Toni Rahman, LCSW is a psychotherapist specializing in trauma and attachment. She is an author, a mother, a sister, a teacher, a traveler, and a lifelong learner. Her passions include Eastern and indigenous healing practices, psychology, spirituality and gender issues, as well as issues of social and economic justice. Toni is passionate about exploring ways to support others in making profound shifts in their life experience. She is a Trauma-Informed Care Practitioner, a Certified EMDR Practitioner trained in CranioSacral Therapy & SomatoEmotional Release, Chinese Five Element Theory, Dream Interpretation, Quantum Touch and Energy Balancing.
The Quote
Trying to protect people from their emotions or save them from discomfort I become the substance to be used, the object of addiction.
Toni Rahman
What Led to the Specialization of Trauma?
Toni shares how her early stress and interest in Eastern healing practices, coupled with the effectiveness of EMDR, propelled her interest in working to help heal individuals who’ve been impacted by trauma.
A Crucial Early Mistake
Toni talks about the experience of how her trying to fix a client interfered with the healing process, and the effects this had on herself as a clinician.
Toni’s Why
I continue to do this work because inevitably I am sent clients who teach me about myself and push me to learn more and to grow. That keeps me alive and I love it.
Toni’s Advice
- Do your own work.
- Know your limits.
- Learn your triggers.
- Keep learning.
- Get mentors.
- Don’t be working in isolation.
- Make time for play and self-care, and balance your life!
Toni’s Go-To Books
- Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A GUIDE AND MAP FOR RECOVERING FROM CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, Pete Walker
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Bessel van der Kolk MD
I absolutely love your podcast and have found it to be invaluable for my own use. I’m not a trauma worker, but my partner has severe trauma and PTSD and we are working together to support and heal her. While maintaining a healthy balance and dynamic within our relationship. We also identify as queer and work with in the community, as queers are very frequently trauma survivors but also diverse humans.
Though saying that, I was pretty disappointed by this woman on this show. I found her responses to be self important. And her education to be primarily culturally appropriative and insensitive. She couldn’t specifically even reference any indigenous practices that she utilized in her treatments. Just that she somehow absorbed them and they became who she was. A classic example of white people taking things from other cultures they admire and ‘are fascinated by’ and making them their own, while also profiting from them. Also are white people dreadlocks still a thing? Why is this still a thing?
Bummer on her. Obviously not your fault. But otherwise, y’all are doing great work! Thanks!
Hi Yvonne,
Thanks so much for your comment. I’m so glad you’re enjoying the podcast and that it’s been able to somehow help you in your healing journey with your partner.
I appreciate your open feedback. I do my best to create a space for my guests to share their passion and expertise.
Guy, thank you for interviewing such inspiring healers in the field of trauma. I truly believe we have something to take away from each interview and can always “leave the rest”, so to speak. I enjoyed hearing Toni’s authenticity, humility, and passion for healing persons that struggle with trauma. I love how she emphasizes the importance of being with a person and their wounds as opposed to always gravitating toward a “tool box” so that we, as healers, can (sometimes) feed our ego and feel needed. Over time, the meaning reveals itself: we are developing the capacity to sit with another person and his/her deep pain. This is not a capacity that can be simply learned. I also valued the part of the discussion in which Toni explores how she fell in love with other cultures’ ways to embrace community and health, such as her reverence for Bangladesh. I appreciate her honesty in relaying that the various paths we walk in life contribute to whom we become as human beings and workers in this field. Again, it’s not always about broadcasting the “techniques” we use. It’s clear that her travel, familial experiences, and diverse communities have created an eclectic range of ways for her to work with people suffering from trauma.
Hi Kayla,
Thank you so much for your comment and I’m so glad you’re enjoying the podcast. Yes, I, too, agree that so much of the work we do centers around who we are as individuals, as people, as humans, and that “it’s not always about broadcasting the “techniques” we use.’ Thank you so much for your support! It drives me to keep going.