Erin Butters, Registered Psychologist

08/02/2025

07/28/2025

Quote from recent discussion between of the and . Check out the full conversation - link in bio 👈✨💡💡 #

07/24/2025

We’ve been taught to treat addiction like a brain disease to be managed— when in many cases, it’s a multi-dimensional wound that needs to be healed.

And when trauma is part of the story, healing isn’t just about abstaining.
It’s about integrating.

Because relapse isn’t failure.
It’s often the body’s last-ditch effort to soothe pain it doesn’t know how to hold.

Addiction isn’t always about the substance.
And it’s never just about willpower.
It’s what happens when the nervous system gets overwhelmed-and reaches for the only thing that’s ever offered relief.

For some, addiction begins with genetics or reward-seeking.

For others, it starts with emotional pain that had nowhere to go.

But for many, it’s both: a brain wired for craving, and a body carrying pain.

🧬 Yes, neuroscience tells us addiction reshapes the brain—dulling the prefrontal cortex, over-activating the amygdala, and conditioning the system to seek short-term relief at all costs.

But that same science also tells us: the brain can change.

Especially in environments of safety, connection, and internal integration.

It means we don’t stop at behavior.
We go deeper into the brain, the body, and the story.

We work across disciplines such as:
🧠 Neuroscience to understand reward circuitry
🛋️ Psychotherapy to explore emotional wounds and relational patterns
🎯 Coaching to build capacity, momentum, and motivation
🔄 IFS to understand internal coping strategies
✨ EMDR to process trauma memories
🌀 Somatic therapy to release what the body still holds

Because most addiction treatment still focuses on managing the behavior or medicating the brain. But it rarely teaches people how to feel.

How to grieve.

How to come back into relationship with themselves.

And without that, relapse isn’t just possible—it’s predictable.

Integration isn’t a luxury. It’s the missing piece.
Because when trauma shapes addiction, only healing can truly resolve (or release) it.

07/17/2025

I get asked this question all the time.

If you’ve been in a narcissistic relationship, you might be sorting through a deep fog—questioning your memory, your instincts, even your worth. That’s not just emotional confusion; it’s nervous system injury.

Gaslighting, blame-shifting, emotional withdrawal—these are real harms. And they can leave lasting imprints.

So let’s start here: You don’t owe compassion to someone who continually violates your boundaries.

That said—here’s what I’ve seen: narcissistic traits often develop as protective adaptations to early trauma. When a child grows up without being truly seen or soothed or loved, they build an identity that says, “If I can’t be loved for who I am, I’ll be admired for who others need or want me to be.”

But compassion for their pain does not require self-abandonment.

Insight doesn’t equal unlimited access.

Understanding doesn’t mean tolerating mistreatment.

And here’s where I want to be clear: I don’t support the pathologizing or polarizing language that says “narcissists are evil,” “they can never change,” or “throw them away.” That kind of othering may feel justified at first, but it often keeps us stuck in cycles of blame, reactivity or feeling vicitmized—when what we really need is clarity, boundaries, and repair.

Healing isn’t about excusing behavior. It’s about seeing the full picture—how trauma can create protective masks—and deciding what you need to heal from.

Think of it like this: If someone’s drowning, they might pull others down with them. You can understand why they’re panicking. But you’re still allowed to swim to shore.

An integrative trauma approach means holding both: The reality of your pain AND the humanity of the person who caused it.

But here’s the key: accountability is non-negotiable.
For healing to happen—on either side—there must be willingness to look inward, repair harm, and grow.

If you’re fresh out of a narcissistic dynamic, your job isn’t to fix them. It’s to come home to yourself.

07/13/2025

Being hard on ourselves … is familiar to many of us. We often distance ourselves from emotional pain—our vulnerability, anger, jealousy, fear—by covering it over with self-judgment.

When we push away parts of ourselves, we only dig ourselves deeper into the trance of unworthiness. We might clearly perceive the faults and shortcomings of ourselves and others, we might recognize we are judging, we might acknowledge that we are stuck in anger or craving or fear.

We might even say we accept what we see, but Radical Acceptance has two wings—compassion as well as mindfulness. We cannot be accepting of our experience if our heart has hardened in fear and blame. RA, CH.8, P. 199

07/10/2025

06/26/2025

A lot of people think resilience means being “strong” through hard things. But real resilience isn’t just surviving the moment—it’s how we carry what it left behind.

Because sometimes, even long after the crisis is over…
You’re still anxious. Or shut down. Or reacting in ways you don’t fully understand.

And you may wonder: If I got through it, why don’t I feel better?

Here’s what I want you to know👇
When something overwhelms us, we do whatever we can to make it through. But the ways we coped—shutting down, staying alert, tuning out—don’t always disappear when it’s over.

They often stay—until we gently notice them, name them, and begin to care for what they’ve been holding.
That’s why so many of us find ourselves stuck in one of these patterns:

❎ Burying the pain – staying busy, minimizing what happened, pretending it didn’t affect us.
❎ Repeating the pattern – finding ourselves in the same roles, the same conflicts, the same emotional loops.
✅ Or beginning to learn and rise above it – slowly turning toward the pain, not to relive it, but to finally understand and tend to it.

That’s the kind of resilience I care about. Not the kind that powers through at any cost. But the kind that says: Something happened. And I’m learning how to care for the parts of me it touched.

It’s not easy. And it’s definitely not linear. But it is possible—with the right support, tools, and a trauma-informed lens.

06/17/2025

06/14/2025

Walking helps us process emotions. Our eyes move naturally in bilateral motions as we walk— going from right to left. This turns on the logical and emotional parts of our brain and helps us make sense of what we feel.

So many people say “feel your feelings.” And it’s true we do need to feel them. But think a better way to say this is: “walk your feelings.” When we’re sitting still, parts of our brains are inactive. Our amygdala (threat center) can go haywire. Walking turns down the amygdala’s volume.

If you’re having a difficult conversation, walk with that person as you talk. This is especially important for people with complex trauma. You’ll both be more regulated and logical. You’ll have more access to the natural compassion that always lives within you.

Walk and then notice how much calmer and at peace you feel. Your body knows what to do. If you can, listen to the birds or the wind in the trees. For thousands of years these sounds grounded your ancestors— they’ll ground you too

06/14/2025

As I finish writing my next book, I’ve done an incredible amount of research on the brain. And the takeaway is: your brain is very primal. It only wants to keep you alive.

One thing we need to find is meaningful hobbies and goals. Hobbies that bring us joy and presence in our body. Goals that drive us toward something— that keep us practicing and trying and testing out resilience.

These things give the brain rest from scanning for threats. They give the brain challenge, and (healthy) stimulation, and they help the brain consistently create new neural pathways.

Help your brain stay stimulated, evolving, and fulfilled.

Leave some hobbies that take you out of your head or goals you’re working on in the comments

01/31/2025

Meet:

Erin Butters, Registered Psychologist

Do you face challenges associated with feeling unworthy, or like a failure?

Do you often feel guilty, or responsible for the feelings of others?

Do you struggle with sleep at times? With rumination?

Together, significant change can be made. With my experience as a Registered Psychologist who has offered counselling support to clients in our community for 20 years, and in private practice for over 10 years, relief is truly possible. I am passionate about helping adults, couples, teens, and children through challenges including transition to parenthood, adulthood, divorce, or retirement, healing from trauma past or present, addressing unhealthy patterns in relationship, and through loss, including loss of a loved one, a marriage, or an aspect of identity.

DM or Email to Book:
Erin@solarapsychology.ca