[Video] Collective Stress in Therapy: Raymond Rodriguez on Not Pathologizing What’s Systemic

As so many of us are feeling the weight of collective stress these days, it can be hard for those working to support clients to tell how much of what they bring into the room is theirs alone, and how much reflects what’s happening around all of us.

That’s why we’re so glad to share this video with Raymond Rodriguez, LCSW, a clinical social worker and family therapist who specializes in trauma.

In this short clip, Raymond describes how focusing only on what’s happening inside a person can risk pathologizing stress that’s actually systemic, and he explains why he believes therapists can be the ones to gently name what’s happening in the world, rather than waiting for clients to raise it. He also offers a few simple questions for opening that conversation with curiosity, without insisting.

Get Access to the Full On-Demand Workshop with Raymond Rodriguez (1.5 CEs available)

Learn more in the full 90-minute workshop, Working with Trauma in Unsafe and Uncertain Times: Somatic Tools for Systemic Stress, Collective Threat, and Nervous System Care. Get On-Demand Access for $47 >>

Access the Full Workshop On-Demand (1.5 CEs available)

In this 90-minute On-Demand workshop, Working with Trauma in Unsafe and Uncertain Times: Somatic Tools for Systemic Stress, Collective Threat, and Nervous System Care, Raymond Rodriguez invites clinicians to explore clients'—and their own—individual stress and trauma responses when the present moment itself feels unsafe. In times of systemic stress, sociopolitical violence, and collective threat, clients may be responding not only to past trauma, but to real and ongoing conditions of uncertainty and harm.

Drawing on somatic and trauma-informed approaches, this workshop supports clinicians in staying present with clients amid the complexity of this moment while remaining centered, attuned, and supported themselves.

In this workshop you will:

  • Learn how to differentiate and work with both trauma memory reactivation and somatic responses to present-day, objective threat
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  • Apply body-based approaches for addressing systemic stress such as racism, transphobia, sociopolitical violence, and moral injury, while honoring individual responses to collective harm
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  • Track and work with the parallel process by attending to your own embodied responses as a clinician living within the same conditions as your clients
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  • Support clients and yourself in responding to urgency with regulated awareness, grounded action, and sustained compassion
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  • Gain lifetime access to the workshop recording and typed transcript

Get Access for $47 >>

About Raymond Rodriguez

Raymond Rodriguez, LCSW, Rev. (he/him), is an Afro-Latino Clinical Social Worker with over twenty years of experience in working with community-based programs and private practice. He received his Social Work degree from Columbia University School of Social Work. He is a family therapist with clinical interests in the areas of immigration, diversity, LGBTQAI+ empowerment, spirituality, and working with marginalized communities.

In the last decade he specialized in trauma therapy assisting clients with complex psychological trauma, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and dissociative disorders. He is certified in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). He has extensive training and practice in Internal Family Systems (IFS), family systems therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy. He has held faculty positions with Columbia School of Social Work, Smith College School of Social Work, Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, The Trauma Studies Center of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, and The Integrative Trauma Studies Program of the National Institute for Psychotherapy. He currently teaches at The Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute. He formerly served on the Boards of the National Association of Puertorrican and Hispanic Social Workers and the No More Fear Foundation. He lives in Westchester, NY with his partner, son, and dogs.