Episode Details

Gloria Huh, Korean American Clinical Psychologist

Maggie was unable to record due to illness.

Danielle chats with her friend and colleague Gloria Huh. She is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice working with oppressed groups, she’s a trauma therapist and teaches university-level courses on intergenerational trauma and diversity.

Gloria, who lives and practices in Seattle, has not had “that much” disruption because of COVID which has led to deep sense of gratitude and also urgency to provide for her clients who are directly affected. She said it’s been a lot of “holding space” for them, helping people to not push themselves to be productive or to overextend themselves but instead to encourage them to be mindful and more patient with themselves. Smile! Joke around! Gloria tends to be introverted so the shift to working on tele-health has allowed her to connected with her introspective space. She’s able to jam on her guitar or go for a walk and “cry it out” in between sessions which allows her to be more connected to herself making her stronger for others and not get burned out.

Danielle says she loves that Gloria is telling her clients to not try to be over-productive in this time. Danielle has had people give her suggestions for online courses for her kids to take if they are “bored” at home. And while she believes her kids are bored, they simply don’t have the energy for more classes right now.

Many of Gloria’s clients say to her, “What do I do? What do I do?” And she just tells them, “You just need to stay and build a tolerance for the silence. And your body will start adjust and it will be good for your body. We’re not meant to always be at a fast pace.” It’s about being able to stay in the silence, to let out your grief, to be present and themselves in the midst of COVID.

Danielle and Gloria met through the Allender Center, they both took level 1 and 2 certificate training in Trauma Care. [They had the best group, did you hear that Jen?] Their training focused on trauma and how it impacts our bodies and each other.

Gloria’s work is with oppressed groups and people of color and during COVID she is finding there are a lot more nuances; a lot her clients feel guilt for being sad and their trauma work is on hold. Talking about their childhood emotional pain feels wrong to talk about right now in the middle of a world-wide crisis. She gets them to a place where they can name the fact that they are deflecting from engaging their work in this moment; that the collective trauma somehow overshadows their micro-trauma and family of origin works.

There’s been so much racism exposed and highlight during COVID. Gloria has noticed that her clients do not bring it up on their own and that she asks how it is impacting them. She has many Asian American clients that tell about the discrimination and bullying that is happening right now and is being reported on the news is triggering for them because it is so closely related to their own trauma growing up. “They feel invisible and it requires for me to name so that we can bring to the surface and say ‘hey I see you. I know this is hurting you right now.’” Her clients don’t feel they can bring the racism up for fear of being invalidated, even though they know it’s a safe place to talk about it with her. She Gloria makes sure bring it up to provide a space for them to talk about.

Danielle says what Gloria is doing is both holding space for silence so grief can emerge and also holding the tension to name certain things that may lead to even more grief.

Gloria’s clients say to her, “You want me to cry!” And she is like, “YES!” It is because the more we look at the details, the pain and the denial, the more you can move towards healing. Grief is a consistent theme with most of her clients and she prepares them even in their initial consultation. Gloria admits she’s an anxious person given her background