dr. gillece was pointing at. the environment has to be safe and, as dr. harris pointed out, the person has to feel comfortable talking about something that they have a need to talk about. but, as miss cain pointed out, they were essentially told, they were blamed for the event. so the secret has to be retained, and you're now giving them permission to talk about the secret. and you're also reassuring them that there will be no negative consequences about talking about the secret, and so it's a lot easier for the person to talk in that environment. and there are strategies, various treatment-oriented strategies that are geared to functionally allowing the person to disclose, reaffirming that safety is ubiquitous at least in the environment where they're being cared for, and also making it clear that they are not to blame. so that this whole issue of self-loathing that miss cain talked about, in terms of not desiring or not believing that you're entitled to anything else, goes away so the person then can start to believe that they can recover, and this is f

dr. gillece, basically how is trauma closely tied with substance use and mental health issues? well, we believe that symptoms are adaptations and frequently the way people cope with their trauma is through using, is oftentimes through self-inflicted violence. it's oftentimes with other self-protective issues that people are involved in to protect themselves against the trauma. in mental health we see a lot of diagnoses that are actually trauma related. clearly the posttraumatic stress disorder is one, but a lot of affective disorders are oftentimes really trauma based. a lot of the issues with people with the axis ii or the personality disorders, the people that are labeled borderline personality, we oftentimes see a untreated early experience of physical, sexual abuse, abandonment, neglect, or the witnessing of violence. ms. cain, you're working now as a peer-to-peer counselor in our center. talk to us about, what was your initial experience with trauma? well, all of my life i've been traumatized. i grew up in a household where i was sexually abused by men in the community tha