In this week’s episode of Off the Cuff with Danny LoPriore, my guest is licensed psychotherapist Natalie Gutierrez. Join me as I sit down with Natalie to talk about the different types of PTSD, the art of meaning confrontation, how she works with trauma victims of all ethnic backgrounds, and how she came up with the idea and title for her new book, ‘The Pain We Carry: Healing from Complex PTSD for People of Color’.

“It's not that we are the pain. We are carrying pain, but we are not the trauma that has happened to us. We carry it.” Natalie – (35:15)

During my conversation with Natalie, we talk about some very heavy topics on which she reflects with immense detail and maturity. On one occasion Natalie reflects on internalized racism and how it pours into institutional racism that we see around us such as in schools.

“I understand internalized racism to be the messages that we internalize about ourselves regarding race. So, I think it starts first with the messages that we hear systemically. The laws or the laws systems that just kind of create the ideology of race, the construct of race also for oppression, ideological oppression that then pours into institutional racism.” – Natalie (22:44)

In this episode, I also reflected on how trauma can be both a good and bad thing based on my life experience in the psych ward in which Natalie informs the need to grow around the trauma rather than glorify it.

“We don't want to glorify trauma and we can also grow around it. And to varying degrees for some people, it creates the, I don't want to say resilience because I know that word is tiring and old depending on what we do with it, it can inform how we grow from it.” Natalie – (52:46)