In the first half of my conversation with psychotherapist and self-described anger expert Bronwyn Schweigerdt, we explored how unexpressed anger embeds itself in the body, fueling depression, anxiety, disordered eating, and physical illness.
In Part Two of our ANEW Insight discussion, we go further into something even more hopeful:
How trauma can be reversed when we stop pathologizing our emotions and start listening to them.
This is a conversation about:
- Why two people can experience the same event, but only one develops PTSD
- The hidden “trauma behind the trauma”
- How shame becomes self-disgust and lives in the gut
- Why some psychosis and severe mental health symptoms shift when anger and reality are finally named
- How to raise kids who can feel anger without drowning in shame
- What to consider about medication, emotional numbing, and long-term healing
If you have ever felt “too much,” “too sensitive,” or like your emotions are the problem, this one is for you.
What Does It Really Mean to “Reverse” Trauma?
When we talk about trauma, we often focus on what happened:
the car accident, the bullying, the assault, the screaming fights at home.
Bronwyn asks us to look at something else entirely:
What stayed inside after it happened?
Two people can live through the same event. One goes on with their life, perhaps shaken but eventually steady. The other develops intrusive memories, nightmares, panic, or deep emotional numbness.
Why?
Bronwyn points to three powerful forces that transform an overwhelming event into trauma:
- Suppressed anger toward others
- Turned-in anger toward ourselves (“I should have stopped it,” “It’s my fault”)
- Shame — the belief that what happened says something terrible about who we are
In fact, she cites research showing that PTSD is often more strongly linked to anger at self than anger at the perpetrator. That inner hostility becomes its own prison.
And then, as I added in our conversation, avoidance — the attempt to outrun or numb those feelings — keeps trauma in place. We don’t want to feel the terror, grief, rage, or shame, so we push it down. The nervous system stays stuck in survival mode.
Reversing trauma is not erasing history.
It’s finally feeling what couldn’t be felt at the time — and giving those emotions a safe, attuned home.
The “Trauma Behind the Trauma”: Why Support Matters More Than the Event
Bronwyn shared a powerful framework: the trauma behind the trauma.
To explain it, she contrasted two 8-year-old boys experiencing the same bullying at school.
Tom: Witnessed, validated, guided
Tom comes home to a parent who sees him. His mother listens carefully, names his feelings, and says things like:
- “That sounds humiliating.”
- “Of course that hurt.”
- “What do you think you need to do next?”
She doesn’t rush to fix it for him. She doesn’t dismiss it. She trusts his internal wisdom and helps him trust it too.
Tom shares.
Tom is believed.
Tom’s emotions are held.
For Tom, the bullying is painful — but not traumatic in the same way. What is shareable becomes bearable. His nervous system learns: “When something hurts, I can tell someone. My feelings matter. I am not alone.”
Terrance: Alone with shame
Terrance goes home to a parent who is emotionally unavailable, dismissive, or critical. He either:
- doesn’t tell anyone
or - tells and is met with blame, minimization, or confusion:
- “What did you do?”
- “Just ignore it.”
- “You’re too sensitive.”
For Terrance, speaking up might actually hurt more than staying quiet. So he holds it all inside:
- humiliation
- anger at the bullies
- anger at himself
- a deep sense of being unworthy of care
That is the trauma behind the trauma:
not just what happened at school, but having no safe place to bring it.
When we grow up without attuned witnesses, we learn to distrust our feelings. We disconnect from anger, grief, and fear — but the body remembers. Trauma reversal, then, is about re-creating what was missing: an internal and external relationship that can finally say,
“Of course you feel this way. It makes sense. And I am here.”
Evoking Emotion Before Validating It
By the time people reach a therapist’s office as adults, many aren’t even aware they’re angry. They minimize their experiences, rationalize their parents’ behavior, or say things like:
- “It wasn’t that bad.”
- “Other people had it worse.”
- “I don’t really feel anything. I’m just numb.”
This is where Bronwyn’s approach becomes very different from “just talk about it.”
Her first job is not only to validate feelings — it’s to evoke them.
She will say things like:
- “Wait, they said what to you?”
- “Are you kidding me?”
- “That sounds horrific.”
Not to dramatize, but to help clients locate the anger, humiliation, and grief they had to abandon in order to survive.
You cannot heal trauma you never acknowledge.
You cannot discharge anger you never allow yourself to feel.
The body might be screaming through symptoms, but the mind still whispers, “It’s not a big deal.”
Therapy helps those two parts finally meet.
Shame: When Self-Hatred Moves Into the Gut
When we turned to shame, both of us saw the same pattern in our work:
Shame is not just “feeling bad about something.”
Shame is self-disgust. It is self-directed hostility.
Bronwyn described shame as:
- self-hatred
- self-disgust
- the emotional equivalent of wanting to crawl out of your own skin
And where does it live?
Very often, in the gut.
She sees shame at the root of:
- emotional and comfort eating
- bingeing and purging
- chronic gut issues
- the hollow feeling that leads us to eat past fullness
In her own life, after a major attachment injury with her husband (when she needed empathy and didn’t receive it), she felt both:
- a deep inner emptiness
- uncontrollable eating
- unexplained vomiting
Her body was re-enacting what little Bronwyn felt:
empty, unheld, and ashamed.
From my side as both a psychologist and dietitian, I see the same:
Shame is also deeply tied to:
- disordered eating and eating disorders
- substance misuse
behaviors that numb or distract from a core belief: “I am unlovable. I am the problem.”
Whether it’s food, alcohol, compulsive work, online scrolling, or substances, the pattern is similar:
we’re trying to fill a void or escape a self-image that feels unbearable.
Bronwyn goes one step further and includes:
- OCD
- some forms of depression and anxiety
- even mania and psychosis
as ways the mind splits off from unbearable feelings like shame and rage. They are not “just emotions.” They are strategies — often unconscious — to avoid what once felt impossible to feel.
About Bronwyn Schweigerdt, here are her social media channels: https://angryattherightthings.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/bronwyn-schweigerdt-3124857/ https://www.facebook.com/people/Angry-at-the-Right-Things/61555715646671/
Integrating Shame: Becoming the Attuned Attachment Figure You Never Had
So how do we work with shame instead of running from it?
Bronwyn returns to her integration exercises, which you heard in Part One as well. The process looks something like this:
- Notice the trigger in the present.
A fight, a criticism, a silence, or a look that stirs that familiar gut sensation. - Locate it in the body.
Often in the stomach, chest, or throat. - Let your mind drift back to the earliest time you remember that same feeling.
For many people, this is age 3, 4, or 5. - Imagine your adult self meeting that younger self.
You bring the compassion, understanding, and protection your caregivers couldn’t access. - Name what happened as not their fault.
You explicitly state that the shame belongs to the parent, bully, abuser, or system — not to the child. - Symbolically give the shame back.
In her language, you might imagine putting it into a box and handing it back…or throwing it into the sea.
This is not a one-time visualization.
It is a practice of reclaiming your dignity over and over again.
In my own clinical work, I’ll often add an imagined apology from a caregiver’s “healed self,” allowing the body to feel what it would be like to be seen, acknowledged, and repaired with. Even if that apology never comes in real life, the nervous system can still soften when the emotional truth finally lands:
“It wasn’t my fault. I was never the defective one.”
When Psychosis Eases as Truth Comes Into Focus
One of the most striking stories Bronwyn shared was about a client who had experienced psychosis for over a decade — hallucinations of dementor-like figures, witches, voices threatening her safety.
For years, this woman saw herself as “the sick one” in the family. The problem. The disordered person.
In therapy, Bronwyn began reflecting something very different:
- “It sounds like you’re the only one who actually has feelings.”
- “It sounds like your body is trying to protect you.”
As they explored her hallucinations, a new perspective emerged:
The terrifying images and voices bore an uncanny resemblance to her mother — someone who had been profoundly invalidating and emotionally harmful.
When the client could finally name her mother’s behavior as abusive and invalidating, rather than “just who she is,” something remarkable happened:
- She set firm boundaries, eventually cutting off contact.
- She stopped forcing herself to see her mother as safe.
- She allowed herself to feel anger, grief, and betrayal about her childhood.
Over the next two years, her hallucinations stopped completely.
Of course, not every case of psychosis will follow this trajectory, and no one should discontinue medication or treatment without medical guidance. But her story illustrates something vital:
Sometimes what looks like “breakdown” is the mind’s desperate attempt to tell the truth when we are not allowed to say it out loud.
When the truth is finally acknowledged — and boundaries align with reality — the nervous system no longer needs to shout.
How Parents Can Raise Emotionally Resilient Kids (Without Silencing Anger)
Many parents listening to this kind of conversation think,
“Oh no. I don’t want to do this to my kids. How do I not repeat the cycle?”
Bronwyn’s answer is both simple and hard:
We must be willing to validate our children’s anger — including their anger at us.
That means:
- Letting go of the need to be the perfect parent
- Building the ego strength to hear “I’m mad at you” without collapsing into shame or defensiveness
Saying things like:- “I can see why you’re upset with me.”
- “You’re right, I was being hypocritical.”
- “Thank you for pointing that out. I want to grow from this.”
This doesn’t mean giving in to every demand.
The goal is authoritative, not authoritarian and not permissive:
- Authoritarian: “Because I said so. End of discussion.”
- Permissive: “Whatever you want, I’ll do it. I can’t tolerate your anger.”
- Authoritative: “I understand why you’re angry. Your feelings make sense. Here’s the boundary, and let’s see if we can find a solution that works for both of us.”
Children need both:
- emotional validation
and
- loving limits
Over time, this helps them internalize a voice that says:
“My feelings matter. I can be angry and still loved. I am allowed to make mistakes and repair.”
That is resilience.
Medication, Emotions, and the Risk of Numbing What Needs to Be Felt
We also touched on a complex topic: psychiatric medication and the widespread belief — often unspoken — that emotions are pathological.
Bronwyn highlighted a painful pattern many clients describe after multiple hospitalizations or medication trials:
- Being treated as if their feelings are the illness
- Being medicated primarily to become quieter, calmer, easier
- Being told explicitly or implicitly that their emotional intensity is evidence of disorder
Some medications can be life-saving and stabilizing, especially in high-risk situations. For many people, short- to medium-term use can create a bridge to safety, therapy, and lifestyle changes.
The concern is when numbing becomes the only goal.
If someone is already dissociating from anger and shame, and we add pharmacologic numbing without offering pathways to safely feel and process those emotions, we risk:
- prolonging the trauma response
weakening their trust in their own emotional signals - reinforcing the belief, “My feelings are the problem”
In my own practice, I often describe medication (when appropriate and medically indicated) as a temporary scaffolding:
- It can lift you enough to do the deeper work.
- It is not meant to replace that deeper work.
- Any changes should always be done slowly, intentionally, and with a prescribing provider’s guidance.
The long-term goal, for both of us, is the same:
Not to eliminate feelings.
To help people feel them safely, with support, and use them as information rather than proof of defect.
Finding the Right Therapist: The Relationship Is the Treatment
We ended our conversation on something very practical and very important:
You are allowed to shop for a therapist.
The research is clear:
The strongest predictor of therapeutic success is not the specific modality. It is the quality of the relationship.
Ask yourself:
- Do I feel seen here?
- Do I feel believed?
- Do I feel safe enough to be honest?
- Do I feel gently challenged, not judged?
If the answer is no, you are not “difficult.” You are not “resistant.”
You may simply not have found your person yet.
If cost is a barrier, resources like Open Path Collective and sliding-scale practices can help you find more affordable options. Your emotional life is worth that investment.
You Are Not Alone With Your Anger or Shame
If there’s one message I hope you carry from this conversation with Bronwyn, it is this:
Your anger makes sense.
Your shame has a history.
Your symptoms are not character flaws.
There is a part of you that has been trying to tell the truth for a very long time.
You deserve spaces — in therapy, in relationships, and within yourself — where that truth is welcomed, not silenced.
Keep Learning, Healing, and Growing
If this conversation resonated with you, here are more ways to go deeper with me:
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Course: Deprogram Diet Culture — science-based, trauma-informed healing
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View here the full podcast Transcript:
[00:00:00]
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Welcome back everyone. We are back for the second half of our interview with psychotherapist, speaker, and self-described anger expert Bronwyn Schweigerdt. Bronwyn gave us some really amazing insight into her history and her inspiration, uh, into working with, uh, shame and anger, and I honestly cannot wait to learn more.
So Bronwyn, welcome back.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Thank you.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Can you walk us through what it looks like when, and, and what you actually mean by reversing trauma? So when somebody works with you and they, you know, have experienced trauma,
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah,
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: how do we reverse that?
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: so I believe what makes trauma traumatic because you know, they have shown that two people can undergo the exact same experience one [00:01:00] person develops PTSD. The other doesn’t. So what I believe creates the trauma isn’t the actual incident itself, but it’s the suppressed anger or disassociate anger that is still in our bodies, held in our bodies after it, and not just anger at the person, a lot of times anger at ourselves. In fact, I would say the majority, so this was another study I ran into that actually found that PTSD was more linked with anger at ourselves than any other kind of anger. And then the other thing that makes it traumatic is the shame from that trauma. So those are really the things that anger and the shame that we have not resolved, that we have not worked through.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Absolutely. And I would also add, uh, the avoidance,
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: the avoidance of those really distressing feelings is another [00:02:00] reason why.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Trauma and PTSD continues, uh, to present itself. So how do we go about reversing that?
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah. And I also wanna say, um, I love, I heard this term a few years ago. I have endorsed it ever since. I’ve heard there’s the trauma behind the trauma. So for children, so for example, um, I’m going to use an example. Let’s say there’s two children going through the same kind of bullying behavior at school.
Let’s say they’re both 8-year-old boys, let’s call the first one Tom, and the second one is Terrance. Um, Tom has a, a good relationship with his mom. He’s a mom who really listens to him, that validates his feelings. That supports him. And so Tom is bullied as an 8-year-old at school, but he’s able to tell his mom at home and mom says, you know what, Tom? That sounds humiliating. That sounded
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Hmm.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: really [00:03:00] humiliating. And Tom says, yeah, it is. And his mom says, what do you think you need when you feel that way? And then Tom’s like, you know, I think I need to tell the teacher. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. That’s a perfect. Mom scenario. Most of us are not like that. I sure wasn’t myself, but that’s a great example that that that first boy Tom is not traumatized by the bullies. There’s no trauma. Because he’s able, so what’s shareable is bearable. He is sharing his feelings about what’s going on with his mom. His mom’s like resonating with those feelings. She’s showing empathy, she’s validating, she’s naming you, felt humiliated. What do you need to do? He’s getting everything he needs through that relationship and through it, he’s learning to trust himself. ’cause she’s saying, what do you need? She’s not going and telling the teacher for him or the principal. She’s saying, what do you need, Tom? And then he’s like trusting himself to do it. So this is, this little boy is gonna grow up to be a very healthy person. [00:04:00] let’s say Terrance, he’s getting bullied, but he doesn’t have a parent that shows any attunement at home. So, you know what? Most kids like Terrance, whether it’s bullying at school or sexual abuse or what have you, they don’t tell anybody. That’s the trauma behind the trauma. Not just that they don’t tell anyone, but that No, they, they’re smart not to because they feel more humiliated and more alone and more isolated.
It would be more painful to open up to a parent and say, I’m getting bullied at school, and the parent not showing any concern or, or making it feel like you are the problem. Well, what are you doing, Terrance? What are you doing wrong? Right. That’s more traumatic. So Terrance isn’t gonna say anything, but he’s holding all of that humiliation inside that shame from the bullying, he’s holding his anger at the bully inside. He is going to experience trauma. So it’s the trauma behind the trauma. [00:05:00] So, um, that’s what we need to focus on, and that’s why having a good therapist, but also a good parent, a good friend, and being that person for ourselves where we validate our own feelings, where we say, you know what, Bronwyn, you are allowed to feel as much anger, as much rage, as much hatred right now as you want. Your feelings matter. They are valid, and we’re gonna allow those feelings to give us wisdom for our next step forward. What we need to do, we can trust ourselves to put those feelings to use in a healthy, productive way.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: I love this. So would you say that it’s the validation.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Of the anger and of the incident that, especially if it’s in the past and they didn’t receive that before, that’s what helps reverse it.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yes.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: And if so, what are, where are they coming out on the other side of this? What do you [00:06:00] see as the result?
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Well, I would say first of all, it is the validation. But by the time people come to our offices as adults, it’s not, our job isn’t just to validate them because most people aren’t even feeling their feelings. So someone who’s like, I’m really angry because that happened to me. Those are the easy folks. But a lot of people are like, I don’t know what to feel.
I can barely even share this. I don’t think it really matters. And so our job is to be like, you know what? You need to feel. You are, your feelings are valid, and our job is actually to be very evocative. A good therapist is like, what did she say? Are you kidding? Right? So our job is to evoke those feelings because most people are so dissociated from their feelings before we can ever get to validation, right?
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Absolutely. And I think that, you know, you had mentioned that when this happens and they’re not validated, they [00:07:00] embody shame and shame. I see, and, and you can probably validate this with your work and nutrition as well. I see so many people who struggle with either eating disorders or disordered eating, especially when it comes to emotional or comfort eating, that they’re primarily driven by shame.
That’s also, uh, kind of on top of repressed anger.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: you agree with that and give me a picture of. Shame and what that does to the body.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yes, I agree with that. So I see shame as the same as discussed, and shame is a type of self disgust, which is also hatred. So all these things are synonymous.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Hmm.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: It’s self-hatred. Shame is self-hatred, self-disgust. Um, and so I see it definitely, like you’re saying, it’s related not just to [00:08:00] eating disorder or disordered eating, but I would say probably almost all gut disorders.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Mm-hmm.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: It is shame and I, you know, my own experience when I was invalidated, when I wasn’t given empathy by my husband 16 years ago, I couldn’t stop eating. I felt hollow. I felt like empty because my attachment figure wasn’t showing up for me and so I couldn’t stop eating right. And then I’m also feeling shame, so I’m vomiting all the time out of nowhere.
So I’m feeling both the emptiness that I think little Bronwyn felt at age three, and the shame
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Mm-hmm.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: vomiting it out. So, absolutely. Um, that’s what shame does to us. And it, and it also evokes that emptiness. We feel that we feel unloved. We, that brings that up from our childhood.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Yes, absolutely. I would also say that shame is [00:09:00] often behind substance use disorders as well. And when you look at it, they’re very similar. Uh, you know, comfort or emotional eating and substance use. They do provide kind of a mental escape from all of that pressure and pain that they’re feeling. A way to dissociate, a way to fill.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: a void, whether it’s, you know, with a substance that kind of takes you away from reality or it’s, you know, uh, food that’s helping to kind of fill that emotional void. So how do you help people resolve the shame?
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah, and I will actually add to that. I believe OCD is does the same thing. It’s a one gigantic distraction dissociate from the shame and the anger. Depression, anxiety, those are not feelings, those are not emotions. Those are dissociations from feelings. So
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: [00:10:00] mania, psychosis, all of that.
But yeah, so how do we deal with the shame? So I, that’s why I do my integration exercises. So we feel the shame.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: We
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: become that attachment figure for our young self at that imprint, the imprinting memory, we have to go back to the in. I believe we have to go back to the imprinting memory and when we allow ourselves to feel our bodies in the present, when that shame is being evoked, when it’s being triggered, that that, and, and to feel that sensation in our bodies and let our minds float back, it will take us to an imprinting memory of ourselves at 3, 4, 5, whatever age. And then we can go and we can dislodge that shame. We can say, little Bronwyn, let’s put all that shame in this big cardboard box, and we’re gonna give it back to the parent. We’re gonna give it back to the bully. Or we can just throw it in the sea because it’s not ours,
Hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: theirs.
I think that’s so beautiful. You were just mentioning some more severe, uh, [00:11:00] mental health disorders like bipolar and, and psychosis.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Um, how do you help them navigate these more severe mental illnesses with, you know, the use of emotional, uh, reconnection and what have those cases taught you about the role of expression in healing?
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah. I have one client in particular, we’ve been working together for probably two and a half years now. She’s given me permission, I don’t use her name, but to share her story ’cause. She is my, like, I’m so proud of her. She’s my ultimate success story. She, suffered with psychosis for, I would say 13 years before we, she came on as my client and you know, I just remember the first time ever talking to her and she’s like, I am sick.
I’m the sick one in my family. I have all these mental illnesses. And I’m like, it sounds like you are the actually sane one. The only one that has feelings and your feelings are really [00:12:00] valid. once she was able to see that her, you know, even her hallucinations, she had, you know, kind of dementors, you know, from Harry Potter, the Dementors, the soul suckers.
She had those, she would see hallucinations of those. She would see a witch that was trying to kill her. She would hear voices here and there. She started seeing. I’m like, that kind of sounds like your mother. Don’t you think? It sounds like your body is trying to tell you to stay away from your mother.
It’s trying to warn you about her and now she’s like, oh yeah, that is exactly what that was.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Wow.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: was refusing to see how wicked, how horrific her mother actually was, and the minute she started opening her eyes to that, she had complete boundaries, completely cut off her mom. That was about two years ago and has not had one hallucination since that time for two years straight
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Wow, that’s [00:13:00] amazing.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: What the mother, what made the mother so sick at the heart of that? Was how incredibly invalidating she was. So that’s why I, I really press on this point. One common phenomena I see with, people with sick, you know, with severe sickness, is in a very consistently invalidating parent.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. That is really amazing to hear that the hallucination stopped after she made that realization, and I think, you know, it’s really hard for people to actually look at their parent in that light. You know, I think that that’s why they have so many struggles and they internalize it
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Because how could my mother, the person who’s supposed to taking care of me, who’s supposed to be loving me,
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: could she be that person?
So it [00:14:00] can’t be her. It’s gotta be me. And when they actually do make that connection, you do see a rift happening. And I think that that’s where some people will go, no contact
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: or some people will distance themselves as they’re kind of working through this.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: I often find that, um, no matter which way they go, but if they do go with just distancing and not separating. I see them go through this process that I think is really kind of beautiful, where, you know, they work through their anger. They’re realizing how pissed off they are at their, that their parent, and it may disrupt relationships as they’re hanging out together, as they, you know, do the holidays and things like that.
But when they stick with it and they continue to work through that. What I actually see happen with my clients is that eventually they, the anger resolves itself and then they see the parent very clearly [00:15:00] and they see all of the factors that led to the parent being this way, and they actually develop empathy and compassion.
For the parent on the other hand, I see, you know, when they report back with these like family, uh, interactions, when they, when the, when the client actually changes their behavior and they’re no longer falling into those patterns
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: they develop those boundaries.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: That’s actually when they see the behavior of their parent change in a way that’s more healthy,
I
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: that.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: In a way that that’s better for the relationship.
And I think that that actually helps to increase that empathy and compassion.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: So, you know, it’s really interesting and I think a lot of people do have to completely sever ties as well. And that’s very hard, very hard for people, and they need all of that extra support as they’re doing that.
But making those realizations can resolve some really [00:16:00] severe mental health diagnoses, and I think that that’s absolutely beautiful. So now we’ve talked a lot about parents not necessarily doing the best thing. What are some ways, if there’s parents out here who are like, oh my gosh, I don’t wanna do this to my kid. How do I figure this out? How can parents raise emotionally resilient kids without teaching them to suppress these difficult feelings of anger
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: yeah,
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: grief or shame?
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah. Well, that’s the hard part is we have to validate their anger at us ultimately,
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Mm-hmm.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: takes us developing that ego strength. To be okay to be seen as imperfect in our own eyes. And we need to know when they’re angry at us. That is not shameful ’cause we get to be human. Really, it’s about us kind of embracing our own humanity and saying, you know what, I’m just a human.
[00:17:00] Humans. You know what humans do best? They make mistakes. We make so many mistakes. We’re so good at it. And the best humans learn from their mistakes and see it as an opportunity to grow wiser. And that’s who I’m gonna be, and with my child, that’s who I’m gonna be. So I’m gonna learn to attune to them, and even when they’re angry with me, I’m gonna learn as, as hard as it is initially to go, okay, Susie? I can see where you’re coming from. I can hear that.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Wow.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: I don’t blame you for feeling frustrated with me when I say this, but I do that. Yeah, I get it. You’re, you’re right. You’re right to feel annoyed when I am. I am being kind of hypocritical. Thank you for pointing that out. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. I’m gonna work on that. I’m gonna grow and be a better human. And when we can be a human and model being a human for our kid, which means listening to them, being, taking it in [00:18:00] responding with an apology, owning it, and then changing and growing from it. We model being the best human, and they are going to walk in our footsteps. We are giving them the best gift on the planet because they’re learning, oh, I get to be human. That’s what humans do when they make mistakes, they own it, they apologize, they, they change as a result, we’re gonna have the best damn kids in the world if
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Oh my gosh. You know, I was joking around, but I’m not really joking. I just, I think, well, we have to take a driver’s license test to become drivers. Why don’t we have to take a test to become a parent? Um, and I agree with you. I think one of the worst thing that parents can say is because I said so.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: If they can help a child understand maybe why there’s a rule, um, or take the time to really hear what their child might be resisting in them and [00:19:00] understand where they’re coming from and validate that and be, you know, have humility.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: To say, you know what, I, you might be right, I might be wrong, and let’s really kind of work this out. You’re, you’re modeling this behavior for your child.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: and, and I think parents just feel like they have, they have to be the authority and that makes them more authoritarian. But they, we’ve done tons of studies on parenting and democratic parenting is the most effective and healthy style of parenting.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: yeah. Well, I don’t like the term democratic. I think maybe the best one is, so there’s authoritarian and there’s authoritative.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Mm-hmm.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: I wanna be authoritative. So if I say to little 8-year-old, you know, Johnny. Johnny, I don’t blame you for, for being mad that I’m not giving you that cookie. I don’t blame you. It doesn’t mean you’re gonna get the cookie though, so I’m still the authority, but I’m not [00:20:00] authoritarian. I’m authoritative so I can
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Yes.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: face, but it doesn’t mean I’m capitulating at his every whim. And then there’s gonna be other times where I’m like, know what? Let’s, let’s figure out a way that works for both of us.
Let’s,
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Mm-hmm.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: And so now I’m helping Johnny. Trust himself, learn how to be a team player. Right? I’m empowering him. Let’s work. Let’s find out a solution together.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Absolutely.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: that’s authoritative that, but yeah, the underlying spirit of de Democratic, same thing. Absolutely.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Yes, I, I would agree and I think. Especially when they’re young,
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: authoritative is absolutely imperative. And as they transition towards preteens and teens, I think that that’s when you can give them a little bit more autonomy and be a little bit more democratic. Still have to be authoritative. You know, you, you
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: you don’t want them out until four in the morning or anything like that.
Uh. Giving them a little bit more freedom to feel [00:21:00] independent or to feel like they have, you know, some sort sense of autonomy is so empowering and it’s also modeling how they can become that way as parents themselves. So let’s switch a little bit. I wanna talk about, um. The medical establishment and how medication is used sometimes in a way to suppress emotions, to suppress anger.
How can we help, you know, psychiatrists who are, you know,
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: prescribing these medications? Or how can we empower people who are on them,
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: um, to work with their medication or maybe to choose a different route? When it comes to their emotions.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah. There’s kind of this, I think what you’re naming, what I’m hearing is this underlying pervasive, you know, tacit belief that emotions might be [00:22:00] pathological. You know, and I definitely, getting back to the client that I shared who did have psychosis for those 13 years. She has had so many, um, times in psychiatric facilities over those years, she was traumatized every time because she very much was made to feel there like her emotions were pathological. And that’s kind of the underlying, you know, I guess the ideology around medication, right? Is like, let’s numb your emotions. Let’s numb ’em. Someone who’s depressed or anxious is already numbing them because that is, they’re already dissociated from mainly the anger or the shame. So what you know, those pharmaceuticals are doing is just numbing them more, or numbing them from, they’re already numbing them, right? So had clients actually tell me, I wanna get off my meds because I need to feel my feelings now in therapy. So I think really it would be [00:23:00] great if we could all get on board like that is the ultimate objective, right? Whether you’re pro or anti-medication for short term, the long term objective maybe we can all agree around is that we should all be feeling our feelings. That feelings are not pathological, even anger is not pathological. And we should all be committed as a community medical community, maybe as a collective whole to knowing that feelings are not pathological.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Absolutely. And I think it, it really does, um, harken back to the, uh, you know, olden times, bedlam days and things like that. Especially when it comes to women, uh, women’s emotions. You know, were deemed hysterical,
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Wow.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: and you know. It, they were, they were, um, discouraged
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: so it became easier to put someone on medication or to call them [00:24:00] crazy or hysterical, um, as a way to kind of, uh, suppress them and, uh, keep them under their, you know, rule of law.
So there’s a lot of, um, you know, history behind the use of medication, especially in women. Um, and I think. Really empowering women to know that anger is okay, that it’s okay to express it, that there are healthy ways to express it. There are healthy ways to establish boundaries. Might keep people from ever having to go on these medications.
And on top of that, especially when it comes to antidepressants, they are meant for short-term use. The way that I, you know, talk about them with my clients is, you know, when you’re really low, and that might be because of a lot of factors, including nutritional deficiencies. It’s really hard to just even kind of come up to just that little level of homeostasis.
And that’s where the [00:25:00] medication can be really helpful as you’re working through all of these difficulties and problems. And once you get to a certain level of functioning. That’s when they’re actually meant to be, um, you know, slowly titrated down. And so I think we need to be a little bit more, uh, aware that, um, you know, we’re not meant to be on these things for life.
And there are plenty of ways, uh, to wean yourself off these medications, especially if you’re bolstering both your mental and your physical health. Oh, I could ask you a million more questions while we’re running out of time. I would love for you to tell people how they can get ahold of you, how they can work with you, where they can find your podcast, all of that stuff.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: absolutely. So mainly my podcast. That’s really what I wanna get out to the public. That’s kind of my my passion, um, where I talk about all this stuff with wonderful, well mainly just me talking these days, but [00:26:00] with wonderful people like you, Supatra um, that is Angry at the Right Things. And I also have a YouTube channel these days.
Um, yeah, I would love for listeners to do integration exercises for themselves and get dislodge that shame that doesn’t belong in your body and come back to life. ‘ cause
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Yes.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Yeah.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Yes, so everybody, you need to go and listen to this a podcast, and especially if you are struggling and just know that your struggle is universal.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Mm-hmm.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: Everybody feels these emotions, all of these quote darker emotions that we don’t necessarily talk about. I think it’s so vital, so important that we do.
Talk about it, that we do explore it, and I encourage people to also shop around. You do not have to stick with the first therapist you find, and most often, um, you know, you, you may have to go from person to [00:27:00] person until you find the right fit. And just so you all know too, um. It doesn’t even necessarily matter the modality they’re using.
It doesn’t matter, you know, whatever treatment, uh, integration they’re using, it really does matter how you feel with them. It’s the relationship between you and the therapist. So I encourage people, don’t give up. There are so many wonderful therapists out there. You might have to weed through a couple bad ones. Um, but I encourage people to really get out there and if cost is an issue, there’s a wonderful thing called the Open Path Collective.
Um, and there are a lot of people out there who are, uh, providing sliding scale services as well. So. Don’t give up. Get yourself some help. Go listen to Bronwyn’s podcast, and we wish you the best in your healing journey in terms of resolving your anger and resolving your trauma. So thank you so much for joining me, Bronwyn.
You’re really [00:28:00] illuminating.
bronwyn_2_06-25-2025_123330: Thank you, Supatra. It was really fun.
dr–supatra-tovar_2_06-25-2025_123329: I’m so glad. Well, and thank you everyone for tuning into the ANEW Insight podcast. I’m really looking forward to our next exciting interview, and I hope you join me next time.
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