What Happens When the Therapist Carries the Same Trauma as the Client?

In this deeply personal and illuminating conversation, Janina Fisher sits down with therapist, researcher, and founder of Black Therapists Rock, Deran Young, to explore the profound ways trauma, culture, and lived experience shape the nervous system—and the healing journey.

Deran shares her story of growing up in survival mode, serving in the military, and later discovering that she had been living on adrenaline for most of her life. Together, she and Janina reflect on the difference between being safe and feeling safe, the impact of racial and intergenerational trauma, and the ways the body carries survival patterns long after danger has passed.

Their conversation explores Internal Family Systems, the importance of learning to recognize signs of safety, the role of community in healing, and how psychedelic-assisted therapy helped Deran experience embodiment for the first time. Throughout the episode, they return to a powerful theme: that healing is not about productivity or performance, but about presence—learning to live in a body that no longer has to survive all the time.

This is a conversation about trauma, resilience, legacy burdens, and what it means to come home to yourself.

• The difference between being safe and feeling safe

• How many people live in chronic survival mode without realizing it

• The impact of racial trauma, intergenerational trauma, and systemic stress on the nervous system

• Why trauma symptoms are biological, not a choice

• The concept of “the biology of your biography”

• Learning to look for signs of safety rather than forcing calm

• The role of IFS, embodiment, and psychedelic-assisted therapy in healing trauma

• Why presence—not productivity—is the real measure of a meaningful life

https://blacktherapistsrock.com/events/

Show Notes:

Key Themes / Takeaways
Co-Authored this Book with Brene Brown - You are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience