What we talked about
Dr. Sophora Acheson joins to explain her mission as a therapist and nonprofit executive leading Restorative Pathways / Ruby’s Place. She describes her work as “the business of connection,” running a continuum of care across multiple facilities:supporting people in crisis from domestic violence, trafficking, homelessness, and long-term trauma recovery.
Show notes
Dr. Sophora Acheson noticed something that shelter workers are told not to expect: she kept seeing different women coming in with the same abuser. The protocols prepared staff for the same victim returning seven times before leaving for good, but nobody talked about the pattern of one person doing harm to many different people in sequence. That observation sent her on a search that ended in New Zealand, where she found the only working model she could identify for treating those who cause harm, not just those who receive it.
What we covered
- Sophora is a survivor herself, of childhood family violence and an abusive relationship in early adulthood. She describes how growing up with violence as the normal backdrop meant she had no other model for conflict resolution. At 25, her now-husband told her that her way of arguing was not how other families operated, and she had to make a choice: get help, or continue the cycle.
- Working in a domestic violence shelter early in her career, she began noticing that different women were coming in because of the same abuser. She started thinking about her own father and her ex-partner and asking how many people they had each affected over time, a question that led her to realize there was no intervention program in the United States focused on those who do harm.
- She traveled to New Zealand, where a program treating people who use violence in relationships had been running for ten years. She spent significant time there studying their models and philosophy before bringing them back to Restorative Pathways, where her department is now called Whole Family Services, because the approach works with both parties, not just the person in crisis.
- Restorative Pathways operates nine facilities in California and one in Colorado, offering everything from emergency safe houses and transitional housing to a Trauma Recovery Center. When someone enters after an arrest or restraining order, the program reaches out to the partner separately and offers wraparound services to both, not in the same space, but in parallel.
- On somatic therapy, Sophora explained that trauma lives in the body biologically, not just cognitively. She described not realizing until her 30s that her nervous system needed to be actively retrained to regulate, and that what she had assumed was just the baseline human experience (feeling constantly on edge) was actually a trauma response. Breath work, she says, is one of the most effective tools for nervous system regulation.
- Her most practical advice for couples who feel escalation beginning: don’t wait, and don’t rush through repair. She referenced therapist Esther Perel’s framework that intimacy is actually built through rupture and repair, that the cycle of conflict followed by genuine reconnection is how trust forms, not how it breaks.
About Dr. Sophora
Dr. Sophora Acheson is a therapist and nonprofit executive who leads Restorative Pathways / Ruby’s Place, an organization supporting survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and trauma across multiple California counties. Her clinical work and organizational mission focus on breaking generational cycles of violence by treating the whole family system, including those who perpetrate harm.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophora-acheson-ma-lmft-14087b63
- Website:
Episode 105 of the PreVetted Podcast.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:01) Welcome back to the Prevetted Podcast, where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Today we are joined by Sephora Axson.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (00:14) Yes, you got it. Yes.
Federico Ramallo (00:16) I pronounce it correctly,
Zafora Axon, she’s a therapist and nonprofit executive who leads restorative pathways, Ruby’s Place, supporting underserved communities across multiple counties. Zafora’s work focuses on trauma, relationships, and breaking generational cycles, helping people move from perpetuating harm to perpetuating healing. Zafora, welcome to the show.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (00:43) Thank you. That was an amazing introduction. I should take you everywhere with me.
Federico Ramallo (00:46) Hahaha
Happy to join you and just, you I am the official introduction. Yes, yes. So, you know, tell us about, you know, what you do.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (00:49) Yes, Yep.
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I get asked that a lot. You know, I really break it down to I’m in the business of connection because connection is what I would say perpetrates healing and really where we can get down to the root causes of trauma and violence. So I know that’s kind of a really, you know, philosophical
way of thinking about it. But on a day-to-day basis, you my nine to five is running restorative pathways and working with an amazing team of people. We have nine Sticks and Bricks facilities across California, and we’re in partnership with one facility in Colorado. And those facilities are really a continuum of care. And that means that anybody from
those who are in crisis who may need a safe house. So, you know, we do work with folks that are coming out of really dangerous situations, whether it’s domestic violence, human trafficking, or some other, you know, violent type of situation to folks that are experiencing homelessness because of a past trauma. We have emergency shelters, transitional housing, long-term housing.
We have a Trauma Recovery Center, which is really at the heart of what we do. And we’re looking at all sides to the puzzle. And what I mean by that is, you know, traditional victim services, which, you know, is amazing work, really goes to the person after the violence or the crisis has started. And one thing that really kind of
dawned on me when I was doing direct service in the shelter about 10 years ago was how are we addressing the people that are doing harm and providing them some healing so that they can stop perpetuating the violence and really breaking that cycle. So that was a really long-winded answer of what I do and I could probably keep going on, but yeah, that’s kind of it in a nutshell.
Federico Ramallo (03:07) Yeah, that’s amazing. I think it’s, as I said, it’s an underserved community because usually a lot of the programs from government are designed to the harm. There is an act of violence, then what we do. And after that, usually there is, I mean, and I’m painting a general brush, right? But usually there is no follow-up, right? And… ⁓
Dr. Sophora Acheson (03:19) Yes.
Yeah.
Right.
Federico Ramallo (03:32) I was learning about this idea of prevention, The situations escalate, right? So ⁓ there are things we can do to prevent from becoming a violent situation, right?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (03:39) Yes.
Yeah,
yes, absolutely. A little bit more about me. I’m a survivor myself, both as a child of family violence, but also when I early in early adulthood found myself in a relationship with an abusive partner, which really isn’t any surprise because for many folks who experience violence as a child.
can either perpetuate it or confine themselves in a relationship where that is present because it’s often normalized as we grow up in families. I knew that I wanted to be in some sort of social services. after lots of schooling and having the blessing and privilege of access to education,
I started my career working at a domestic violence shelter. And one of the things that they tell you about quite a bit when you’re training to answer the crisis call or welcome people into the shelter who have experienced domestic violence is you’re often gonna see the same person over and over. Because statistically, what we know is that somebody will leave up to seven times.
their partner before they leave for the last time. And so, you know, they talk about this a lot and really try to prepare you because when you’re working with folks, it’s hard to see somebody go back to their situation or, you know, choose to return to a toxic situation. And so that I felt like I was really kind of prepared for. But then something happened that I wasn’t.
prepared for at all and really brought into question a lot of how we look at prevention. And it was, you know, shortly after I had been, you know, running the shelter for a while, I started to notice that we were actually seeing different women with the same person that does harm or the same abuser is what, you know, we generally call it. And I thought, okay, wait a second. They told me.
that we would see the same person over and over again, but we wouldn’t see different people. And that really kind of stopped me in my tracks. And I actually started thinking about my past and my father and my ex-partner who were both abusive. And I started thinking about how many people would they essentially impact?
as somebody who uses violence and harm in their relationships. And I was like, there has to be an intervention prevention program that really addresses that. And a really long story short, there isn’t, at least not in the United States. And so I went on, like I put on my backpack, like Dora the Explorer and was like off to, you know, around.
around the world really trying to find what programs existed. And that landed me in New Zealand. They’ve been running a program for those that do harm for the past 10 years. And so I spent quite a bit of time with them to be able to bring back those models and philosophy to the United States. So that’s really…
Federico Ramallo (06:56) wow.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (06:59) sort of at the core and the passion and kind of the innovation that we’re really focusing on at Restorative Pathways.
Federico Ramallo (07:08) Right, well first I’m sorry to hear that you suffered abuse and you’re victim of domestic violence. The other thing I was reading about this is that, and you mentioned it, that there’s generational cycles that if a parent, a father is violent, and the son or daughter are going to be violent. ⁓ as you mentioned that, you know.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (07:21) Yes.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (07:33) there is a seek for that type of relationship because the way I understand it, correct me if I’m wrong, is that that’s the definition of love that they understand, right? That’s the best thing that they know, right?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (07:45) Yes.
Yes. Yeah. You know, my clinical hat on in terms of, you know, being a therapist, what I now internalize that is I was shown a way of conflict resolution, right? You know, if anybody was upset in my household or had a big emotion or was in a disagreement with somebody else,
You screamed, you yelled, you broke things, and eventually it would escalate to violence. And so as a kid, I really thought every family just operated that way. I had no other baseline or model of what conflict resolution really looked like. And to your point,
that then starts to translate into, well, if somebody really cares about me, then they will be so passionate that it could be violent or, you know, it could be really toxic. Because again, that’s what your example of somebody who is supposed to really care about you, your parents, you know, show you right off the bat. And so it really hit me, you know, around
25-ish that I had to actually relearn how to argue. And it was around the time yeah, it was around the time that with my now husband, we were getting ready to get married and he’s like, look, I love you, but you you…
Federico Ramallo (09:07) Right.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (09:17) Like we can’t argue in these big explosive ways. And I’m like, well, what do you mean? Everybody does that. And he’s like, no, Sophora, they don’t. And it was really, it was, I was really taken back by that and really kind of upset and, you know, struggled with a lot of shame because, know, at 25 years old, you should be.
Federico Ramallo (09:26) You
Dr. Sophora Acheson (09:38) you’re an adult, you should have all the tools to be able to be in relationship and disagree with people. And I didn’t have that. And so I really had to make a choice on whether or not I was going to go get support and help and therapy and learn essentially conflict resolution and how to fight and argue with my partner in a healthy way. Or the other choice was
I was going to continue to perpetuate this kind of toxic cycle of conflict and violence. And yeah, that was a really hard season for me, for sure.
Federico Ramallo (10:19) because it redefined your whole foundation of…
Dr. Sophora Acheson (10:22) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (10:24) Yes, one of the things I have a 10 year old and one of the things we learned in that process is, I was taught to…
Dr. Sophora Acheson (10:25) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (10:37) not express my emotions, right? It was the best thing my parents knew about. there are things we don’t talk about because that’s how things are, right? So ⁓ when we learn about that is that if we don’t…
Dr. Sophora Acheson (10:39) Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Great. Yep.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (10:53) So for my son, if he doesn’t express his emotions, he doesn’t identify them and process them, then those emotions become much more worse, Anger become rage, sadness because of depression, right? ⁓ So I learned that and when I’ve been talking about this type of topics, I realized that as an adult,
Dr. Sophora Acheson (11:01) Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (11:16) Both the men and the women, or whatever it is on the couple, both don’t know how to express their emotion or how to communicate more effectively without escalating into an argument.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (11:25) guess.
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned kids. have a seven and a nine year old and whoa, when my kids came into the picture, they were like a mirror, you know, held up all of the, you know, held up all of the things that I needed to really see about myself. you know, they really challenge you to look at
Federico Ramallo (11:32) Yeah.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (11:56) not only how you want to raise your children, but how you deal with things yourself. And so my kids have been a huge, you know, motivation and just blessing and continuing the healing process.
Federico Ramallo (12:09) Right, right, yes. You were talking about how do you react when somebody would scream or would ⁓ raise the voice. And I think that there is a biological route for that is that mostly women are biologically inclined to.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (12:18) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (12:28) protect, right? So the baby cries and they’re used to, you know, protected because otherwise the baby dies, right? So without any other tools, they do the same, you know, in the relationship and then they take in, they take in, they take in, right? And that becomes a toxic behavior that reinforce the bad behavior, right?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (12:31) Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Absolutely, it does. And then, you know, these kind of learned behaviors, you know, pass to our children and, you know, further and further. And then you get, you know, the intergenerational transmission of trauma and, you know, whatever that may be. And I think it’s interesting because I feel like, you know, the I don’t want to age myself here, but, know, the millennial kind of
Gen X generation is really kind of the first ones that really helped like…
take away the stereotype or the taboo, that’s the word I’m looking for, the taboo around talking about trauma, about talking about therapy and getting help. Our parents definitely were doing the best that they had with the tools that they had at their fingertips and really happy to see this generation of parents and now passing it down to their kids that…
we get to talk about our feelings and we get to address things that we’re doing wrong and learn new tools and figure out ways to navigate life. Yeah, so it’s pretty great to see, I think, the shifts that are happening in society as well.
Federico Ramallo (14:09) Right, right. And I think it becomes important for, we’re kind of talking about first we as adults need to learn how to express our feelings, how to…
process our feelings, that doesn’t mean necessarily to slash out, to be able to ask for a time out. I’m angry, me calm down. Because then with that, can, by example, can show our kids how to resolve that conflict or whatever it is as a couple.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (14:28) Yeah. Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (14:43) ⁓
that is much more effective than whatever we tell them, right? That they can see us. Right? ⁓ Because I was raised where those discussions happen closed doors, right? And of course, kids, you hear all that, right? You perceive what’s going on, right? You feel it, yes, yes. So hiding it was not the best strategy, but as you said, it’s…
Dr. Sophora Acheson (14:47) 100 % yes absolutely yeah
Hmm
Sure. You feel it, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Federico Ramallo (15:12) what the best thing my parents thought was the best thing to do, right? Yeah, and after we process, being able to resolve the conflict. And the other thing I learned is this idea that…
Dr. Sophora Acheson (15:17) Yeah.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (15:28) There is the victim of violence, right? That usually is the woman. But it also happens the other way around. But the core of the issue is the lack of tools on both.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (15:38) Yes,
yes, 100%. You know, talking about feelings and how you process them, think one of the biggest things that I had to learn and that we work with clients that do harm is how to sit in the uncomfortability of feelings that are hard. You know, we try to use not use the word like, feelings are bad or good, but
Anger is not fun. Sadness is not fun. Frustration and, you know, those are not fun feelings to have. part of processing that is learning to sit without lashing out, without becoming violent to be able to process them is first and foremost being able to tolerate feelings.
Federico Ramallo (16:14) Right.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (16:31) And that’s one thing that we typically see and that I really noticed in myself is my tolerance for big feelings was very minimal. I couldn’t sit with it like, hey, I need a break. I’m really angry right now. Like I need to go sit with that for, that was not an option. And so long story short,
we often really do start with how do you tolerate the feelings and then part of that is identifying like what is it that you’re actually feeling. Usually if somebody says they’re angry I ask what’s underneath that because anger is oftentimes a secondary emotion right we’re actually really sad or we’re
Federico Ramallo (17:15) Right.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (17:20) feeling abandoned or you know there’s something else but anger is the thing that we show up with. In my opinion anger is often a sign of strength you know if I tell you that I’m feeling abandoned or I tell you that I’m feeling sad we have this kind of subconscious thought that I’m gonna look weak you know and so the protector in us takes over and is like but if I show up
and angry and stuff like that, well then I’m strong. ⁓ And so, yeah, there’s a lot of like going back to the basics with feeling. I remember one of the first times that my husband met my family, he grew up, it sounds very similar to you. We’re like, we don’t talk about feelings, stuff happens behind closed doors, you know, we don’t.
Federico Ramallo (17:52) Right.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (18:11) you know, scream and yell, like if you’re gonna, if you’re gonna argue, you know, you go and then we don’t talk about it. Well, I grew up obviously in a very different, like everybody was yelling and screaming. And I mean, that’s just that was like a Tuesday, you know, for us. And the first time that he met my family, you know, it was at a dinner and nothing really like there was no fight or like real argument or anything.
Federico Ramallo (18:26) the
Dr. Sophora Acheson (18:38) You know, we were having very animated conversations and talking about stuff. And on the ride home, he was just like. What the heck? He’s like, I can’t believe you you grew up in that, like I was there for two hours that I was overwhelmed by, you know, the the kind of craziness that that was happening. And that also was a little bit like,
Federico Ramallo (18:45) You
Dr. Sophora Acheson (19:03) not everybody’s family is wildly loud and yells and screams and is like that with each other. So yeah, there’s definitely different ends of the spectrum and we all have work to do in terms of learning how to cope with our feelings.
Federico Ramallo (19:07) You
Right, right, yeah, and because we didn’t grow up identifying our feelings, we just feel rage for anything, right, yeah. There is a case that happened.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (19:35) Yeah. 100 % yeah.
Federico Ramallo (19:41) a year ago, maybe two. So there was this viral video where a woman was dating a criminal. And then…
She started screaming at him because he was leaving and she started banging the car, right? And he’s calmed, right? And then he pulls out of the car a machine gun, right? A shotgun, I don’t know, right? But anyway, she continues poking him, right? And then…
Dr. Sophora Acheson (20:04) Yeah. Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (20:13) he shoots a warning shot on the floor, right? And the woman, instead of backing down, continues poking him, right? Then he shots her in the face, right? Now, were talking about that the guy was a criminal, blah, blah, blah, which he was, right? But then… ⁓
Dr. Sophora Acheson (20:20) Sure. Yeah.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (20:41) The way that I see it is that there is that dynamic, it happens both were involved, right? And it’s a sadness that it end on that woman dead, right? And then that guy ended up in prison, right? Because the video became viral and then the police chased him, found him, locked him up, right? And…
Dr. Sophora Acheson (20:45) Yes.
Yes.
Yeah? Yeah?
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (21:02) I think that there is a shared responsibility for that situation. And the consequences are terrible. The woman is dead, the guy is locked up. And the same thing happens when there is an escalation in violence where the family ends up split up with resentment to each other and a shared child. ⁓ If we could do something to avoid that escalation to
Dr. Sophora Acheson (21:07) Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Federico Ramallo (21:30) to amend that relationship before it becomes an issue, right? Then I think that that is the best possible outcome because you have a whole family being able to communicate each other, being able to be happy, and being able to raise the child that they have.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (21:48) Yes, absolutely. I think you’re touching on something that is incredibly important, which is in our philosophy, you can’t just treat one side or the other. It really is a whole family dynamic. And actually our department and our agency that works with this is called Whole Family Services because we’re really looking at all of the dynamics that you were just talking about that contribute.
to violent situations that unfortunately sometimes do end in, you know, homicide and terrible, you know, tragic endings. But it does take really looking at how is each party coming together and contributing to the escalation of it. We take a very, almost like a recovery model.
you know, when somebody is quote unquote using or abusing drugs or alcohol, they’ll go into a rehab, right? But there’s also, they typically recommend that the other family members who are close to this person, you know, get help and treatment themselves, whether it’s going to Al-Anon or, you know, getting in counseling themselves to look at what they’re doing to…
either help or hinder the person, right? And so it’s very much kind of the same model of when we get a referral or somebody comes in to our facility and says, hey, look, you know, I was just arrested. There’s now a restraining order against me. And if I don’t get help, I’m going to lose my kids. That’s a huge motivating factor why a lot of people, you know,
come to us is because they’re on the verge of, you know, more jail time or losing their kids or, you know, something happening. So we will bring them in and we will explain to them, you know, this is the program. These are the things that we’re going to work on. We also would like to reach out to your partner, you know, and to your family. And we invite those people in for services, not necessarily in the same place, but we invite them into the program for services.
And then when and if the couples decides that they want to reconvene, whether it’s, hey, look, we don’t want to be together anymore, but we have to figure out how to co-parent, or we actually want to try to reconcile. We have…
restorative practices that we use, like transformative justice type things where we can bring both parties together and really talk about the harm that’s been done and what is the plan going forward.
Federico Ramallo (24:26) Right, right, because the broke, I call it broken family, maybe that’s not the right term, but you know, a divorced family or separated family, the, first you have the consequences for the couple, then you have the consequences for the kids, right? Kids from the divorced family are doing worse in all metrics, all possible metrics, right? So.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (24:32) Mm-hmm. Yes.
Yes.
Yes?
Federico Ramallo (24:51) there is an important benefit for the kid to have the family staying together. ⁓ And then by the time the government gets involved on, whether it’s alimony or child support or whatever type of system they could be, it’s never going to be as good as the couple staying together, right? It’s a, you know.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (24:58) Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (25:13) It’s okay, you cannot tolerate each other, but we have a kid, okay, we need the bare minimum to cover, right? Yeah. But it’s a destructive pathway to go, you know, to go towards that, yeah.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (25:18) Yes, absolutely.
Yes
it is.
Federico Ramallo (25:27) Yeah. And what has been the most effective changes you’ve seen in couples after going through restorative pathway?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (25:36) Yeah.
You know, I’m thinking of several couples who have come through, you know, our program where typically, you know, the man goes and stays in our residential facility called his house and he gets wraparound services. We’re talking case management, there’s peer to peer accountability.
We run a curriculum there that’s really looking at his trauma and kind of what brought him to using violence. And then, you know, we often have moms usually with kids who come to stay in our DV shelter and they’re getting similar wraparound services there. you know, talking to them and hearing when they decide to leave the shelter, which we’ve seen, we definitely have lots of both, meaning
they get back together or they’re, you know, living separately, but co-parenting, quite a few of them have said, if I did not go through this program, I would have either ended up dead or had to stay in hiding. Or, you know, the men have said, I would have either really harmed my partner or, or been in prison.
And that’s not to say that we’re perfect or it’s a glorified program or any of that. What it’s really talking about is people’s lack of hope before they came in versus when they leave. They really do have a clear path forward of how am I going to continue to live a life that is not full of violence and lack of safety?
Federico Ramallo (27:15) Right, right. There is a, I don’t remember the author, but he wrote a book about the…
I will look up the book title, but he talks about that 95 plus percent of men that are in prison is because they lack a father figure, which would avoid them to go to prison. ⁓
Dr. Sophora Acheson (27:40) Yeah, yeah, somebody to teach and guide them. Yes.
Federico Ramallo (27:47) It’s a boy crisis, something like that.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (27:49) It is.
Federico Ramallo (27:50) Yeah, Warren Farrell, he wrote The Boy Crisis, yeah. And he talks about these issues where he interviewed a lot of men in prison and he talks about that, And the same apply with the couple, right? If they are unable to function in society, then they are unable to.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (27:53) ⁓ the boy crisis.
Mm-hmm.
Guess?
Federico Ramallo (28:14) to have a functional family.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (28:16) Absolutely. We
also get a lot of couples where the domestic violence is actually pretty equal, know, back and forth where, you know, they’re really fighting with each other and then they find themselves, you know, they can’t get housing because they keep getting evicted because, you know, they’re breaking things in the house and the neighbors are calling the cops or, you know, they keep losing jobs because, you know, one is showing up and making a big scene and all of that. so
You know, domestic violence really impacts people not just in the home, but really their ability to live and survive.
Federico Ramallo (28:54) Right, it’s a cycle, ⁓ as we said it before. And you also talk about somatic experiences, right? Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (28:57) Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes, so this is where I’m going to get really nerdy with, you know, therapy, therapy modalities. You know, this has happened in my personal journey, but I’ve also seen it professionally be really impactful. And that’s looking at how trauma lives within the body. You know, there’s very famous, you know, doctors and stuff out there.
and Bessel being one of them who wrote the body keeps score and really talking about the actual biological processes of what happens to us when we do go through trauma, especially kids who have grown up in a traumatic situation. The brain stem develops differently, our brain and neuro network wire differently and somatic work, which is
really looking at the different parts of the body, how the nervous system reacts, how our breathing reacts, how we actually hold emotions biologically, not just, you know, cognitively work through the emotions, but, you know, when cortisol and epinephrine and all of that stuff gets released into our system when we are going through a really activated space, how our body actually handles that and holds that.
And so we’ve really seen a lot of effective things around doing what you would call somatic or body work. And that’s everything from breath work, which as simple as it sounds is at the really at the top of the most effective on how we reteach our nervous system to regulate, which, my gosh, I didn’t, I.
literally didn’t even know that was a thing until I was in my 30s. I’m like, what do you mean I have to teach my nervous system how to regulate? Isn’t that like a just a isn’t like a computer. just automatically does its thing. And it was it was a huge change for me. I remember, you know, after months and months of doing body work and really looking at sort of the biological impact of trauma, I was like,
Federico Ramallo (30:50) Wow.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (31:14) Is this how normal people feel? They don’t feel like they’re being chased by a bear every day? I thought that was just the human experience. so really integrating a lot of the somatic work into our practices has been really received very well by our clients.
Federico Ramallo (31:35) Amazing, very interesting. mean, I know that we have feelings, we store feelings on different parts of our bodies, know, we feel them on different parts of our bodies, but I didn’t realize that that trauma continued on the body. Interesting.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (31:43) Yes. Yes.
Yes,
yes, that’s a whole, I could talk for hours about that. you know, there’s definitely people out there that are much more knowledgeable and sort of educated than me about this. But it is really fascinating how, you know, our bodies really do hold things and how it just deals with it. You know, if we’re not actively processing through
the trauma, our body will deal with it in the way that it thinks it needs to be done. And I think one of the other things that is really fascinating is how the science community is linking different illnesses, particularly autoimmune and cancers, to trauma and to chronic stress.
And I really think that we’re going to see a lot in the next 10 years come out about how do we kind of heal ourselves from the inside out.
Federico Ramallo (32:42) Interesting, very interesting. What advice would you give a couple that is struggling through the relationship? Maybe it’s not domestic violence yet, but it could scale there. What advice would you give them to identify issues and when should they ask for help?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (32:44) Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
would say that as soon as you get the feeling, the inkling that it’s going in a direction of escalation, that’s when you should ask for help. Just statistically, what we know is that violence does escalate and a lot of couples will say, oh, that won’t be us. That could never be us.
I think that there’s also a lot of shame or not I think. I know that there’s a lot of shame, you know, both on, you know, both parties, men, women, same sex couples, there’s a lot of shame in admitting, yeah, we don’t, we don’t function the best or we have some toxic behaviors in our relationship. And so my advice around that would be there is a lot of non-judgmental help out there.
There’s a lot of people who are willing to sit down with you and figure out how your relationship can actually be thriving. And there, isn’t just a one answer meaning, well, your relationship’s toxic, so now you have to break up. And I think that a lot of couples do fear that. I do work with couples in my private practice who have had domestic violence in their relationship. And many of them are very nervous because they’re like, well, she’s just going to tell us that the answer is to break up.
Federico Ramallo (34:14) Right.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (34:30) First of all, I can’t make that decision. No therapist, nobody can make that decision for you. And if you’re willing to put the work in, you absolutely can have a thriving relationship that is healthy. And so really taking the first step to figure out what are the resources for you and not letting that shame be the driver of not asking for help.
Federico Ramallo (34:51) interesting. And what habits would you recommend couples that will help towards building trust and building a much healthier relationship?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (34:59) Yes.
You know, the habit of slowing things down. I think that we, we often want to resolve conflict right away, right? It’s super uncomfortable. I don’t want to sit with this. There’s the old saying, don’t go to bed angry. You know, there’s all of that. And so we can often rush through the process of conflict resolution and repair.
Repair is the most important thing. That’s actually how we build intimacy. Esther Perel talks about, I mean, she’s a total expert in couples, but she talks a lot about how we really can’t have an intimacy without rupture and repair because that’s how we actually build trust that, my person’s going to come back and they’re going to apologize and we’re going to figure it out. And this isn’t going to ruin the relationship. And so
to kind of boil that down, it takes slowing down when there is conflict. And that may look like, hey, I need a timeout. That may look like, okay, we’re gonna talk about this for five minutes and then we’re gonna pause and we’re gonna come back to it. Don’t rush through conflict resolution and repair.
Federico Ramallo (36:08) We say something similar to our son of, know, he can get angry and he can go to his room, but lashing out, hitting us or hitting stuff, you know, that’s unacceptable, but you know, it’s okay if he needs some time off. Yeah. And then he goes to a room, angry, you know, frustrated or whatever. And then, you know, if we push it to try to, you know,
Dr. Sophora Acheson (36:13) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Federico Ramallo (36:37) Are you okay? Are you okay? We escalated. So we give him space and then he comes back.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (36:40) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (36:42) Now he’s okay, now, I mean, the situation remains, but now we can talk in a much more calm way and find a solution, right? So, I mean, maybe it’s a crude example, but I relate to that.
Dr. Sophora Acheson (36:44) Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
No, that’s exactly,
that’s a perfect example. You’re teaching him resiliency and you’re actually building a deeper connection because he knows I can be mad. I can go sit in my room and my parents aren’t going to scream at me, yell at me, you know, be upset at me because I’m taking a break or abandon me or, you know, leave me or any of that.
I get to sit in my emotions and then I get to come back to my parents who are going to help me figure it out. And that really is the same for couples as well.
Federico Ramallo (37:32) Yeah, I I I I talk about the kid because my kid it because it becomes more evident and as we grow up we kind of build layers where we hide the feeling from ourselves right and from the rest It’s a it’s harder to see it right, but I I think it’s the same internal process. So yeah
Dr. Sophora Acheson (37:38) Yes.
Yes. Yep.
Hm,
it is, yes.
Federico Ramallo (37:53) Amazing. I think we learned a lot. I truly appreciate you being here. running out of time. Any final remarks before we wrap it up?
Dr. Sophora Acheson (37:58) Yes.
I don’t think so. Thank you very much for having me. I loved our conversation.
Federico Ramallo (38:07) Thank you.