Resiliency vs. Vulnerability: Approaches for Trauma Healing

“I can’t be resilient and ask for help.”

The conviction in my client’s voice had me speechless for several seconds. Finding myself curious in traditional therapist fashion, I asked her to tell me more. In her journey to better understand her childhood trauma, she felt that living life from a place of resiliency was the ultimate goal. But what about the vulnerability of asking for help? As we explored it further, she disclosed that the message she had downloaded throughout her life was that she can’t have both.

How did this happen? How can a person achieve resilience without asking for help here and there along the way? If resiliency is defined as the capacity to spring back quickly, have elasticity, and overcome difficulties quickly, how can we realistically expect youth and adults to achieve this 100% on their own?

I found myself gently challenging my client on this very notion by asking her if her five-year-old self was supposed to figure out resiliency without relying on anyone. Of course she said no, that wasn’t realistic. My client isn’t alone in finding herself battling the emotional desire to rely only on herself in response to trauma wounds while her logical and developmental self is wanting to ask for help. Therefore I think there is some powerful therapeutic work to be done to challenge the black and white thinking of resiliency vs. asking for help from a trauma perspective.

1. ACEs – by exploring the 10 questions of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, my client was able to better identify the limits of adult stability and parenting within her household which were contributing to her inner narrative that she couldn’t ask for help in not having stable adults present in her life to respond.

2. Attachment Style – by introducing my client to attachment styles from childhood to adulthood, she was better able to identify patterns of behaviors in relationships that were preventing her from asking for help or embracing vulnerability in her interactions with others.

3.  Negative Core Beliefs – by engaging my client in a deeper dive of what these events say about herself, she was able to name painful core beliefs like “I am unlovable” and “I don’t deserve good things.” We were then able to explore how these core beliefs influence her behaviors and responses to others from the lenses of vulnerability, self-sabotage, and integral resistance.

4. Flash Technique – by exploring her strengths and reinforcing them with this trauma technique, my client was able to find ways to embrace her vulnerability and resiliency, allowing it to settle into her being at a cellular level that felt empowering, pleasant, and real.

These techniques are by no means an exhaustive list of how to address vulnerability and resiliency in trauma work. However, I have found them useful in opening the door of possibility that trauma survivors can embody both vulnerability and resiliency in their therapeutic journey, allowing them to show up authentically for themselves and others as they heal.

Vulnerability for the Wrong Reasons?

Vulnerability is powerful! Championed by heart-centered leaders like Brene Brown, Simon Sinek, and Michelle Obama, we’ve taken notice of how it can pave the way for authentic leadership and deeper connection. Vulnerability has its place in allowing people to feel seen. Learning to lean in to the discomfort to grow, It can serve as a catalyst for change. 

I myself have experienced the positive power of vulnerability as a leader. Yet what if there are times we embrace vulnerability for the wrong reasons? To manipulate others? Forced intimacy to get our needs met? Learned helplessness to be seen and cared for because we find we are unable to help ourselves? Showing up in the form of:

People Pleasing.

Co-dependency.

Manipulation.

It’s not uncommon to support vulnerability as a meaningful tool after trauma. For some, it starts with addressing the absence of vulnerability in a person wanting to feel strong, independent, and in control. For folks with mental health diagnoses of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) and Borderline Personality Disorder, vulnerability within relationships can feel even more complicated.  C-PTSD, for example, recognizes the impact of repeat relational trauma that challenges a person’s sense of safety and security. The unpredictable environment of not knowing if their needs will be met, when they will be met, or how often. Attachment trauma. Rupture with no repair. If vulnerability has the capability of bringing people closer together, can it manifest as a learned behavior with significant consequences? 

As a therapist, I find myself worried that vulnerability can be contrived in response to trauma, pressure, and pleasing of others. Concern that individuals who have had their boundaries violated will embrace vulnerability as a tool but not recognize the risks. What are the consequences of strategic vulnerability for agenda-driven reasons? Perhaps the person receiving the fabricated expression of vulnerability finds it draining or false. Individuals engaged in forced vulnerability to get their needs met may find themselves in burnout, resentment, or fatigue. By embracing inauthentic vulnerability, are we unknowingly elevating our risks of being physically or emotionally hurt again?

With these challenges in mind, I continue to engage clients in an energy wheel exercise in order to explore their relational boundary work each week. Presented as slices of pie, I ask them to map out their energy dedicated to various tasks each week, both personal and professional. Emphasizing relational energy, I encourage clients to remain curious by asking, “what’s my energy pie look like today?”

In the example above, the client indicates spending a lot of energy in Week 1 pleasing her father by spending time with him, meeting his needs, and putting out emotional fires. By actively practicing boundary work over the next several weeks, the client indicates a more balanced energy towards her primary goal of finding a job. By processing the shift in energy, the client recognizes an increase in self-confidence and improved well-being in not feeling as drained by the interactions with her father. This discovery not only reinforces her motivation to continue her important boundary work with family members, it also helps her explore her relationship with vulnerability.

As we can expect, boundaries and vulnerability go hand in hand. From a trauma lens, boundaries and vulnerability are equally challenged by the maladaptive coping skills we develop to survive a threatening experience. Therefore it is important to explore a client’s relationship with vulnerability, identifying how they feel about it, when they embrace it, and how it can serve as an opportunity to bring them closer to connection in healthy relationships while protecting them against unhealthy patterns.