Selah Trauma Counseling Center

05/06/2026

Jodi has passed all the tests, completed all the hours, checked the many boxes required of a grad student intern, wrote the papers on the many theories, researched methodologies and calculated statistical probabilities, and attended supervision upon supervision (just wait there's more as an Associate 🤣). Now it's our turn to cheer her on as she crosses the stage at graduation!

A quick reminder as we send off Jodi to graduation, she will be out of the office for approximately a month. It all depends upon how long it takes BHEC to bestow the well-earned LPC-Associate status.

Congratulations Jodi you have earned it!

05/05/2026

05/04/2026

05/04/2026

May the 4th be with you!

Sharing this cutie from last year again 🥹❤️ May the fourth be with you and would you all have a great start to the week! ✨🌟💫

05/03/2026

You are a mother, even if the world doesn’t see your children. 💜

Your grief may be fresh, or maybe your baby would be 40 years old. Today (and everyday!) your motherhood is seen and celebrated by us here at Gathering Hope. If you could ask for anything today, what would make you feel loved? 💜

05/02/2026

Welcome May!

We've had a busy Spring at Selah. You may notice our presence a lot more during this Mental Health Awareness month with Talking Texoma and advertising. So much of trauma is silenced and we wanted an opportunity to give voice to those difficulties. When silence becomes words, words become connection and healing.

A large part of healing is relational within the self and with others, restoring dignity, and so much more. Mental Health America is centering this month on "more good days, together." Mental health can't be separated from physical health, although it is far less complex and maybe even more manageable to separate health into categories. When listening to a symphony, we hear the harmony of all the parts together. The sections made up of parts and parts played by musicians and ultimately each musician must learn to play the music. Similarly, we are a sum of all our parts and addressing one area can support others.

Invitation: To begin, define your good enough day. Do you quantify "good" and equate it to a productivity standard? Maybe good doesn't even mean happy. Good enough could be a glimmer or it could change day to day.

04/30/2026

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04/30/2026

The Choice is still in my top 3 of all time best books. It’s not a simple autobiography and her imprisonment in Auschwitz was a small part of her life.

As trauma does, it builds up even if you try to bury it. As many folks in the helping fields do, we go in search of meaning, to be needed when weren’t, or sometimes to show up when no one else did and end up in fields as first responders, Drs/nurses, or in the psych field.

In honor of Dr. Edith Eger, I invite you today to intentionally look for a glimmer. Look for a sense of felt safety, a moment of relaxation, or maybe a pause for a deep breath & a long exhale while slowly releasing the tension.

At first, Edith Eger resolved to keep her story of survival and loss a secret.

In 1944, at age 16, Edith and her family were rounded up, imprisoned, and later deported from Hungary to Auschwitz just because they were Jewish. After arriving at the camp, Edith's mother was immediately murdered in the gas chamber, leaving Edith and her older sister. The sisters fought to survive while imprisoned in several camps. In May 1945, they were liberated by American soldiers.

After the war, Edith met her future husband and soon gave birth to their first child.

“I was also determined, after so much pain and loss, to be a source of life,” Edith wrote.

In 1949, the young family immigrated to the United States. Edith thrust herself into her new American life, eager to assimilate and determined to suppress the trauma of her teen years. She later reflected, “I’d thought my silence about the past would be a buffer for my children. Yet in hiding from the past, I wasn’t free of it.”

Edith became a psychologist and worked with patients suffering from PTSD. This experience forced her to reconcile her own pain.

“Then I began to think – if I’m gonna live, I need to be for something,” she recalled. “Not just against something, but for life. And for being a functional human being.”

She became a renowned author and advocate, sharing her experiences with adults and children around the world.

She passed away yesterday at age 98.

Photo: Alamy

04/28/2026

We all have trauma. Not everyone has ptsd.

We all have mental and physical health challenges. Not every challenge or struggle equates to an illness or a diagnosis.

Sometimes it isn’t an illness, sometimes it’s an adaptation to survive.

If your symptoms impact your functioning, we can help.

04/26/2026

Wherever you are, whatever you’re going through… there is always a reason to stay 💙

For the incredible running in honour of his younger brother today. With a mission to help those struggling to see the light, find their reason to stay. If you are reading this please know how loved you are, how needed you are.

04/26/2026

Trauma isn’t always remembered as a story.

Often, it’s stored as sensations, emotions, and automatic survival responses that live in the body and nervous system long after the original experience has passed.

This visual highlights how trauma can become a “living legacy” within the brain and body—especially when overwhelming stress disrupts the brain’s ability to form a clear narrative memory.

When the hippocampus is overwhelmed, the brain prioritizes survival. Instead of storing a coherent story, experiences may be encoded through implicit and procedural memory systems.

Here’s how that can show up in clinical work:

• Implicit memory (the sensory record):
Trauma may surface as emotional flashbacks—sudden waves of shame, rage, fear, or despair that feel intense but hard to explain in words.

• Procedural memory (survival-based habits):
The brain develops automatic patterns designed to maintain safety—behaviors like hypervigilance, withdrawal, avoiding eye contact, or difficulty asking for help.

• The body holds the memory:
Somatic symptoms such as muscle tension, numbness, dizziness, or defensive postures can reflect trauma that hasn’t yet been fully integrated.

Over time, these responses can become relational “default settings,” shaping how individuals perceive threat, connection, and safety in the world.

Understanding trauma through a neurobiological and nervous-system lens helps clinicians move beyond purely cognitive approaches—supporting integration through relational, somatic, and experiential work.

At Academy of Therapy Wisdom, we explore trauma treatment approaches that help therapists work with fragmented parts, implicit memory systems, and embodied survival responses.

If you’d like to deepen your understanding of trauma fragmentation and parts-based healing, comment “Training” below and we’ll send you a link to Dr. Janina Fisher’s FREE webinar: Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors.

How do you see implicit or procedural memory shaping trauma responses in your clinical work?