Headlines & Healing: Can Someone Be Both a Victim and Responsible?

Headlines & Healing: Can Someone Be Both a Victim and Responsible?

In the first episode of Headlines & Healing, Jessica Glynn, LMFT-A and Brainspotting practitioner, explores one of psychology's most difficult questions: Can someone be both a victim and responsible for causing harm?

Using a recent national news story as a starting point—not to determine guilt or innocence, but to better understand the psychology behind severe abuse—Jessica examines how trauma shapes the brain, the nervous system, and human behavior. This episode discusses trauma bonding, coercive control, learned helplessness, isolation, generational trauma, and why leaving abusive environments is often far more complex than it appears from the outside.

Together, we'll explore how compassion and accountability can coexist, why healing is about more than escaping harmful circumstances, and what it truly takes to break cycles of abuse across generations.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• Why trauma changes the brain and nervous system

• The psychology of trauma bonding and coercive control

• Learned helplessness and the impact of prolonged abuse

• How isolation reinforces abusive systems

• The effects of childhood trauma on development

• How generational trauma is transmitted—and interrupted

• Why understanding someone's past doesn't negate the harm they may cause

Content Note: This episode discusses child abuse, neglect, domestic violence, trauma, and coercive control. Listener discretion is advised.

If this conversation resonates with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with someone who may benefit from a deeper understanding of trauma and healing. Have a headline you'd like explored through the lens of psychology? I'd love to hear from you.