513: Tanner Wallace on Childhood Trauma, Attachment Wounds, and How to Heal

This episode is about the tough but very important topic of childhood trauma. I’m here with Dr. Tanner Wallace, a former university professor of health and human development turned full-time trauma recovery guide . She hosts her own podcast called “The Relational Healing Podcast” and helps adult survivors of childhood trauma heal their attachment wounds. We discuss how childhood wounds can express in our lives, even if we don’t have a really specific extreme trauma, and the way these wounds show up in our relationships. We also go into the differences between traumatic events, how what happens after an event is often more important than the event itself, and the reason emotional neglect can be more harmful than physical abuse for children. There will definitely be follow-ups to this episode. But as a starting point, I can’t wait to share today’s episode with you. Let’s join Dr. Tanner. Episode Highlights With Tanner Wallace How childhood wounds can express in our lives, even if we don’t know we have specific trauma The way childhood wounds show up in adult relationships Differences between traumatic events and if they are traumatizing or not How what happens after an event is often more important than the event itself Why trauma isn’t just assault and physical abuse The reason emotional neglect can be more harmful than physical abuse How trauma and wounding are a continuum The way our brains and bodies cope with trauma and how our personalities develop protective responses First steps to recognizing and starting to unpattern childhood wounds How to deactivate default survival codes The somatic connection to working through childhood wounds and how to develop the body awareness Witness, befriend, validate, and eventually release What attachment wounds are and how to recognize them Why many of these wounds often bubble up when we enter primary relationships and start creating families How to find a trauma-informed therapist to help work through this What the Internal Family Systems Model is and how this method works Her Relational Healing Lab approach What emotions are and tools for helping our kids have a better emotional vocabulary from a young age And more! Resources We Mention The Relational Healing Podcast with Dr. Tanner Wallace Dr. Tanner Wallce on Instagram Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz Emotion