of true presence, without agenda or judgement, so that safety can arise in the space in between. At that moment, the healing power inherent in this co-organizing/co-regulating relationship arrives. We have been returning to this crucial distinction in these pages, as much as possible with ongoing compassion for the challenge we experience as we open to the right remaining consistently in the lead.”

PresencePerson CenteredPsychological SafetyEmotional IntimacyAttunementTherapy TipsSafe RelationshipsHealing Space
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image

“We may find ourselves in a role similar to that of a gardener as we cultivate a space in which healing can naturally unfold. In terms of neurobiology, this stance encourages us to lean into the reassuring awareness that our systems already contain seeds awaiting our attention. For some examples, we humans are always seeking the warmest possible attachments we can imagine (Cozolino, Siegel), our brains are continuously yearning for the arrival of a co-organizing other (Badenoch, Cozolino, Schore), emotional regulation flows naturally from being in the presence of someone we trust (Beckes & Coan) and even our nervous systems have a preference for the social engagement circuitry that sustains connection (Porges). With this kind of support from the biology inherent in both practitioner and patient, our bodies may begin to open into a welcoming state as others come towards us, with a sense of partnership being established rather than someone doing something to us. However this also means letting go of the potential certainty that comes from feeling we are in charge.”

PresenceTrauma HealingPerson CenteredTherapy TipsSelf Care For TherapistsInterpersonal NeurobiologyIpnbHealing Partnership
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
Create image