This platform brings together four interconnected areas of exploration and practice. Together, they explore how human beings seek safety, connection, meaning, authenticity, and belonging within themselves, their relationships, and the wider systems they inhabit.

🌿 EMBODIED SUPPORT

As a neurodivergent psychotherapist and gender-nonconforming queer, I offer relational, embodied, and trauma-informed support grounded in emotional safety, nervous system awareness, and human connection.

Many people spend years adapting to environments that feel overwhelming, emotionally unsafe, chronically demanding, or deeply misattuned to who they are.

Over time, this can lead to masking, exhaustion, self-monitoring, anxiety, shame, burnout, or disconnection from bodily and emotional experience.

Rather than viewing these responses as personal failures, I understand them as meaningful adaptations developed in relationship to stress, environments, and the need for safety, recognition, and belonging.

Trauma and chronic stress affect our basic sense of safety and shape our relationship with ourselves, our relationships with others, and our perception of reality. Healing begins with restoring a felt sense of safety from which connection, growth, and authenticity can emerge.

My work focuses on creating spaces where people can experience greater self-understanding, regulation, relational safety, authenticity, and connection — not through fixing who they are, but through developing conditions where it becomes safer to exist more fully as themselves.

I work with people navigating both personal life and the broader organizational, cultural, and social systems that shape everyday experience.

The ideas and perspectives introduced in this section reflect some of the thinkers, researchers, and therapeutic approaches that have deepened my understanding of how people adapt, protect themselves, seek connection, and respond to the relationships and environments that shape their lives.

Sections

• Embodied Support

• Theories & Methods in Embodied Support
• Articles
  • The Glasses We See Each Other Through — Beyond Stereotypes, Towards Human Connection
  • The Systems We Carry Within — Trauma & Relational Adaptation

✍️ ARTICLES & POETRY

I write from the intersection of the personal and the political. Through articles, reflections, and poetry, I explore what it means to live authentically in a world where many struggle to find connection, meaning, and belonging.

My writing moves between lived experience and systems thinking, connecting embodiment, relationships, and social structures. Drawing on both research and personal narrative, I aim to foster recognition, challenge dominant assumptions, and create language for experiences that are often overlooked or marginalized.

At its core, my writing is an exploration of belonging — how human beings seek connection, meaning, and dignity without losing themselves in the process.

Some articles are accompanied by a piece of music — not as an explanation, but as an invitation into the emotional landscape from which the words emerged.

Music for reflection: We Didn't Know We Were Ready — Òlafur Arnalds, Talos, Niamh Regan & Ye Vagabonds

Sections

• Articles
• Poetry

⚙️ WORK & SOCIETY

Human suffering cannot be separated from the systems people live within.

My work explores how economic structures, labour markets, institutions, organizational cultures, and political systems shape participation, identity, dignity, belonging, and access to a meaningful life.

Particular attention is given to how neurodivergent and marginalized individuals navigate systems often organized around narrow expectations of productivity, communication, conformity, and social participation.

Drawing on systems thinking, data, and social analysis, I explore how labour markets function not only as economic systems but also as relational environments that shape well-being and collective life.

Sections

• Introduction to the Labour Market — Work, Belonging & Systemic Exclusion
• Data & Statistics — Work, Stress, Inequality & Participation
• The Rise of Inequality — Work, Power & Social Fragmentation
• The Organization of the Labour Market — The Quiet Erosion of Democracy

🌍 NEURODIVERGENT INSIGHT

A living resource library exploring neurodivergence through lived experience, embodiment, relationships, education, work, mental health, and society.

This section gathers podcasts, articles, books, talks, videos, research, and reflections created by neurodivergent people, clinicians, researchers, advocates, and interdisciplinary thinkers.

The purpose is not to define one final truth about neurodivergence, but to support recognition, nuance, curiosity, and broader ways of understanding human difference.

Sections

• Neurodivergent Resources & Reflections
• Danish & International Perspectives on Neurodivergence

"It takes safe human connection—

thigh to thigh,

eye to eye,

heart to heart—

free from shame,

blame,

and judgment—

to reach our deepest

and darkest feelings,

find light,

and grow together."

— Taylor Jeppe
psychotherapist, systems thinker & educator

🌿 GROWING THROUGH CONNECTION

Human beings develop through relationships, environments, embodiment, and social systems.

My work explores how attachment, trauma, regulation, identity, and belonging shape our capacity for connection, flexibility, trust, and change.

Rather than seeing emotional suffering as isolated pathology, I understand it as emerging through relationships, embodied experience, and the systems we live within.

"Trauma blocks love and connection,

and love and connection heal trauma"

— Frank Andersen

psychiatrist & psychotherapist

🌿 RELATIONAL PRACTICE

My work is informed by both professional training and lived experience as a neurodivergent, gender-nonconforming queer person.

My approach is relational, embodied, trauma-informed, and non-pathologizing, grounded in emotional safety, nervous system awareness, and the understanding that human beings develop through relationships and environments.

I draw on perspectives from attachment theory, somatic practice, neuroscience, psychodynamic theory, and systems thinking to better understand how people adapt, protect themselves, regulate emotions, and seek connection.

Many people learn early in life to closely monitor themselves in order to feel accepted, safe, and understood. Over time, chronic self-monitoring, masking, and relational misattunement can contribute to shame, anxiety, burnout, exhaustion, and disconnection from bodily and emotional experience.

People may gradually internalize the belief that their emotions, needs, sensitivities, bodies, identities, or ways of relating are somehow too much, not enough, or fundamentally wrong.

What is often experienced as personal inadequacy may also reflect forms of relational and systemic shame shaped through families, schools, workplaces, institutions, cultural norms, and environments organized around conformity, productivity, and socially acceptable ways of being.

Rather than viewing these responses as personal failure, I understand them as intelligent adaptations to environments that may have felt overwhelming, emotionally unsafe, or chronically misattuned.

My work focuses on supporting greater self-understanding, embodied awareness, emotional regulation, relational safety, flexibility, authenticity, and connection — not by fixing who you are, but by creating greater capacity to live in ways that feel connected, sustainable, and aligned.

Together, we may explore themes such as:

• Embodiment & Regulation
  • trust in the body, emotions, and perceptions
  • sensory processing and nervous system overwhelm
  • emotional regulation
• Relationships & Belongning
  • attachment and relational safety
    
  • boundaries and vulnerability
  • relational dynamics and belonging
•  Adaptation & Everyday Life
  • shame and self-criticism
    

  • navigating environments and expectations
    

  • adaptation and burnout
  • authenticity and connection

I am particularly inspired by the sunflower theory — the idea that sunflowers turn toward the sun during the day and toward one another at night.

To me, it reflects something deeply human: when people lose orientation or light, connection itself can become a source of warmth, regulation, support, and belonging.

🌿 EMBODIED PRACTICE

The body carries emotional experience, stress, trauma, and relational history in ways that words cannot always reach.

My work focuses on helping people reconnect with bodily awareness, grounding, movement, regulation, and a greater sense of safety within themselves.

My approach to embodied practice is grounded in the understanding that healing is not primarily cognitive. It emerges through the body, through sensation, movement, emotion, relationship, and embodied awareness. Safe relationships, emotional attunement, movement, breath, rhythm, and resonance all support the nervous system’s natural capacity for regulation and integration.

For more than 25 years, Tai Chi and Qi Gong have been part of my own embodied practice. These traditions continue to shape how I work with grounding, attention, balance, movement, and the relationship between body and awareness.

I draw on approaches inspired by Esalen Massage, Relational Trauma Therapy, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, breath awareness, and nervous system regulation practices. Through touch, movement, sensory awareness, and co-regulation, the body may gradually shift from chronic tension, disconnection, or hypervigilance toward greater presence, flexibility, and ease.

I am also inspired by creative approaches that support emotional integration through imagination, symbolism, movement, writing, art, and embodied expression. These approaches recognize that human experience is often communicated through sensation, imagery, emotion, creativity, and the body — not only through words.

"Healing depends on learning to fully inhabit your body"

— Bessel van der Kolk

psychiatrist & trauma researcher

» Introduction to The Labour Market
Work, Belonging & Systemic Exclusion

15 May 2026

The Danish labour market is frequently celebrated for its flexibility, mobility, and strong institutional foundations. However, labour markets are not neutral systems. They are structured by norms, expectations, power relations, and assumptions about what constitutes a valuable worker and a successful citizen.

Many people are expected to continuously adapt to environments that reward speed, social performance, emotional self-regulation, networking, and normative communication styles. While these expectations may appear natural or self-evident, they can create significant barriers for individuals whose experiences, bodies, identities, or circumstances fall outside dominant norms.

Through an interdisciplinary and systems-oriented perspective, this section explores how labour market institutions influence not only employment outcomes, but also stress, inequality, belonging, exclusion, and democratic participation. Particular attention is given to the ways in which organizational cultures, policy frameworks, and economic structures shape both opportunities and constraints.

The articles in this section examine labour markets from three interconnected perspectives:

🌿 AREAS OF FOCUS

Data, Research & Social Reality

How labour market realities are measured, interpreted, and represented through statistics, research paradigms, productivity measures, and institutional definitions of value, participation, and normality.

• Data & Statistics — Work, Stress, Inequality & Participation

Inequality, Work & Social Fragmentation

How economic change, labour market insecurity, and institutional arrangements contribute to inequality, exclusion, precarity, belonging, and social cohesion.

• The Rise of Inequality — Work, Power & Social Fragmentation

Labour Markets, Power & Democracy

How management structures, economic ideology, organizational culture, and institutional power influence autonomy, participation, representation, and democratic life.

• The Organization of the Labour Market — The Quiet Erosion of Democracy

Together, these perspectives seek to illuminate how labour markets function not only as economic systems, but also as human systems that shape life chances, social relationships, and the conditions under which people are able to participate without losing themselves in the process.

» The Rise of Inequality

Work, Power & Social Fragmentation

28 June 2026

I grew up in a system that promised safety — but I have also seen how fragile that promise has become. The story we tell about Denmark increasingly diverges from the lived reality of many people. Behind the image of equality, trust, and social cohesion, a growing number of people are quietly being pushed toward the margins of society.

We often speak about Denmark as one of the wealthiest and most socially secure countries in the world. Yet many people increasingly live precarious lives shaped by financial pressure, stress, exclusion, unstable work, social isolation, and growing uncertainty about the future.

I grew up in poverty, in a family where Christmas aid made the difference between having a Christmas or not. A long series of fortunate events gave me opportunities many others never receive. But I also know how quickly life can change when systems stop holding people.

"Inequality is not just about money.

It's about power, and the ability to influence the rules"

— Thomas Piketty

economist

Seeing People Behind the Numbers

Because of my background, I learned early to notice what is often overlooked.

I notice the kiosk worker standing there from early morning until late at night. I notice the exhausted delivery worker rushing between jobs. I notice the young person unable to secure an apprenticeship, the stressed employee who suddenly loses their footing, the migrant worker surviving in legal grey zones, and the homeless person people avoid making eye contact with on the train.

I speak with people living under pressure, trying to belong within systems that increasingly treat them as disposable, replaceable, or invisible. Before I see the statistics, I see the people behind them. And what I see is that Denmark is not exceptional. It faces many of the same forms of inequality, exclusion, labour precarity, democratic fragmentation, and social disconnection visible across much of Europe.

🌿 STRUCTURAL SHIFTS IN WORK, POWER & BELONGING

Power in Denmark is not distributed equally. Economic, political, and cultural influence remains concentrated among people with access to institutions, networks, education, property, and social capital.

This includes:

• political elites and state institutions
• directors, specialists, and think tanks
• inherited wealth and class-based privilege
• large foundations and economic actors
• professional and academic gatekeeping structures

Belonging within society is therefore not only about participation — but also about access to influence, visibility, legitimacy, and recognition.

🌿 POLITICAL ECONOMY

Economics & Values

Economics is fundamentally political — Global Currents, February 2026.

Challenges the idea that economics is a neutral, objective science, arguing that economic models and policies inevitably reflect political values and assumptions about what constitutes a good society.

Class, Privilege & Social Reproduction

Venner af guld — Weekendavisen, April 2025.

Social capital, networks, and elite connections continue to play a major role in determining access to jobs, influence, and opportunity.

Klassesamfund

If you’re interested in learning more about the class structure in Denmark, visit the website.

Wealth Concentration & Democratic Risk

Milliardærernes rekordformuer er en trussel mod demokratiet— Oxfam, January 2026.

Extreme concentrations of wealth undermine democratic institutions by concentrating political influence, shaping public discourse, and increasing support for anti-democratic movements.

Takers not makers - The unjust poverty and unearned wealth of colonial inheritance — Oxfam, January 2025.

Oxfam highlights how inherited wealth and structural inequality continue to shape global economic systems. If one of the world’s ten richest billionaires lost 99% of their fortune, they would still remain a billionaire.

🌿 INEQUALITY

Wealth Concentration & Class

Magtfulde virksomheder driver uligheden i Danmark til nye højder — Information, June 2026

The richest one percent in Europe owns 47 percent of all stocks and securities, while executive salaries in Denmark have increased 48 times faster than employees’ wages since 2019.

Danmarks 100 rigeste — Økonomisk Ugebrev, 2024.

In 2024, 28 Danes possessed fortunes exceeding one billion U.S. dollars.

The Human Costs of Inequality

Lykken i Danmark siver. Det bør ifølge ny bog bekymre os alle sammen — Information, March 2025

Denmark ranks 104th out of 136 countries in quality-of-life development, while approximately 400.000 adults report serious struggles with well-being and life satisfaction.

Danmark dømt for at krænke retten til liv — Danish Institute for Human Rights, May 2025

The European Court of Human Rights found Denmark in violation of the right to life after a detainee died following the use of force in a Danish prison.

🌿 THE LABOUR MARKET

Foreign Labour, Social Dumping & Labour Market Pressure

Nu bliver det lettere at få udenlandsk arbejdskraft til Danmark – fra 16 udvalgte lande — DR, June 2025.

People from 16 countries — including China, India, Brazil, Ukraine, the U.S., and the U.K. — can now work in Denmark at salaries only marginally above unemployment benefits. Critics argue that this contributes to social dumping, while many Danish residents — including young people, disabled individuals, and workers over 50 — remain excluded from employment.

The Decline of Trade Union Power

Jakob Elkjær: Fagbevægelsen ligger for døden, men nægter at gøre noget ved det — Altinget, June 2025.

Former FH Head of Press Jakob Elkjær argues that the Danish trade union movement is losing relevance as membership declines and younger generations increasingly disengage from traditional labour organizations.

Den traditionelle fagbevægelse organiserer nu kun halvdelen af lønmodtagerne — Mandag Morgen, February 2021.

The traditional labour movement now organizes only around half of wage earners in Denmark, raising questions about the long-term sustainability of the Danish labour model.

Overvismand: Svage fagforeninger skader samfundsøkonomien — Information, May 2026.

Firms’ market power has increased and affects the number of job openings within a given sector, while union density has declined. This has contributed to a declining share of companies’ value added accruing to wage earners.

Labour Market Exclusion & Human Dignity

Vi har fulgt arbejdsløse på kanten af samfundet i to år. Her er, hvad vi lærte om uværdighed — Videnskab, June 2025.

A long-term investigation into unemployment and dignity examines how people outside the labour market experience shame, exclusion, bureaucracy, and social marginalization.

Unge med handicap har svært ved at finde job – det vil en mor fra Herning nu lave om på — TV2 Nyheder, June 2025.

Young disabled people continue to face major barriers to entering the labour market despite ongoing political discussions about inclusion and labour shortages.

Jimi oplever at være overkvalificeret og arbejdsløs: "Arbejdsmarkedet fravælger kvalificerede kandidater" — Akademikerbladet, February 2025.

Explores how highly educated and qualified people increasingly struggle to find stable employment, while companies simultaneously argue there is a shortage of experienced labour.

🌿 DEMOCRACY

Democratic Dissatisfaction & Exclusion

Hvis det danske demokrati var en patient, så ville man sige, at vedkommende vist har lidt feber — Information, June 2025.

Growing inequality, unequal participation, and democratic exclusion raise concerns about how inclusive Danish democracy remains.

Ulmende utilfredshed med demokratiet — Dansk Folkeoplysnings Samråd, February 2025.

Almost one in three Danes report dissatisfaction with how democracy functions.

Lobbying & Power Concentration

Borgerne deltager mindre, lobbyisterne fylder mere. Her er dommen over det danske demokrati — Information, June 2025.

Citizens participate less in democratic processes while lobbying and institutional influence continue to grow.

Magtudredningen 2.0 — Aarhus University Press, June 2025.

Explores how the Danish state developed into a democracy — but also how democratic participation is changing. Access to political influence increasingly happens through lobbying, institutional networks, and organized interests, raising questions about who is genuinely able to participate in public debate, influence decision-making, and help shape society collectively.

Nu ved vi, hvem der sidder i toppen af den danske magtelite — Zetland, June 2025.

Maps the 400 most powerful people in Denmark — the individuals and institutions shaping large parts of society and the framework of everyday life. The trade union movement remains positioned within the absolute power elite, reflecting how significantly unions continue to influence the labour market, welfare state, and political decision-making in Denmark.

Der er kommet langt flere kvinder i magteliten — Zetland, June 2025.

An examination of changing gender representation within Denmark’s political and institutional elite.

Min mor var udsendt som diplomat af den danske stat, da jeg blev født. Nu risikerer jeg at blive de facto statsløs — Berlingske, February 2025.

Not everyone has secure access to citizenship, and for some people, the right to belong remains dependent on legal and institutional recognition.

Media, Trust & Representation

Medierne kan ikke lege gemmeleg, når vi taler om demokratiets krise — Mandag Morgen, June 2025.

Lisbeth Knudsen argues that media institutions increasingly risk being perceived as elite structures disconnected from large parts of the population.

Netværk gør status på retsstaten i Europa: Menneskeretten er under angreb — Danish Institute for Human Rights.

The European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) highlights growing pressure on human rights, civil society, press freedom, and democratic institutions across Europe.

Psychiatry & Institutional Power

Guidance on mental health policy and strategic action plans — WHO, March 2025.

WHO recognizes that psychiatry historically has contributed to discrimination, stigmatization, and exclusion, including through diagnoses tied to gender, sexuality, race, and social conformity. These dynamics continue to influence institutions, labour markets, and social participation today.

🌿 GlOBAL THREATS

An increasing number of people are dying because bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics. This danger has been known since the early use of antibiotics, yet political and industrial interests have not taken sufficient action to prevent it. As a result, diseases that were once considered easily treatable are again becoming deadly. For example, bacterial pneumonia, which was once often treatable with antibiotics, is becoming deadly again.

At the same time, rising global temperatures are making some regions increasingly difficult to inhabit. This contributes to major migration waves, as people forced to leave their homes demand safety, dignity and equal rights from the countries that have contributed most to the climate crisis.

Access to water, especially clean water, is also becoming increasingly scarce. Many rivers are polluted with chemicals and waste, while droughts and overuse put further pressure on water supplies. Within the next two decades, one out of five Europeans will be affected by water scarcity. In Denmark, pollution has been found in a large share of water tests, and a growing number of drinking-water wells are being closed.

Agricultural fields have extremely low biodiversity, even lower than deserts, because of monoculture farming and uniform agricultural production. This makes food production more vulnerable to disease, while standardized and uniform production also affects our gut health by failing to give us the diversity of substances our gut needs for our body and brain to thrive. This contributes to a growing health crisis.

Combined, these crises show how environmental destruction, public health and political responsibility are deeply connected. Problems once treated as separate are now beginning to reinforce one another, creating risks that no country can solve alone.

🌿 REFLECTION

The same pattern is visible in the global threats described above: systems built for efficiency, growth, and control are increasingly producing fragility in health, food, water, climate, and social stability.

I do not see the issues explored above as isolated social problems, but as interconnected expressions of broader systemic change. Labour markets, democracy, mental health, education, media, economics, and social belonging continuously shape one another.

Denmark is often presented as one of the world’s most equal and secure societies. Yet beneath this image, growing numbers of people experience economic insecurity, exclusion from the labour market, declining trust in institutions, and reduced access to meaningful participation in society. Young people, disabled individuals, neurodivergent people, migrants, workers over 50, and economically vulnerable populations increasingly encounter structural barriers to stability, dignity, belonging, and recognition.

At the same time, many indicators suggest that wealth, influence, and political access are becoming increasingly concentrated among those with social, economic, and institutional power. Many of the articles, reports, and perspectives collected throughout this section point toward the same underlying pattern: growing inequality, weakening solidarity, and increasing fragmentation between those who are protected by systems and those who are pushed to their margins.

Human beings are relational and embodied, deeply shaped by the environments and systems in which they live. When economic insecurity rises, social trust weakens. When people lose stability, recognition, or belonging, both individuals and communities become increasingly strained.

Understanding these developments therefore requires more than economic or political analysis alone. It also requires attention to psychology, relationships, embodiment, power structures, nervous system regulation, social conditions, and the broader systems that shape human participation and well-being.

My interest in these questions emerges not only from academic theory, but also from lived experience, therapeutic work, and long-standing engagement with inequality, labour market exclusion, neurodivergence, trauma, and social systems.

I see people before I see statistics — and behind every number is a human being trying to survive, adapt, belong, and make sense of the world around them.

» Neurodivergent Resources & Reflextions
  20 June 2026

A living resource library exploring neurodivergence through lived experience, psychology, embodiment, relationships, work, education, mental health, and society. This space gathers podcasts, articles, books, talks, videos, and reflections created by neurodivergent people, researchers, clinicians, advocates, and interdisciplinary thinkers.

The purpose of this library is not to define one final truth about neurodivergence, but to create space for recognition, curiosity, nuance, and broader ways of understanding human difference.

Most resources are freely available, though some may require subscriptions or library access.

Before diving into the many inspiring voices gathered here, I want to acknowledge one of my role model: Brené Brown, whose work on courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy deeply influences the way I write and think about human connection.

Her phrase:

“Strong Backs, Soft Fronts, and Wild Hearts”

has become one of the guiding principles behind this resource.

To set the stage, I recommend watching the trailer for the upcoming documentary The Divergent Gift: Unboxing Autism, which offers a powerful lived-experience perspective on autism and identity.

The resources are grouped around themes including:

• Resource Library
• Labour Market & Social Barriers
• Families, Kids & Education
• Mental Health & Medication

Most resources are freely available, though some may require library access or subscriptions.

🌿 RESOURCE LIBRARY

Podcasts & Conversations — Lived experience, psychology, embodiment, identity, and neurodivergent perspectives

How Joint Hypermobility Links Neurodivergence, Chronic Pain, Inflamatory Disorders, and Anxiety — Dr. Jessica Eccles, ADDitude, June 2025.

Leading ADHD Expert Share New Emotional Dysregulation Trick — Dr. Tamara Rosier, ADHD Chatter, March 2025.

Den autistiske hjerne på arbejde — Hjernekassen på P1, May 2025.

3 Alarming Risks of Undiagnosed Female AuDHD — Dr. Samantha Hiew, ADHD Chatter, March 2025.

Autisme-mødre — Hjernekassen på P1, March 2025.

Hvordan skaber du tryghed for mennesker? — Dr. Pernille Darling, GladPodcast, March 2025.

Skal du fortælle om din diagnose? (ADHD & Ledelse) — Torben Tronborg, GladPodcast, March 2025.

Beyond Your Brain - Exploring The ADHD Body-Mind Connections with Dr. James Kustow  — Dr. James Kustow, The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, January 2025.

How Medical Cannabis Could Transform ADHD Treatment: Insight from Dr. Niraj Singh — Dr. Niraj Singh, The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, December 2024.

Et distræt og dedikeret arbejdsliv — Occupational sociologist Gitte Daugaard, Fremtidens Arbejdsplads, November 2024.

Vi er alle sammen lidt autistiske — Psychologist Ditte Rose Andersen, Brinkmanns Briks, October 2024.

Hvad sker der når direktøren udviser "svaghedstegn" ? — Torben Tronborg, Fremtidens Arbejdsplads, September 2024.

Når sanserne spiller hjernen et puds: Et nyt syn på den autistiske hjerne — Brainstorm, February 2024.

Fremtidens arbejdsplads: Sådan skaber du plads til alle — Mathias Emil Nielsen, GladPodcast, January 2024.

Sådan arbejder Gladteknik med inklusion på arbejdspladsen — Mathias Emil Nielsen, Fremtidens Arbejdsplads, October 2023.

Misdiagnosis for Autism and Becoming an Olympian with Caragh McMurtry — Caragh McMurtry, The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show, October 2023.

Podcast Series

The Neurodiversity Podcast — Hosted by Emily Kircher-Morris.

Emily interviews a wide range of experts on children, autism, ADHD, communication, somatic well-being, addiction, trauma, emotions, relationships, empowerment, sensory needs, and myths — many of whom are neurodivergent themselves.

ADHD Chatter — Hosted by Alex Partridge.

Alex interviews a wide range of people about ADHD and everything connected to it, including the many overlaps between ADHD and autism.

Evolving Psychiatry — Hosted by Dr. Adam D. Hunt.

This podcast explores new paradigms in psychiatry, including the question of what we currently define as “dysfunction” and how some traits may be understood as adaptations to environments.

The Dyslexia Life Hacks Show — Hosted by Matthew Head.

Matthew challenges common prejudices about dyslexia, learning, and different ways of processing information.

Articles and Research — Research, critique, lived experience, and emerging paradigms

New Findings on Conflicts of Interest in Autism Research — Psychology Today, May 2026.

The places where 'hearing voices' is seen as a good thing — BBC, September 2025.

ADHD-diagnoser til voksne hviler på tyndbenet forskning — Videnskab, June 2025.

Min autisme blev ikke opdaget, fordi den ikke passede med stereotypen — Socialt Indblik, June 2025.

No Such Thing as Normal — Is ‘Neurotypical’ The Real Myth? — Institute Of Neurodiversity, May 2025.

Vi trenger et ikke-vestlig og mang­foldig syn på psykisk helse — Forskersonen, May 2025.

Histamin, dopamin og de oversete piger — tid til et nyt blik på AuDHD — Psykologernes Fagmagasin, May 2025.

Autistic and Non-Autistic People Communicate Equally Well — Neuroscience News & Research, May 2025.

I Do not have ADHD When I Drive My Truck" Exploring the Temporal Dynamics of ADHD as a Lived Experience — Culture, Medicin, and Psychiatry, April 2025.

US autism rate continues to rise, CDC says, pointing to greater awareness and better screening — CNN, April 2025.

Bella Ramsey Opens Up About Their Liberating Autism Diagnosis & The Epic New Season Of The Last Of Us — British Vogue, March 2025.

Autistic women in history — Embrace Autism, March 2025.

The rise of late autism diagnoses — Embrace Autism, February 2025.

This Psychologist Is Challenging the Way We See Mental Illness — Novara Media, February 2025.

Hvad er neurodivergens? — Videnskab, February 2025.

The Neurodiversity Imperative: Time to Rethink — Institute Of Neurodiversity, February 2025.

Is self-assessment enough? — Embrace Autism, February 2025.

Autism's configurations: Tracking the Circulation of a Metaphor — Copenhagen University, January 2025.

Researchers uncover a hidden cognitive strength associated with autistic traits — PsyPost, January 2025.

Autism 'Symptoms' are no such thing — Medium, January 2025.

Your Autistic Loved One Doesn’t Know What You’re Reacting To, and It’s Causing Trauma  — Families, December 2024.

What is bottom up thinking in autism — Autistic PhD, December 2024.

Kan vi stole på psykiatriens tilgang til psykisk lidelse? — POV International, December 2024.

This is how autism looks different in girls and women — National Geographic, November 2024.

When I say ... neurodiversity paradigm — Medical Education, November 2024.

Specialised minds: extending adaptive explanations of personality to the evolution of psychopathology — Neurodiversity Sport, October 2024.

The sudden rise of AuDHD: what is behind the rocketing rates of this life-changing diagnosis? — The Guardian, April 2024.

A state-of-the-art overview of candidate diagnostic biomarkers for Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder — Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics, April 2024.

Autistic people more likely to feel overwhelming ‘hyper-empathy’ — Sheffield Hallam University, February 2024.

Når sanserne spiller hjernen et puds: Forskere har fået et nyt syn på den autistiske hjerne — Videnskab, February 2024.

How to navigate adulthood on the autism spectrum — American Phycological Association, November 2023.

PDA: Not what you think it is! — Dr. Donna Henderson, August 2023.

Jason Arday: he learned to talk at 11 and read at 18 — then became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor — The Guardian, July 2023.

Stop Asking Neurodivergent People to Change the Way They Communicate — Business Harvard Review, October 2022.

Conceptualising Autistic Masking, Camouflaging, and Neurotypical Privilege — Human Development, May 2022.

Post-traumatic stress disorder in autistic people — National Autism Society, March 2022.

Autism is still underdiagnosed in girls and women. That can compound the challenges theyface — The Conversation, February 2022.

Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adult Outpatient Psychiatry — Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, January 2022.

The Intense World Theory — A Unifying Theory of the Neurobiology of Autism — Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, December 2021.

Shifting from ‘normal science’ to neurodiversity in autism science — The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, November 2021.

Privilege plays a huge role in getting an ADHD diagnosis — Penn State University, June 2021.

Avoiding Ableist Language: Suggestions for Autism Researchers — Autism in Adulthood, March 2021.

Neurodiversity at work benefits everyone — why companies are hiring autistic people — The Conversation, September 2020.

Investigating the factors underlying adaptive functioning in autism in the EU-AIMS Longitudinal European Autism Project — Autism Research, February 2019.

A timeline of autism classifications — Embrace Autism, November 2018.

Children with Autism Have Extra Synapses in Brain — Columbia University Irving Medical Center, August 2014.

Throw Away the Master's Tool: Liberating ourselves from the Pathology Paradigm — Neuroqueer, 2013.

TED Talks, Videos & Media — Neurodivergence, communication, identity, and human difference

Selected talks, documentaries, interviews, YouTube creators, and media projects exploring neurodivergence through education, humour, advocacy, psychology, and lived experience. 

Hannah Gadsby

Hannah Gadsby is an outstanding Australian comedian whose work explores neurodivergence, gender, trauma, art, and power with remarkable precision and humour.

Why everything you know about autism is wrong

Dr. Jac den Houting, autistic autism researcher.

When Order And Anarchy Live Together

Dr. Khurram Sadiq, neurodevelopmental psychiatrist specializing in ADHD and autism.

Autism is a difference, not a disorder

Katie Forbes speaks about autism as a difference rather than a disorder, and how the pressure to mask and be “fixed” can cause harm.

The autism spectrum isn't what you think it is

Chloé Hayden, Australian actress, author, podcast host, and activist.

Why gender equality is good for everyone — men included

Michael Kimmel, sociologist, on gender equality and intersectionality.

Rethinking Normal: Embracing The Neurodiverse Mind

Max J. Green speaks about redefining what it means to be “normal.”

Recovering from mental health issues and living with them

Dr. Bengt Karlsson discusses the limitations of the psychiatric model and the need for a paradigm shift.

5 signs you have ADHD and autism

Psychologist Yo Samdy Sam explains the duality of AuDHD very clearly.

Generic Art Dad

Chris Gad creates sharp, funny, and deeply resonant content on neurodivergence, trauma, identity, and mental health.

MyFavoriteJo

Jo creates humorous and insightful content exploring neurodivergent communication, social expectations, and the challenges neurotypical people may face when trying to understand neurodivergent minds.

What Women With Autism Want You to Know

A simple and important message to women: You are enough.

Unrest 

Documentary by Jennifer Brea, Harvard PhD student. The film tells a personal story about ME/CFS while also critiquing a medical system that often ignores and discredits patients with “invisible” illnesses. It won the Special Jury Award at Sundance in 2017 and highlights a chronic condition estimated to affect 17–24 million people worldwide.

Websites & Books

Neurodiverse Sport

Created by Caragh McMurtry, British Olympic rower and autism advocate, showcasing inspiring neurodivergent role models in sport.

Temple Granding

An iconic trailblazer who helped the world understand autism differently.

Inside Our Autistic Minds — BBC documentary with Chris Packham, autistic naturalist and broadcaster.

The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work — Dr. Ludmila Praslova.

NeuroDiversity: The Birth of an Idea —  Judy Singer (introduced the concept of neurodiversity in 1998).

🌿 LABOUR MARKET & SOCIAL BARRIERS — Work, systems, power, accessibility, and participation

Many neurodivergent struggles emerge not from individual deficits, but from friction between human diversity and social systems. Many neurodivergent struggles emerge not from individual deficits, but from friction between human diversity and social systems.

Labour Market

Leading While Autistic — Psychology Today, April 2026.

Da Adam gik fra kvinde til mand, forstod han, hvorfor mandlige ledere oftere kravler til tops — Lederstof, June 2025.

Fonde finansierer også prekære arbejdsliv – og det må de tage ansvar for — Akademikerbladet, May 2025.

Vi kan ikke tale om borgernes rettigheder uden at tale om medarbejdernes arbejdsvilkår — Socialt Indblik, May 2025.

Line og Villads gør op med fordomme om fleksjob: ”Det er uretfærdigt” — Akademikerbladet, April 2025.

Børns diagnoser rammer arbejds­plad­serne — Børsen, March 2025.

Aktiv jobindsats rammer skævt — Aarhus University, January 2025.

Neurodivergent people make great leaders, not just employees — Fast Company, December 2024.

10 ting du ikke vidste din medarbejder med ADHD ville ønske du vidste — Væksthus for Ledelse, October 2024.

12 Ways Remote Work Provides Accessibility to Your Neurodivergent Employees (While Also Increasing Productivity) — Specialisterne, September 2024.

Topchefen Carl Farberger blev til Caroline: »Jeg forstod slet ikke, hvor privilegeret jeg var som hvid, heteroseksuel mand« — Lederstof, December 2022.

Autism doesn't hold people back at work. Discrimination does — Business Harvard Review, December 2021.

Outcomes of real-world social interaction for autistic adults paired with autistic compared to typically developing partners — Autism, December 2019.

Neurotypical Peers are Less Willing to Interact with Those with Autism based on Thin Slice Judgments — Scientific Reports, February 2017.

The Double Empathy Problem  — Reframing Autism.

Social Barriers

Emil Falster tog turen fra arbejderklassen til akademisk elite: De privilegerede elsker mønsterbryderen, fordi det er underholdning for dem — Politiken, May 2025.

Årsrapport: Menneskeret er under pres i Danmark — Arbejderen, April 2025.

Tim Jackson: Økonomien er blevet brutal, den må skiftes ud med omsorg — Information, March 2025.

Stressbelastning i barndommen øger risikoen for at komme på sociale ydelser — Information, March 2025.

De mindst velstillede patienter har ikke de tal, de fortjener — Ræson, January 2025.

OMMER: Statistisk signifikant vrøvl — Weekendavisen, March 2024.

Mens vi venter på et paradigmeskifte dehumaniserer sociale indsatser psykiatriske patienter og pårørende — PsykiatriAvisen, September 2021.

A Rights-Based Approach to Disability in the Context of Mental Health — UNICEF, March 2021.

Tidens største løgn er, at vi kan, hvad vi vil, siger Brinkmann — Zetland, March 2021.

Kvindelige forskere nuancerer forskningsresultater mere end mænd — Videnskab, November 2017.

World needs “revolution” in mental health care – UN rights expert — UN, June 2017.

Morten Sodemann: Den der har grisen, har prisen — Ugeskrift for Læger, July 2014.

🌿 FAMILIES, KIDS & EDUCATION — Co-regulation, learning, development, and neurodivergent childhood

Some of the most insightful literature on neurodivergence is written by professionals who are themselves neurodivergent or who have close lived experience within neurodivergent families. These resources explore parenting, education, co-regulation, burnout, masking, language development, school absence, PDA, meltdowns, and neurodivergent development from both professional and lived-experience perspectives.

Podcasts

What it’s really like growing up Autistic — Toren and Serenity share their story — IDIOT, June 2025.

Sixteen-year-old Toren Wolf and his mother, Serenity, explain what autism feels like from the inside and why behaviour often makes sense when understood through sensory experience and regulation.

"Du er aldrig lykkeligere end dit mest ulykkelige barn" - en ærlig snak med Julie Gerdes — GladPodcast, May 2025.

Julie talks about how working life is affected when you have children with diagnoses — and what this requires from both workplaces and families.

Is it PDA? Demand Avoidance in the Context of Autism — The Neurodiversity Podcast, March 2025.

Dr. Taylor Day explains PDA and how to approach it in ways that may help prevent family burnout.

Gestalt Language Processors — The Neurodiversity Podcast, March 2025.

Ali Battye discusses different language processing and learning styles, including Gestalt Language Processing and AAC.

Unraveling the Mysteries of Baffling Behaviors — The Neurodiversity Podcast, January 2025.

Robin Gobbel discusses how children’s behaviour is often a response to unmet needs, stress, or attempts to find regulation. Co-regulation is essential for emotional support and development.

Applying Neuroscience to Education  — The Neurodiversity Podcast, January 2025.

Allison Posey discusses Universal Design for Learning and how no two brains are alike.

Words Matter: Statements That Harm the Mental Health of Neurodivergent Kids — The Autism ADHD Podcast, September 2024.

Jaime A. Heidel talks about why language matters when supporting neurodivergent children.

Articles

Børnepsykolog: Diagnoser er kun et øjebliksbillede — Information, February 2025.

Catrine Zorns søn har ikke været i skole siden 6. klasse. I dag er han 19 år og førtidspensionist — Information, November 2024.

Børn har ikke flere symptomer: Så hvorfor fordobles diagnoserne? — BUPL, September 2024.

Attention Special Education Teachers: Forcing Autistic Children to Socialize Can Be Dangerous — Education, December 2023.

Josephine skjulte sin autisme i skolen, men havde nedsmeltninger derhjemme — Videnskab, April 2022.

Books

Calm the Chaos — a Fail-Proof Road Map for Parenting Even the Most Challenging Kids — Dayna Abraham.

Det neurodivergente menneske — En psykiaters tanker om diagnoser, rummelighed og et ny menneskesyn — Pernille Darling.

Specifically About Meltdowns

Toren Wolf, a 16-year-old autistic young man, describes what it feels like to experience a meltdown immediately after it happens — and how others can help. Toren, who is particularly challenged by his autism, gives an incredibly precise account of a universal human reaction: what happens when things become too overwhelming, too prolonged, and too difficult — and the shame that often follows afterward.

Physiologically, a meltdown can be understood as a neurological emergency, while a shutdown may function more like a neurological freeze — sometimes postponing the meltdown until later, often as a result of masking or dissociating from feelings. It can be described as the brain desperately searching for footing.

For more on this subject, listen to:

Sensory Shutdown and Meltdowns: Navigating Neurodivergent Experiences — The Divergent Conversations, hosted by Megan Anna Neff and Patrick Casale.

Autistic Meltdowns & Shutdowns — AuDHD Flourishing, hosed by Mattia Maurée.

🌿 MENTAL HEALTH & MEDICATION — Psychiatry, embodiment, nervous systems, and informed consent

Mental health exists within historical, social, political, cultural, and economic systems. Neurodivergent people are often heavily medicalized while broader relational, sensory, environmental, and embodied realities receive less attention.

"Mental health systems are outdated, underfunded, and misaligned

with evidence-based practices and human right standards"

— Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Director-General of the WHO

Podcasts

Leading ADHD & Hypermobility Expert: '3 Ways ADHD Affects Collagen in Women with Nick Potter — ADHD Chatter, August 2025.

How Joint Hypermobility Links Neurodivergence, Chronic Pain, Inflamatory Disorder, and Anxiety with Dr. Jessica Eccles — ADHD Experts Podcast, June 2025.

Former FDA Medical Officer Details ADHD Medication & 3 Natural Alternatives — ADHD Chatter, May 2025.

The Surprising Association ADHD & Inflamatory with James Kustow — ADHD Experts Podcast, Match 2025.

FLORA's Fabulering med Anders Sørensen - berigende samtaler med mennesker, der har noget på hjertet — FLORA's Fabuleringer, January 2025.

Udtrapning af psykofarmaka med Anders Sørensen — Anderledes,  October 2024.

Skal vi dæmpe alle følelser? Om udtrapning af psykofarmaka med Anders Sørensen — Socialt Indblik, August 2024.

#12 Anders Sørensen - Udtrapning af psykofarmaka — Når Kroppen bliver til psykologi, March 2024.

The Science and Art of Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs featuring Anders Sørensen and Laura Delano — A lecture delivered in New York in 2023.

5. Narrativ Salon - Udtrapning af psykofarmaka - Allan Holmgren og Anders Sørensen — DISPUK Podcast, October 2021.

Articles

New study casts doubt on reliability of mental health diagnosis interviews — The Guardian, June 2026.

Who Gets to Define Human Suffering? — Psychology Today, June 2026.

Flere danskere end nogens indetager antidepressiv medicin. Hvordan endte vi her?  — Zetland, June 2026.

On the Autistic Spectrum or a Camus Anti-Hero? Rebellion Obtuseness in Psychiatry — Mad in America, May 2026.

Manglen på alternativer til psykiatrien er et samfundssvigt — POV International, September 2025.

What Would True Informed Consent for Antidepressants Actually Look Like? — Crossing Zero, June 2025.

Når kroppen gøres tavs – kritik af det medicinske paradigme og nødvendigheden af et rytmisk menneskesyn — Sygeplejevidenskab, June 2025.

Waking Up to Your Emotions 101: The Other Side of Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal — Mad in America, June 2025.

Have We Been Thinking About A.D.H.D. All Wrong? — The New York Times Magazine, April 2025.

New WHO guidance calls for urgent transformation of mental health policies — WHO, March 2025.

Der er alternativer​til den biologiske psykiatri — Politiken, March 2025.

Det psykiatriske system er bygget på misinformation, som myndighederne formidler — Information, November 2022.

Medicin har gjort mig og tusinder af andre danskere til narkomaner på første klasse. Sådan blev jeg clean — Zetland, September 2021.

Methylphenidate for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents — assessment of harmful effects — Cochrane, May 2018.

Becoming Ourselves – Who We're Born To Be, Who We Become, and Everything in Between

14 June 2026

Drawing on insights from neuroscience, trauma theory, attachment, and psychodynamic perspectives, this article explores how temperament, prediction, survival, memory, shame, and culture shape our sense of self. It asks how we become who we are, how our adaptations can distance us from our innate nature, and how healing may involve reclaiming the flexibility, connection, and wholeness that allow us to become ourselves.

Emotional Capitalism – When Human Connection Becomes a Commodity

1 June 2026

This article combines capitalism and attachment theory to investigate what happens to our connections when everything has a price.

What We Do Not See – The Missing Link in Trauma Therapy

26 May 2026

This is a short introduction to how systemic shame impacts trauma, and why healing requires connection, inspired by Merete Holm Brantbjerg’s work on bodily collapse.

The Glasses We See Each Other Through – Beyond Stereotypes, Towards Human Connection

18 May 2026

We rarely meet each other without first looking through the lenses of our own experiences, fears, and expectations. This essay explores what happens when we begin seeing beyond projection, stereotypes, and relational defenses toward deeper human connection.

The Systems We Carry Within – Trauma and Relational Adaptation

17 May 2026

An exploration of how human beings regulate, adapt, survive, and seek belonging through the interconnected layers of body, nervous system, relationships, identity, and social systems.

What is Neurodiversity, Really? – Thinking Differently, by Design

18 June 2025

A reflective essay exploring neurodiversity as cognitive diversity: different ways human beings think, perceive, communicate, and solve problems.

The Myth of Danish Democracy and the Welfare State – On Power and Exclusion

5 June 2025

A reflection on Danish democracy, exclusion, power, and the uncomfortable truths hidden beneath our national self-image.

The Unemployment Industry – The Democratic Deficit in the Trade Unions

22 April 2025

Trade unions and unemployment insurance funds have become powerful institutions within the Danish labour market. This article examines how weak member influence and generic support leave many people without meaningful help when seeking or maintaining employment.

Stress and Complex PTSD – The Struggle for Safety in Modern Society

24 February 2025 (revised 7 June 2026)

Stress and Complex PTSD are often understood primarily as individual problems. Yet our nervous systems develop through relationships, environments, and social systems. This article explores how chronic stress, trauma, and social pressures shape human adaptation — and why trauma-informed approaches matter.

Structural Barriers in the Danish Labour Market

8 February 2025

Opaque recruitment processes, exclusionary workplace cultures, and weak enforcement of anti-discrimination laws leave many people without equal access to employment. This article examines the structural barriers shaping the Danish labour market.

Belonging – On Vulnerability, Love and Human Connection

28 December 2024

A personal reflection on connection, vulnerability, and what it means to belong to ourselves and to each other.

I Sense, Therefore I Am – The Texture of Belonging

7 November 2024

The senses shape how we perceive, feel, think, and relate to the world. We have eight senses and as many as 150 forms of synesthesia, each influencing perception, emotion, intimacy, and the experience of being human — and how we connect, form attachments, and find belonging.

When You Are Not Seen Through Loving Eyes – Beyond Fight, Flight and Freeze

1 August 2024

This essay explores the connection between neurodivergence, trauma, masking, and emotional survival. Through personal experiences and reflections, it examines the many ways humans adapt when they do not feel emotionally safe, understood, or seen through loving eyes. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, collapse, clowning, avoidance, and masking are presented not as personal failures, but as deeply human survival responses shaped by relationships, environments, and the need for connection.

Beyong the Vitruvian Mind – Human Diversity Beyound a Single Ideal

19 Juli 2024

A personal reflection on neurodivergence, masking, burnout, and stigma — and on what happens when human difference is misunderstood as dysfunction instead of recognized as part of the natural diversity of being human.

Coming Home to Myself – Essay on Survival and Authenticity

24 May 2026 (revised from 2024)

For as long as I can remember, I have experienced the world differently. Even as a child, I sensed that the way I thought, felt, reacted, and connected did not fully align with the people around me. For many years, I struggled to understand why — partly because the stereotypes and social narratives surrounding difference never fully reflected my own experience.

The Paradox of Inclusion in LGBT Spaces – On Identity and Social Norms

24 May 2026 (revised from 2024)

I have spent years trying to understand why some social environments create belonging for certain people while making others feel fundamentally wrong. This text is an exploration of how social hierarchies, collective mental models, and unconscious norms shape inclusion and exclusion within LGBT spaces. It is also a personal story about what happens when you do not intuitively fit the social systems surrounding you.

Meltdown in London City Airport

A personal reflection on what happens when we break under too much pressure — and how deeply human it is to need help from others to find our way back.

Why Do I Write and Speak English? – On Finding Access to Myself

A personal reflection on language, neurodivergence, masking, and why English sometimes gives me greater access to my emotions, thoughts, and inner world.

No Two Brains Think Alike

A reflective essay exploring neurodivergence, cognitive diversity, sensory perception, and the many ways human beings think, feel, and understand the world.

No More Masking – On Social Norms and the Fear of Being Wrong

A reflective essay exploring masking, authenticity, social norms, and the psychological cost of hiding oneself in order to belong.

The Canary in the Mineshaft – On Overload, Trauma and Healing

A reflective essay exploring autism, sensory overload, trauma, and healing through the interconnected relationship between the nervous system, the body, relationships, and society.

The Courage to Walk Alongside Others – On Empathy, Boundaris and Humman Connections

A reflective essay exploring empathy, compassion, boundaries, and the vulnerable practice of cultivating meaningful human connection through the lens of Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart and personal experience.

Without Judgment – Sitting Beside Someone Through the Storm

The story revolves around the fear of being too sick to manage a new job, the relief of expressing emotions without judgment, and the importance of self-compassion.

Sunflower – Stories Hold Our Cure

A personal reflective essay inspired by Hannah Gadsby’s showNanette, with touches of science exploring attachment, trust, resilience, and the profound role storytelling plays in human connection.

» Becoming Ourselves 

Who We're Born To Be, Who We Become, and Everything in Between

14 June 2026

Drawing on insights from neuroscience, trauma theory, attachment, and psychodynamic perspectives, this article explores how temperament, prediction, survival, memory, shame, and culture shape our sense of self. It asks how we become who we are, how our adaptations can distance us from our innate nature, and how healing may involve reclaiming the flexibility, connection, and wholeness that allow us to become ourselves.

Music for reflection: Feel The Rain – Angel District

“So here's something I know to be true...

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering,

and I responded... sensibly, reservedly, mildly”

— George Saunders

American writer & professor

TEMPERAMENT AND BECOMING

We are born with a distinct temperament. Some people are more sensitive to stimulation than others. Some seek novelty and excitement, while others are naturally more cautious and careful. These differences influence where our attention and energy go, how we respond emotionally, and how we experience the world around us. In this sense, temperament can be understood as the essential nature of the nervous system — the earliest foundation of our sense of self.

As we grow up, we develop different strategies to meet our needs, navigate relationships, manage emotions, and find our place in the social world.

In this process, the brain continuously adapts to experience. We move from genetics to epigenetics, from nature to nurture, as our nervous system is shaped by the environments and relationships we encounter. Psychiatrist Daniel Siegel, founder of Interpersonal Neurobiology, summarizes this process with a simple phrase:

"Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connections grow."

Experiences that are repeated become strengthened. Through this process, patterns of attention, emotion, behaviour, and relationship gradually become embedded within us.

Over time, personality emerges as temperament encounters experience.

Attachment relationships play an important role in this process. The ways we are comforted, encouraged, corrected, ignored, understood, or misunderstood influence how the brain organizes itself. What begins as an adaptive response to a particular environment can gradually become a stable pattern of relating to ourselves and others.

Some adaptive strategies become more dominant than others.

When different aspects of experience remain connected — body and mind, emotion and cognition, self and relationship — the system becomes more integrated and flexible. But when experiences become disconnected from one another, people become more vulnerable to chaos and rigidity because these experiences cannot be integrated into a coherent whole. Feelings of rage, resentment, righteous anger, panic, sadness, anxiety, fear, and terror, as well as fight, flight, freeze, or collapse responses, can then emerge as reactive states.

Many of the qualities we think of as personality may therefore be understood as adaptations: ways of thinking, feeling, relating, and responding that developed under particular circumstances.

The challenge is that much of this happens automatically. Most people spend much of their lives operating on autopilot. The brain relies on familiar pathways because they are efficient. Over time, these patterns can become so familiar that we mistake them for identity itself.

"This is just who I am."

We begin to see what we expect to see rather than what is actually happening. Habits, assumptions, and well-established pathways help us navigate daily life, but they can also limit our ability to respond in new ways.

Individuation is the lifelong process of becoming more fully ourselves while remaining capable of connection and belonging. It is not about becoming independent of others. Rather, it involves recognizing our innate tendencies, understanding the adaptations we developed in response to our experiences, and integrating these into a more coherent and flexible sense of self.

Even identical twins, who share the same genetic blueprint, gradually become different from one another. Differences in temperament, relationships, attention, life experiences, and the meanings they make of those experiences shape how they unfold over time.

The more we understand how our adaptations are formed, the more freedom we gain to choose whether they still serve us today.

Understanding how our adaptations were formed can give us a greater feeling of wholeness: a feeling of ease, of connection, of coherence — where belonging is a natural state of life. As previously disconnected aspects of experience become linked together, we become more capable of holding different emotions, thoughts, memories, and perspectives with greater clarity and stability.

In this way, integration creates not only greater flexibility, but also a deeper sense of integrity and of connection to ourselves and others.

THE PREDICTIVE MIND

Human beings are born with remarkable potential, but much of who we become depends on experience.

Human beings are born with a kind of nature that requires nurture, waiting for wiring instructions from the sensory and social world. Our genes provide a blueprint, but experience determines how much of that blueprint becomes expressed through epigenetic changes, hormones, neural pathways, and ongoing interactions with the environment.

From infancy, we learn to interpret bodily sensations, emotions, relationships, and the world around us through the people who care for us and the environments we inhabit. As social animals, we remain caretakers of one another's nervous systems throughout our lives.

According to neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research focuses on emotion, predictive processing, and the construction of experience, the brain is not primarily reacting to reality. It is continuously predicting reality.

Drawing on past experience, the brain constantly generates expectations about what is happening, what is likely to happen next, and what actions are most likely to keep us safe, connected, and alive. These predictions shape not only our thoughts, but also our emotions, bodily sensations, and perceptions.

In this sense, the brain is not simply recording the world. It is actively constructing meaning. Predictions help us make sense of the world.

Many of the assumptions we experience as obvious or natural are therefore not purely individual. They emerge through relationships, family, culture, language, and shared social experience.

This means that much of what feels instinctive is learned.

Our expectations about love, safety, conflict, belonging, authority, trust, shame, and vulnerability are shaped through countless interactions across a lifetime. Over time, these expectations become predictions that guide our behaviour automatically.

This helps explain why change can be so difficult.

People often assume that thoughts create feelings and behaviour. But in reality, the process works in the opposite direction. The brain prepares the body for action before conscious awareness fully catches up. Thoughts often emerge as explanations for predictions that have already begun unfolding.

As the saying goes:

"If I did not believe it, I would not have seen it."

Trauma can be understood through this lens as well.

As Barrett has observed, trauma is not simply something that happened in the past. It emerges through the ongoing relationship between past experiences and present circumstances.

Experiences that once required protection may continue shaping predictions long after the original danger has passed. The brain remains organized around expectations formed under very different conditions.

After overwhelming or traumatic experiences, the predictive mind may become caught in repetitive thought loops. Intrusive thoughts, memories, images, or imagined scenarios can return again and again, not because the person wants to think about them, but because the brain is trying to understand what happened, update its predictions, and regain a sense of control.

What may appear as overthinking can be understood as the brain’s attempt to minimize uncertainty by rehearsing possible futures and searching for patterns that might help it learn from the experience.

Yet the same capacity that allows experience to shape us also allows us to change.

Predictions are not fixed.

We can revisit the past and change the meaning of what happened through heartfelt and difficult conversations. We can also deliberately expose ourselves to new experiences, environments, and people different from ourselves. Just as we can practice any other skill, we can gradually teach the brain that other possibilities exist.

Each new experience becomes additional information, and over time, new information can give rise to new predictions.

In this sense, identity is not simply a record of the past. It is a construction of the meaning we make of the past.

The Power of Words

One of Barrett's most important observations is about language itself. Language does not capture emotional experience particularly well. Different cultures possess different words for feelings, relationships, and states of mind. What feels emotionally significant in one culture may not even exist as a concept in another. Even the way we see emotions in people’s faces is deeply rooted in prediction.

This also means that whenever we ask a question, we have already made assumptions about the answer.

The words we choose shape what can be seen.

And often the questions we ask reveal as much about our predictions as the answers we receive.

At the same time, words are part of how we regulate one other’s nervous systems. They impact our breathing, metabolism, immune systems, hormones, all from processing the meaning of words. The same brain regions that process language also process the body’s internal state; the power of words is not a metaphor — it is in the wiring of your brain.

Healing begins when we become open to the blindness of our own predictions and recognize that we can become the architects of our own experience.

HOW SURVIVAL ORGANIZES US

Human beings are remarkably adaptable.

From the moment we are born, we continuously adjust to the environments we inhabit. We learn what is welcomed, what is rejected, what creates connection, and what threatens it. Over time, this learning becomes integrated into our emotional and bodily responses.

Many of these adaptations are healthy and necessary. They help us navigate relationships, cooperate with others, and find our place within families, communities, and society. When things go well and we have access to our full life energy and psychomotor repertoire, our attachment patterns tend to be characterized by openness, support, flexibility, and companionship.

But some adaptations emerge under conditions that overwhelm our capacity to cope.

According to psychomotor therapist Merete Brantbjerg, founder of Relational Trauma Therapy, trauma can be understood as a survival response that never fully completes itself. The body remains organized around reactions that were once necessary but never fully regulated.

In this sense, trauma is not simply an event. It is also a pattern that becomes embedded in the nervous system, the muscular system, and our psychomotor repertoire — shaping which emotions, impulses, and skills we have access to and which become less available.

Some people primarily experience hyper-responses: increased muscular tension in which impulses and emotions are held back or tightly controlled. Others experience hypo-responses: a collapse in the muscular system in which impulses, emotions, initiative, and vitality become difficult to access. Many people lean toward one pattern, while others move between both states depending on the situation.

In states of hyperarousal, the body prepares for action. Muscles tighten, attention narrows, emotions intensify, and the system becomes organized around protection.

In states of hypoarousal, energy decreases. People feel numb, distant, exhausted, disconnected, or unable to access their usual capacities. The body conserves resources by reducing engagement with both internal experience and the external world.

Muscles can hold patterns of tension and collapse. Attention becomes drawn toward familiar threats. Certain emotions become difficult to access, while others become overwhelming. What began as survival gradually becomes a way of organizing everyday life.

Long after the original circumstances have disappeared, a person may repeatedly respond to different situations using the same survival strategies.

These adaptations also shape how we relate to the people around us.

Finding Our Member Role 

When we enter a group – whether it is a family, a circle of friends, an educational setting, or a workplace — we are challenged by the process of crossing the boundary into a new context and finding our place somewhere between being and doing.

Brantbjerg describes how people often become caught in relational patterns organized around dominance and submission: one-up and one-down positions. Some become highly accommodating and compliant in an effort to preserve connection. Others become controlling, oppositional, or defiant in an effort to regain predictability and influence. Many move between these roles depending on the situation and the people involved.

These patterns can also be understood through the roles people take up in relational systems: victim, perpetrator, rescuer, or bystander. These are not fixed identities, but positions people may move between when a system is organized around threat, loyalty, protection, blame, or power. A person may feel like the victim in one moment, take up the rescuer role in another, remain silent as a bystander, or act from a perpetrator position when trying to regain control. In this way, relational trauma can create circular patterns in which people unconsciously repeat and redistribute the roles that once shaped them.

These patterns can become self-reinforcing. Our bodily experience begins to organize our interpretation of events, and emotions may escalate before we have had the opportunity to orient ourselves to what is actually happening in the present moment.

When the body remains organized around protection, reactions can accelerate faster than awareness, making flexibility and perspective more difficult to access.

Trauma states are therefore challenging not only for the person experiencing them, but also for those nearby. If one person becomes dysregulated, others can become dysregulated in response. They can pull one another into collapse, panic, rage, avoidance, or polarization.

These patterns are rarely conscious choices. They are attempts to create safety, predictability, and belonging for everyone involved. Therefore, it takes awareness, communication, and mutual effort to recognize these dynamics and move out of them.

The difficulty is that survival strategies tend to narrow our options. When the nervous system is organized around protection, flexibility becomes harder to access. Curiosity gives way to certainty. Connection gives way to caution. Adaptation becomes repetition.

The Meanings We Inherit

How overwhelming experiences are understood matters just as much as the experiences themselves.

Sometimes people are able to recognize that what happened to them was not their fault. Through supportive relationships, cultural narratives, or validation from others, they find ways to understand their reactions as understandable responses to difficult circumstances.

But this does not always happen.

When experiences are minimized, denied, or left unnamed, people may begin to internalize them instead. They lose their sense of what is normal and come to believe that the problem lies within themselves rather than in what happened to them.

The ways we make sense of survival may therefore shape how trauma becomes organized.

One possibility is over-identification. The traumatic experience becomes central to identity, and the person increasingly understands themselves through the lens of what happened to them. Trauma becomes the organizing principle of the person’s story, creating a trauma-centric identity and increasing the risk of PTSD.

Another possibility is internalization through shame. Experiences that have relational, cultural, or systemic origins become individualized. The person carries the burden alone, believing their distress reflects personal weakness or failure.

A third possibility is under-identification. The experience remains dissociated and outside awareness. The adaptations persist, but the person may have little conscious understanding of their origins. In this way, trauma can remain hidden, sometimes shaping families and relationships across generations.

The earlier the trauma occurs, the more profoundly it may shape identity through power dynamics, relational betrayal, cultural meanings, and the responses people receive when they attempt to disclose what happened.

Healing

No matter the experience or type of trauma, healing involves naming reality rather than minimizing it, because denying reality is retraumatizing.

It involves understanding what happened without becoming defined by it, staying connected to bodily sensations while learning to orient ourselves to what is happening here and now, and most importantly, being brought into mutual regulation and attunement through safe, responsive relational connections.

The goal is not to eliminate survival responses. It is learning to stay with the discomfort that comes with doing something different, because learning is a metabolically expensive process. The predictive world is efficient. Growth requires energy.

The goal is to regain enough flexibility so that survival is no longer the only option. In doing so, we gain access to a more flexible, adaptive, coherent, energized, and stable flow of life — a greater sense of wholeness.

THE PARADOX OF OUR PARTS

When survival strategies are repeated often enough, they do not simply shape our behaviour; they gradually become woven into our sense of self.

The strategies that helped us survive often meant that some parts of us learned to bend our integrity, while other parts of us mobilized enough energy to stand up against overwhelming force.

Our adaptive strategies are formed by the people we were surrounded by as we grew up, and can eventually begin to feel like identity itself — our sense of self.

Psychiatrist Frank Anderson, drawing on Internal Family Systems, describes how overwhelming experiences can leave us with inner parts organized around two complementary positions: the victim and the perpetrator.

The victim is the part of us that carries vulnerability, fear, helplessness, grief, and the pain of what could not be changed. It is the part we needed to leave behind in order to protect attachment and belonging.

The perpetrator is the part of us that represents the strategies that stood up against overwhelming force by taking on some of the qualities of the person overwhelming us. It may become controlling, critical, perfectionistic, defiant, or emotionally distant in an attempt to restore safety, power, and predictability.

Both the victim and the perpetrator reflect what we learned we had to become in order to solve the problem and survive.

As adults, we are often unaware that some of the strategies we turn to in disagreements with partners, friends, or coworkers originated in other people’s ways of coping. Over time, these parts have become integrated into our own ways of responding, creating distance from our innate nature.

This is easy to overlook in therapy, because therapists have often been taught to help heal the wounded parts — the victim. But if we do not also look at the strategies needed to stay above water — the perpetrator — we risk missing half of the reason people remain caught in survival mode through reenactment.

We risk repeating our past adaptive strategies as a way of solving present problems: a repetition compulsion in which the brain attempts to solve today's problems using the same strategies that once helped us survive as children.

It can leave us in a state where it becomes difficult to hold people in our hearts when they are not physically present, to remember that love and connection continue even in moments of distance or conflict — a capacity known as object constancy. It can also become difficult to trust others because we struggle to integrate ambivalence: the reality that the same person can be loving and hurtful, reliable and disappointing, safe in one moment and difficult in another. In object relations theory, this reflects the capacity to experience others as whole and complex, rather than splitting them into either good or bad. Here, I am speaking to a fundamental reality of being human: that people are imperfect, and so are we.

 

To heal, we need to work as much with the part of us that is the victim as with the part that is the perpetrator.

The way we do that is by moving toward the core of ourselves, where we dare to become curious about and trust the parts of ourselves we never had the change to know. We begin to understand what they were trying to accomplish and discover strategies that are more embodied in the present rather than organized around the past.

Healing also requires good people around us – people who show up, tolerate rupture and participate in repair, and engage in the metatalk about what happens between us so that relationships can become stronger and more loving.

The kinds of people who hug us when we are down, cheer us on when we move forward, listen with understanding and acknowledgement, and challenge us when we become stuck in ways of thinking that are not kind to ourselves or to the people around us.

MEMORY AND MEANING

We have placed too much emphasis on explicit memory, as if it were a tape we could play whenever we wanted, like a movie we could replay at any time.

But in practice, this is not the case. Much of our memory exists as implicit memory — interoceptive bodily sensations, the felt sense of what is happening inside us, and approximate categories of experience built from what we have encountered throughout life: sensations, sights, sounds, touch, smell, and movement.

Memory is not a static archive we can neatly scroll through. It is an ongoing process of reconstruction in which many experiences become layered together. The brain continuously compares present experience with previous experience, searching for similarities and differences that may be relevant for survival, connection, and adaptation.

The sound of a slamming door is not obviously different from a gunshot. The brain requires more information than a simple sound to make an accurate interpretation.

According to Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experience, much of what shapes our lives is not held in explicit memories that can easily be recalled and described. Instead, it exists as implicit memory — patterns of sensation, emotion, expectation, movement, and physiological responses that operate largely outside conscious awareness.

But when old adaptations remain unresolved, the nervous system may continue responding to present situations as if they belonged to the past.

This is important because the brain may interpret present sensory experiences through the lens of past experiences. People who have been traumatized can therefore become afraid not only because of what is happening now, but because the brain's suggestions about the present are shaped by what happened before.

A person can therefore suddenly feel anxious, ashamed, angry, withdrawn, or overwhelmed without knowing why. A situation in the present can activate patterns that were originally formed under very different circumstances. This is one reason trauma can feel confusing.

If we want to change this, we need to pay attention to bodily sensations, emotions, impulses, and relational experiences in the present moment. In doing so, people gradually learn to distinguish between past and present. We need the mindset of a beginner, responding with novelty and curiosity.

New experiences create new information. New information creates new possibilities for meaning. Over time, the nervous system learns that it no longer has to solve yesterday's problems with yesterday's strategies, and we regain agency over our own lives.

The past remains part of us. But it does not define the limits of who we become.

SYSTEMIC SHAME AND CULTURAL INHERITANCE

Human beings develop ways of surviving difficult circumstances not only within their families, but also within their communities, while societies develop collective ways of making sense of experience.

Some experiences become acknowledged, discussed, and integrated into shared understanding. Others remain hidden. When difficult experiences are recognized and named, people are more likely to understand them as part of a larger human reality.

But when experiences are ignored, minimized, denied, or silenced, something different can happen. The burden of making sense of what happened falls entirely upon the individual. What might have been understood as a relational, cultural, or social problem becomes experienced as a personal one.

When we experience shame, it produces overwhelming and painful feelings of confusion, fear, anger, and being judgment, as well as a need to escape or hide from the situation. We are in a fog. It affects the way we feel, think, and act.

Brené Brown, whose work focuses on vulnerability, shame, and belonging, describes shame as:

"The intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging."

Instead of asking:

"What happened?"

People begin asking:

"What is wrong with me?"

This process can be understood as systemic shame.

Shame makes us adapt. We may withdraw from relationships, please others to avoid conflict, or seek power and control — all in an attempt to ensure that the world remains predictable. Yet these strategies often provide a false sense of safety.

But shame does not arise in a vacuum. It emerges within relationships that have internalized the expectations of the social systems they inhabit, communicating — directly or indirectly — which experiences are acceptable, which emotions may be expressed, and which realities are allowed to be spoken.

When certain experiences cannot be acknowledged collectively, they often become individualized. Trauma that remains unnamed becomes woven into identity. People come to believe that their distress reflects a personal weakness rather than an understandable response to circumstances.

At the same time, experiences that are never fully acknowledged do not simply disappear. They often continue shaping families, communities, and institutions across generations. Patterns of fear, silence, mistrust, emotional avoidance, rigid authority, hypervigilance, or disconnection may be transmitted long after the original circumstances have passed.

This is one reason trauma cannot be understood solely as an individual phenomenon.

Human beings inherit more than genes. We inherit meanings. We inherit expectations. We inherit narratives about belonging, safety, power, vulnerability, and identity.

Some of these inheritances help us navigate the world. Others quietly organize our perceptions long before we have language for them.

The problem with shame is that we cannot change and grow when we are caught in it, nor can we use it to create lasting change ourselves and others.

Healing therefore involves more than understanding our personal history. We heal through our connections with others. It also requires that we examine the larger systems we are embedded within and question everything we have learned.

Naming reality is often an essential part of healing. Not because naming changes the past, but because it allows experience to become shared rather than carried alone. What remains hidden tends to repeat itself. When we make the hidden visible, change can begin.

Healing is never only an individual process; it is also a collective one.

ADAPTATION, TRAUMA, AND GROWTH

Human beings respond differently to adversity.

The same event can affect different people in very different ways depending on temperament, previous experiences, available support, cultural meaning, social context, and the resources available for recovery.

This is one reason trauma cannot be understood solely through the event itself.

What matters is not only what happened, but also how the experience was interpreted, embodied, remembered, and integrated.

Many people experience post-traumatic stress (PTS) immediately after an event. Following overwhelming experiences, the nervous system naturally becomes more vigilant. Sleep may be disrupted. Concentration may become difficult. Emotions may feel more intense. The body remains temporarily organized around protection while it attempts to regain equilibrium.

For many people, these responses gradually diminish as safety, support, and integration become possible.

For others, however, the adaptations become more persistent.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can be understood as a state in which the nervous system remains organized around survival long after the original danger has passed. Memories, emotions, bodily sensations, and expectations continue pulling attention toward the past, making it difficult to fully inhabit the present.

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) often emerges when overwhelming experiences occur repeatedly, particularly within important relationships or environments that offer little possibility of escape. In these situations, the adaptations become woven more deeply into identity, relationships, emotional regulation, and the sense of self.

The distinction is not simply one of severity. It is also one of development. The longer adaptation becomes necessary, the more deeply it can shape how people understand themselves and the world around them.

Yet trauma is not the only possible outcome.

Researchers have also described Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG): positive psychological changes that sometimes emerge through the process of struggling with adversity.

Growth does not mean that trauma was beneficial. Nor does it erase suffering. It reflects the possibility that difficult experiences can lead some people toward greater self-understanding, deeper relationships, increased appreciation of life, stronger personal values, or a renewed sense of purpose.

PTG reminds us that adaptation is not only about survival. It is also about transformation.

The human species is remarkably robust. It is capable of learning, reorganizing, and changing throughout life.

This may be one of the most hopeful insights emerging from contemporary understandings of trauma. We are shaped by what happens to us, but we are not determined by it.

The story of human development is not simply a story of injury. It is also a story of adaptation, meaning-making, connection, and the ongoing possibility of becoming and belonging.

» What We Do Not See 

The Missing Link in Trauma Therapy

26 May 2026

This is a short introduction to how systemic shame impacts trauma, and why healing requires connection, inspired by Merete Holm Brantbjerg’s work on bodily collapse.

“Shame needs three things to grow exponentially in our lives:

secrecy, silence, and judgment.”

— Brené Brown

researcher on vulnerability, shame & belonging

We often presume that trauma is explicit — something we can recognize, understand, and consciously remember. But when experiences are met with denial, minimization, or avoidance — when there is an absence of support and conversation about the trauma — they can seem to disappear. The memory becomes implicit, leading the body toward disconnection, freezing, and dissociation — into what can be understood as hypo-parts. In this collapse, the body mirrors the lack of acknowledgment in society. In this way, trauma becomes intensified through isolation, lack of acknowledgment, and systemic shame.

In this sense, trauma can emerge not only from what was done to us, but also from what was not done. It is the absence of mirroring, validation, and acceptance. The experience becomes: It is all about me; therefore, there must be something wrong with me.

“Trauma is not what happens to us,

but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”

— Peter A. Levine

psychologist & founder of Somatic Experiencing

If we do not listen to the hypo-parts in our body — and to what happens when our life energy continually shuts down — but focus only on how to get out of tension and achieve release, the hypo-parts will keep returning and inhibit integration. We may experience temporary relief, but we do not sustain it.

From personal experience with trauma, the sensation is that something essential is missing — something I once felt I had — and that it feels impossible to find again, because I cannot name it together with others.

It has made me move through life in shifting states: some days I feel like a kite-surfer, carried by the wind; other days like a diver with an empty air tank, unable to move or breathe. And so I kept myself going until my body locked itself into cycles of pain, because I had no middle ground to stand on.

So what do we do with the things that have gone missing? The things that pushed us to give up parts of our life energy and move into a hypo-state?

Slow down. Pay attention. Listen to what is not there. Let attention become a pathway toward integration.

Healing requires connection and sharing, because other people remind us that we belong. Through connection, acknowledgment, and relational support, trauma can also become a pathway toward post-traumatic growth.

"Sitting on the Edge of an Abyss Together"

— Merete Holm Brantbjerg

founder of Relational Trauma Therapy

» The Systems We Carry Within 

Trauma and Relational Adaptation 

17 May 2026

An exploration of how human beings regulate, adapt, survive, and seek belonging through the interconnected layers of body, nervous system, relationships, identity, and social systems.

Music for reflection: Drifting — Infinite Reflections

"Trauma blocks love and connection,

and love and connection heal trauma"

— Frank Andersen

psychiatrist & psychotherapist

Human beings do not develop in isolation.

We are shaped continuously through relationships, environments, embodiment, nervous systems, culture, institutions, memory, and social life. Emotional life cannot be separated from the body, just as the individual cannot be separated from the systems they live within.

Over time, I have become increasingly interested in the relationship between regulation and disconnection, flexibility and rigidity, integration and fragmentation — and in how people learn to adapt, survive, and make sense of themselves within the worlds they inhabit.

What interests me most is not simply what people think, but how human beings organize themselves internally in response to experience.

Why do some people remain flexible under stress while others become trapped in rigid patterns?

How do protective adaptations become enduring patterns?

And under what conditions does change become possible?

HUMAN EXPERIENCE AS A REGULATING SYSTEM 

I increasingly understand human beings as dynamic, self-organizing systems composed of multiple interconnected layers.

These layers include:

• bodily and autonomic regulation
• emotions and sensory processing
• attachment and relational experience
• autobiographical identity
• cognition and meaning-making
• social participation and collective belonging

Rather than functioning independently, these layers continuously influence and regulate one another.

From this perspective, emotional suffering cannot simply be understood as isolated pathology inside the individual mind. Psychological life emerges through ongoing interaction between embodiment, nervous system organization, relationships, environments, and social systems.

Trauma, stress, shame, chronic masking, emotional disconnection, or relational insecurity therefore become understandable not merely as symptoms, but often as adaptive attempts to preserve coherence and survival under difficult conditions.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FLEXIBILITY AND RIGIDITY

One of the clearest patterns I observe in both individuals and systems is the tension between flexibility and rigidity.

Healthy regulation does not mean constant calmness or perfect emotional stability.

Rather, it involves the capacity to move.

To move between:

• instinct and reflection
• emotion and cognition
• self and relationship
• autonomy and connection
• stability and adaptation

Human beings appear to thrive when information can move flexibly across different layers of experience.

But under chronic stress, overwhelm, trauma, isolation, or relational insecurity, this flexibility often narrows.

The system becomes increasingly organized around protection.

Control may replace spontaneity. Self-monitoring may replace embodiment. Abstraction may replace emotional contact. Rigidity may replace flexibility.

What appears from the outside as resistance or dysfunction may therefore reflect a nervous system attempting to maintain stability under overwhelming conditions.

In this sense, many forms of psychological rigidity can be understood not as moral failure, but as adaptive attempts to preserve coherence when flexibility no longer feels safe.

THE MIND AND BODY

Modern culture often privileges cognition over embodiment.

Thinking, analyzing, categorizing, controlling, and optimizing are frequently treated as signs of maturity and competence.

At the same time, bodily awareness, emotional sensitivity, instinct, vulnerability, and relational dependence are often undervalued or pathologized.

Yet many forms of suffering appear precisely when cognition becomes disconnected from embodied and relational experience.

When people lose contact with:

• bodily states
• emotional signaling
• sensory needs
• vulnerability
• co-regulation
• relational attunement

mental life can gradually become dominated by rigid narratives, self-surveillance, and attempts to maintain control through thought alone.

This creates a painful paradox: The more people attempt to control uncertainty cognitively, the more disconnected they may become from the very processes that support adaptive regulation.

Embodiment therefore becomes central.

Not because the body is separate from psychological life, but because emotional regulation, perception, identity, and relational safety are deeply embodied processes.

TRAUMA AS DISCONNECTION

Trauma is often understood primarily as something that happened.

But trauma may also be understood as what happens inside the system when overwhelming experience cannot be integrated safely.

From this perspective, trauma frequently involves fragmentation:

• fragmentation between body and mind
• between emotion and cognition
• between self and relationship
• between present experience and adaptive response

Fight, flight, freeze, collapse, dissociation, emotional numbing, hypervigilance, chronic self-monitoring, or psychological isolation can all be understood as adaptive survival responses.

The nervous system narrows variability in an attempt to preserve coherence.

What appears rigid from the outside may therefore represent an intelligent strategy to avoid overwhelm, collapse, shame, or relational danger.

This understanding shifts the focus away from blame and toward curiosity.

Instead of asking:

“What is wrong with this person?”

we may begin asking:

“What has this system adapted to — and what might it need now?”

HUMAN CHANGE IS RELATIONAL

Another central insight is that change does not happen in isolation.

Human beings regulate not only individually, but also relationally.

We develop through co-regulation, emotional attunement, communication, recognition, resonance, and shared meaning-making.

Safety is not only internal. It is also relational.

People often become more flexible, reflective, emotionally alive, and integrated when they experience enough relational safety to tolerate uncertainty without losing coherence.

This is one reason why connection matters so deeply.

Isolation often intensifies rigidity. Relational safety often increases flexibility.

Growth therefore becomes less about fixing individuals and more about creating conditions where integration becomes possible.

SYSTEMS, SOCIETY AND BELONGING

The environments people live within matter profoundly.

Workplaces, institutions, families, cultural norms, labour markets, education systems, social hierarchies, and political structures all shape emotional well-being, participation, stress, identity, and belonging.

Human suffering cannot be separated from the conditions people are required to adapt to.

Many people spend years attempting to function within systems that reward chronic self-monitoring, emotional suppression, hyper-productivity, conformity, and disconnection from bodily and relational needs.

Particularly for neurodivergent, queer, marginalized, or highly sensitive individuals, survival may involve continuous adaptation to environments that do not feel emotionally safe or relationally attuned.

Over time, this can create exhaustion, shame, fragmentation, masking, and disconnection from authenticity.

Belonging therefore becomes more than social inclusion.

It becomes the possibility of remaining connected to oneself while still remaining connected to others.

Yet belonging also requires us to tolerate complexity. Human beings are rarely one thing or another. We are often contradictory, unfinished, and shaped by competing needs, loyalties, and realities.

We grow much more through doing things wrong than through doing everything right, but many core truths are inherently paradoxical, and the dualistic mind — wired for clear, logical distinctions — often struggles with these realities.

Many of life's deepest truths are inherently paradoxical, and the mind — wired for clarity, certainty, and distinction — often struggles with this complexity.

To love another person, a community, or even ourselves may require the capacity to hold multiple truths at once. We must learn to live with ambiguity, tension, and contradiction rather than resolving them too quickly.

Those who can receive the whole picture — light and darkness, and all subtle shades in between — rather than insisting on certainty at the expense of truth and complexity are closer to both reality and wisdom.

INTEGRATION RATHER THAN PERFECTION

I do not think human development is about becoming endlessly optimized, emotionally pure, or permanently regulated.

Human life is inherently unstable.

We move continuously between coherence and fragmentation, openness and protection, connection and withdrawal.

The question is not whether people struggle.

The question is whether enough flexibility, support, embodiment, relational safety, and meaning exist for reorganization to occur.

From this perspective, health is less about perfection and more about integration.

The ability to:

• remain connected to bodily experience
• tolerate emotional complexity
• move between reflection and instinct
• remain open to relational feedback
• reorganize identity when necessary
• adapt without losing authenticity
• seek belonging without abandoning oneself

Perhaps this is what human development ultimately involves.

Not the elimination of vulnerability, uncertainty, or struggle.

But the gradual capacity to remain connected to oneself while remaining connected to others.

To adapt without disappearing.

To remain flexible without losing coherence.

And to create relationships and communities where people can grow together without having to abandon themselves or others in the process.

Human development is the capacity to adapt without disappearing and to remain flexible without losing coherence.

» The Myth of Danish Democracy and the Welfare State

On Power and Exclusion

5 June 2025

A reflection on Danish democracy, exclusion, power, and the uncomfortable truths hidden beneath our national self-image.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed,

but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

— James Baldwin

writer & civil rights activist

In the early spring of 2007, I travelled to China to study for a semester.

I left Denmark believing I came from a country that had led the way—the first to free enslaved people, the first to abolish serfdom, the first to give women the right to vote—a place that prided itself on respecting people.

I believed our unions had stood strong against oppression and helped build a welfare state founded on equal rights for all. I had been taught that Denmark had one of the oldest democracies in the world—the fairest, most just democratic welfare state of them all.

How proud I was.

Six months later, I returned with a very different view of my country’s history.

I learned that Denmark is nothing but a myth.

 

THE BEGINNING OF THE A MYTH

I was taught that Denmark was created in 1219, when the Danish flag—Dannebrog—miraculously fell from the sky during a battle in Estonia. Supposedly, the Danes had prayed for divine help when the tide turned against them, and the red flag with a white cross descended from the heavens.

Much of Danish history rests on myths like that—written legends passed down through generations, such as those from Saxo Grammaticus, the first great myth-maker of Denmark in the 1100s.

Saxo’s Heritage

Where does our Danish self-image come from?

From Saxo Grammaticus, who lived around 1150–1220. He wrote Gesta Danorum—The Deeds of the Danes—a collection of myths and legends that even inspired Shakespeare.

He laid the foundation for how we see ourselves—and how our history has been written ever since:

• We were the first to free the enslaved.
• The first to abolish serfdom.
• The first to give women the right to vote.
• We invented the welfare state.
• We’re just a small, humble, and noble people.

Even our national hero, Holger Danske—the sleeping warrior beneath Kronborg Castle waiting to defend Denmark in times of danger—is a myth. The modern version was translated from a French novel published in 1509.

These myths continue in modern Danish culture—in films and TV series like Huset på Christianshavn, Min søsters børn, Baronessen fra benzintanken, De Røde Heste, and Olsen-banden.

But the truth is: we are no saints. Far from it.

We are not exceptional—we are entangled in the same systems of power, prejudice, and denial as everyone else.

We are just as ableist, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, ageist, and sexist as the rest of the world—because we are not exceptional.

The Constitution: Voting and Exclusion

We rarely talk about the fact that democracy itself was historically shaped by exclusion.

Even philosophers like Platoimagined democracy as something reserved for rational men—not women, not slaves, not foreigners.

And many influential economic thinkers, such as Adam Smithand John Maynard Keynes, did not imagine democracy as something in which everybody would meaningfully participate.

When Denmark got its constitution in 1849, it was not a true democracy. It was a constitutional monarchy. Only wealthy men over forty could run for the Upper House of Parliament.

We did not get parliamentarianism until 1901, and it was not written into the constitution until 1953—more than one hundred years later.

The constitution excluded the so-called “seven Fs”: women, servants, the poor, criminals, the “feebleminded,” bankrupts, and foreigners.

Even today, some of the so-called “fools” still cannot vote.

In 2025, more and more Europeans are losing voting rights in their home countries simply because they live and work elsewhere in the EU.

Denmark is even revoking citizenship from children of Danish diplomats, researchers, and UN employees born abroad—including adopted children.

Citizenship can be taken away.

No constitution will save you from that.

Misogyny in Democracy

When women finally got the right to vote in 1915, newspapers questioned whether women were even capable of marching.

Many women had long managed households under difficult economic conditions, yet disbelief in women’s capabilities still lingers.

Even in 2025, women still do not hold equal representation in parliament. Misogyny remains deeply embedded in political and corporate structures where men continue, to a large extent, to control who gains influence and access.

In 2025, another scandal emerged when women who spoke publicly about sexual misconduct were dismissed and publicly undermined by their employer, the law firm Plesner.

 

THE REALITY OF MODERN DEMOCRACY

Democracy is a messy and complicated machine.

Most of us have very little influence over how it functions—not even over the systems supposedly created to give us influence. Not in parliament. Not in unions.

Think I’m being harsh?

Then ask yourself: Why would we Danes be any better at democracy than Americans—or anyone else?

We’re not.

 

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people

who never make up their minds to be good or evil."

 

— Hannah Arendt

political theorist & philosopher

 

Chinese Democracy at Home

In the spring of 2025, I tried to run for election in my union, DJØF.

But the joke was on me.

When I showed up, the election had apparently already happened. No one could tell me when, where, or how it had taken place.

No wonder a union with 110,000 members has only a few hundred active members and only a few thousand votes cast.

And it was not the first time I had tried to participate in local democracy—and failed.

Contrary to popular belief, China does have democratic structures. But their system supports an elitist form of rule where connections—guanxi—are everything.

I even wrote a paper about this concept: how social networks and influential relationships shape both personal and professional life.

What I later realized is that our system works similarly—like all societies.

We say it ourselves:

“One good turn deserves another.”

“You know your friends in times of need.”

“You must protect your reputation.”

Building guanxitakes time—and without the right connections, you are excluded from both formal and informal access to power.

This is a serious problem for unions.

They complain about low engagement while refusing to acknowledge that many people cannot meaningfully participate.

That is why the same people remain at the top for decades.

The Best of Us

We Danes are no better than the rest of Europe—or the rest of the world.

We are just as capable of prejudice, exclusion, denial, and cruelty as anyone else.

Denmark rests on an old conservative foundation shaped by peasant culture and manor culture—tradition, stability, hierarchy, and skepticism toward change.

We are not more social.

We are not more caring.

We are not more just.

We are simply people—with all the flaws that come with it.

When you call a public office today, you are often told in advance: “Thank you for speaking kindly to the employee.”

But the employee has no such obligation toward you.

That says a lot about the direction Denmark is heading.

We suffer in silence because we refuse to look ourselves in the mirror and admit: the Danish democracy and welfare state is, in many ways, a myth

OUR COLONIAL AND HISTORICAL DENIAL

Our national self-image runs deep—and it still shapes how we treat one another today.

The Commonwealth: Greenland

In the summer of 2024, a debate flared in parliament: Should parliamentary debates be translated into Greenlandic?

Greenlandic politicians were mocked and told they were asking for too much.

Six months later, Donald Trump returned to power in the United States, and suddenly the tone shifted. Danish politicians began praising the importance of the Commonwealth and expressing gratitude toward Greenland.

Denmark’s colonial history is soaked in paternalism and racism—often denying how our actions affect others.

In the 1800s, Danish anthropology used skull measurements to classify people into racial hierarchies. Danish expeditions robbed graves in Greenland and collected human remains with little respect for the people themselves.

The Danish doctor Alfred Bertelsen described Greenlanders as “children.” Polar explorer Knud Rasmussenoften spoke on behalf of Greenlanders without involving them directly, helping Denmark secure sovereignty over the island in 1933.

Much of that paternalism still lingers beneath the surface today.

The West Indies: Enslaved People

At school, I was taught that Denmark was the first country to abolish slavery in 1792.

What I was not taught was that the abolition was largely symbolic. Slavery continued for decades.

Denmark participated actively in the transatlantic slave trade, transporting enslaved Africans across the Atlantic to the Danish West Indies under horrific conditions.

Many died during the crossing.

Enslaved people were treated as economic assets. It was often considered cheaper to buy new enslaved people than to sustain the lives of those already enslaved.

Slavery was not effectively abolished until 1848.

And eventually Denmark sold the islands to the United States as colonial property.

Servitude in Denmark

Oppression did not only happen overseas.

We tend to forget domestic servitude and the lives of servants in Denmark.

Servants could not vote freely, had limited mobility, and carried “character books” in which previous employers wrote evaluations that shaped future employment opportunities.

The relationship between servant and employer was deeply unequal.

New historical research also suggests that young girls were heavily overrepresented among those who died within these systems.

The Match Girls

In the 1800s, girls as young as eight worked long days in Danish match factories.

White phosphorus was used in production. It was highly toxic.

The girls developed severe respiratory illness and “phossy jaw,” where the jawbone slowly deteriorated.

Many died.

And still, employers defended the practice by arguing that people had a “right to work.”

 

OUR EUGENETIC HISTORY

Let me be blunt:

we like to place the horrors of eugenics entirely onto Nazi Germany, but Denmark was deeply entangled in similar ideas.

Large parts of Danish social policy were shaped by eugenic thinking about productivity, morality, biology, and social worth.

 

”We must ensure that the feebleminded and morally defective do not reproduce,
for it would mean the certain downfall of society
if we do not remove these defective elements from the line of inheritance."

 

— K. K. Steincke, 1933

Danish Social Democrat & arcihect of early wellfare reforms

Same year Hitler came to power.

 

The Violence of Care

Thousands of people were institutionalized in Danish social institutions.

Parents were encouraged to leave their children in state care.

Conditions were often degrading. Some treatments caused permanent disability or death.

People could be labeled “morally feebleminded” for things as minor as poor reading ability or social deviance.

Women and poor people were disproportionately targeted.

Autism Through the Lens of Power

Autistic people were subjected to horrific scientific experiments during the Nazi era.

And eugenic thinking still lingers in parts of autism research today—especially in systems that continue framing autistic people primarily through deficits, pathology, and normalization.

Research is still often conducted through narrow ideas of what counts as “normal.”

Medical and economic frameworks continue to dominate while relational and social understandings receive far less attention.

“In Denmark, the understanding of special needs is shaped by political and economic rationales.

These rationales determine how knowledge about disability models is developed and applied in legislative frameworks,

often prioritizing economic considerations over social or relational understandings of disability.”

— Emil Falster & Pia Ringø

researchers

Beyond the Buzzword: Unpacking "Special Needs" in Denmark (2025)

 

Women Under State Control

Women were interrogated about their sexuality and reproductive behavior.

Many were forcibly sterilized—a practice that continued until 1989 and was not officially condemned until 2014.

In Greenland, Danish doctors inserted contraceptive coils into women and girls without consent during the 1960s and 1970s.

Denmark also performed an enormous number of lobotomies—especially on women and girls.

Some were children.

The procedure involved driving a metal instrument through the eye socket into the brain.

And despite devastating consequences, the practice continued for decades.

Homosexuality and Trans Rights

People whose gender or sexuality differed from social norms were historically viewed as mentally ill.

Homosexuality remained on Denmark’s official list of mental illnesses until 1981.

Trans people today still undergo degrading psychological assessments in order to access transition-related healthcare.

And queer people continue to experience exclusion despite Denmark’s progressive self-image.

The Children We Failed

It breaks my heart every time we talk about children and other people who have no real power of their own.

Again and again, stories emerge from Danish institutions involving violence, abuse, neglect, overmedication, and exploitation.

Children have been beaten, sexually abused, isolated, and silenced.

Greenlandic children were removed from their families for forced assimilation.

Young people in institutions continue to suffer while private companies profit from welfare services.

The deeper we dig into Danish history, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the illusion that Danish institutions are inherently humane simply because they are Danish.

 

OUR MODERN WELFARE STATE

We love telling ourselves that Denmark has the best welfare state in the world.

But those living inside it often describe something very different.

Healthcare waiting lists continue growing.

Mental healthcare remains deeply underfunded.

Private insurance increasingly determines access to treatment.

And many people are excluded from insurance systems altogether—including many people with autistic and ADHD traits.

We rarely acknowledge how rapidly the gap is growing between those with resources and those without.

An A-team and a B-team are emerging.

Those with economic means, social connections, and education navigate the system far more easily than everyone else.

Migration and Deportation Centers

People have always migrated.

Today, war, climate change, and poverty force increasing numbers of people to move in search of safety and survival.

In Denmark, rejected asylum seekers are placed in deportation centers where many live for years without meaningful prospects, rights, or stability.

Some children spend their entire childhoods inside these systems.

Without belonging.

Without dignity.

Human Rights

Year after year, human rights organizations criticize Denmark for failing to meet basic obligations.

And yet we continue telling ourselves that we are exceptionally moral.

We avoid confronting how poverty, bureaucracy, housing, education, disability, and exclusion shape people’s lives because we remain deeply invested in preserving the myth that Denmark is uniquely just.

 

THE FUTURE IN THE MIRROR

Looking honestly at Danish history means recognizing that we are not exceptional.

We are human beings shaped by power, fear, institutions, prejudice, and self-interest like everyone else.

Neither Americans voted for MAGA nor the British for Brexit out of nowhere.

People turn toward anger and extremism when they feel ignored, excluded, powerless, and disconnected from democratic participation.

And perhaps that is the real danger facing democracy.

Not only external enemies.

But societies that slowly stop listening to their own people.

A growing number of people in Denmark feel excluded from political participation and democratic influence.

Many do not vote.

Very few are members of political parties.

And people from working-class backgrounds, disabled people, and marginalized groups remain heavily underrepresented.

The same is true in unions and local democracy, where participation continues collapsing.

Democracy weakens when people no longer feel they belong inside it.

If we cannot find ways to include people meaningfully in democratic life, democracy itself will eventually erode from within.

Empathy is the ability to recognize pain in others—and the willingness to act on it.

"We are not only responsible for what we do,

but also for what we fail to do.”

— Molière

French playwright, actor & poet

» Stress and Complex PTSD

The Struggle for Safety in Modern Society

24 February 2025 (revised 7 June 2026)

Stress and Complex PTSD are often understood primarily as individual problems. Yet our nervous systems develop through relationships, environments, and social systems. This article explores how chronic stress, trauma, and social pressures shape human adaptation — and why trauma-informed approaches matter.

Music for reflection: Grounded — Jameson Nathan Jones

A lot has been written about stress and Complex PTSD, but there are no clear descriptions of what these conditions look like in everyday life and what causes them. Additionally, there are no guidelines on how you communicate with people who are experiencing stress or PTSD without risking retraumatization.

RETHINK STRESS AND COMPLEX PTSD

“Stress is a response that occurs when communication is delivered in ways that contain conflicting messages, including norms and unspoken expectations, that cannot be fulfilled simultaneously, and where the messages change frequently (creating unclear intentions).

 

The stress response is an expression of a psychosocial pressure that leads to a physical hypotonic collapse in the nervous system and an emotional and mental breakdown of meaning (2nd and 3rd degree stress).

 

When a person exists in environments where they are constantly exposed to stress, fear, or helplessness, and where there is no possibility of escape, Complex PTSD can develop, leaving the body's stress response chronically activated and unable to switch off.”

— Taylor Jeppe

psychotherapist, systems thinker & educator

The first definition of stress I encountered was from stress researcher Bo Netterstrøm, who described stress as:

“There is an imbalance between the demands placed on a person and the individual's ability to meet those demands.”

Likewise, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) defines PTSD as:

“A response to a traumatic event outside the range of normal human experience.”

 

Both definitions only provided vague descriptions of the circumstances in which demands become too much. Neither answered two critical questions: Why do the demands exceed a person’s ability to cope? What happens in the person’s body when they cannot cope?

 

But equally important: Why do some people heal while others don’t?

 

Modern science has recently shown that trauma, stress, and complex PTSD are far more common than previously understood. They arise from family violence, car accidents, intense medical treatments, loss of a loved one, bullying, and prolonged exposure to stressful situations, including chronic illnesses, financial instability, work-related stress, and academic pressures.

Research also suggests that the body and nervous system have a natural capacity to heal when the conditions are right.

 

So, I developed a new definition combining insights from Merete Brantbjerg, who developed a relational trauma therapy with a body-focused approach, Nadja U. Prætorius, a lecturer in cross-cultural and social psychology, who offered a social perspective on modern trauma, and Gregory Bateson, an anthropologist and social scientist, who introduced the concept of double-bind communication, which provided insight into the psychological stress that arises when a person receives conflicting messages that cannot be resolved.

 

The purpose was to integrate what happens between people, what occurs inside the body during stress, and how prolonged stress can evolve into Complex PTSD.

 

Physical and Emotional Manifestations

In severe stress or Complex PTSD, the nervous system often loses some of its flexibility. Instead of moving fluidly between activation and rest, attention and recovery, connection and withdrawal, the system becomes increasingly organized around survival.

 

Physically, this manifests as a faster and stronger heartbeat, an inability to properly exhale carbon dioxide (not due to hyperventilation), severe muscle tension — particularly around the eyes, jaw, neck, and along the spine, sometimes contributing to dental problems — dilated pupils, visual disturbances such as wandering eyes and shimmering vision, stomach issues, a buzzing sensation in the skin and trembling, becoming very cold or warm, and sweating, often with a strong odor as a result.

 

These physical responses lead to intense physical pain, poor sleep, sensory hypo- and hypersensitivity — including sensitivity to sounds, light, smell, and touch — as well as difficulty concentrating, resulting in hypervigilance, brain fog, and thoughts going in loops or being intrusive.

They experience a sense of disconnection from themselves and their surroundings, and their emotions seem to take on a life of their own — irritability, anger, helplessness, confusion, and panic attacks arise suddenly and without control.

 

Even small triggers can provoke strong reactions. Many people begin over-adapting in order to avoid conflict, creating deep feelings of shame, self-doubt, and worthlessness. Others move in the opposite direction, attempting to create safety through greater control of their relationships and environment. Trust in oneself and others becomes difficult, relationships suffer, and patterns of withdrawal, conflict, or isolation often emerge.

The difference between stress and Complex PTSD lies in whether recovery begins once the stressful environment is removed.

For people experiencing stress, the body gradually recover when safety and stability return. For people with Complex PTSD, the nervous system remain chronically organized around protection, even after the original source of stress has disappeared.

To put it in everyday language: after being exposed to unreasonable and prolonged pressure that felt impossible to escape, the nervous system loses much of its capacity to regulate itself — your homeostasis is completely out of whack.

The best way to describe the state a person is in is that it feels like having a terrible hangover 24/7. Sometimes, it feels like you've just had a shot of schnapps; other times, it feels like you've downed an entire bottle of vodka — and it changes within the same day.

 

When you meet someone who is experiencing severe stress, the first priority is to provide psychological first aid: stop the "accident," restore as much safety as possible, and avoid actions that add further trauma.

 

BUILDING TRUST AND SAFETY

When speaking with someone in a state of high stress or trauma, it is crucial not to minimize or dismiss their experience. Even well-intentioned responses can retraumatize a person if they communicate disbelief, judgment, or pressure.

 

A trauma-informed approach recognizes the widespread impact of trauma and acknowledges multiple pathways toward recovery.

It emphasizes creating safe, supportive, and empowering environments for people who have experienced trauma. Trauma-informed practice integrates knowledge about trauma into communication, policies, procedures, and relationships in ways that reduce retraumatization and promote healing.

Safety is not only a condition within the individual nervous system. It also emerges through our relationships, communities, and social institutions.

Key Principles of a trauma-informed approach

Safety — Ensuring physical and emotional safety, including creating welcoming and trustworthy environments.

Trustworthiness and Transparency — Building trust through clear, consistent, and transparent communication.

Peer Support — Using shared experiences to foster connection, understanding, and recovery.

Collaboration and Mutuality — Encouraging partnership, equality, and shared responsibility within relationships and systems.

Empowerment, Voice, and Choice — Supporting autonomy and helping people regain a sense of agency and control.

Cultural, Historical, and Gender Awareness — Recognizing diversity and understanding how trauma is shaped by historical, cultural, and social contexts.

Where to Apply a trauma-informed approach

In the Workplace: Creating cultures built on empathy, psychological safety, and clear communication, and access to mental health support.

In Unions, Unemployment Insurance Funds, and Employment Services: Supporting people experiencing unemployment-related stress through individualized guidance and safe, respectful environments.

In Education: Creating learning environments where students feel valued, supported, and safe rather than constantly overwhelmed.

In Healthcare: Understanding how trauma affects communication, trust, the nervous system, and the body in order to improve treatment and care.

In Therapy: Using approaches that prioritize safety, grounding, nervous system regulation, and validation without judgment.

 

SYSTEMIC SHAME AND CULTURAL SILENCE

Denmark has no strong tradition of trauma-informed thinking. The narrative about Denmark as one of the happiest countries in the world can make it difficult to recognize historical and societal trauma, including Denmark's imperial and colonial history and the continuing tensions within the Kingdom of Denmark's relationship with Greenland.

 

Historically, Danish peasant and manor culture emphasized stability, conformity, and skepticism toward change.

Women, servants, poor people, bankrupts, fools, criminals, and foreigners were historically excluded from political participation when the Danish Constitution was established in 1849.

 

Elements of this cultural legacy continue to shape society today. Even in 2026, people under guardianship still do not have the right to vote, and a growing number of people with foreign parents also lack the right to vote.

There remains strong pressure not to stand out or challenge existing norms and power structures. This can make it difficult for trauma and its effects to be recognized, both socially and institutionally.

When people repeatedly receive the message that certain struggles, emotions, needs, or experiences should remain hidden, distress can become privatized. Problems that may have social, relational, or systemic origins are experienced as individual failures. In this way, silence can become a form of systemic shame.

The consequences are significant.

Children struggling in school, young people unable to complete education, and people falling out of the labor market often experience not only economic hardship, but also growing physical and mental distress.

When trauma remains culturally invisible, healing becomes more difficult for both individuals and society as a whole.

If societies struggle to recognize trauma, they may also struggle to recognize the ways stress, adaptation, and exclusion appear in diagnostic categories.

Diagnoses, Stress and Human Adaptation

There are many misconceptions about neurodivergence.

When examining diagnostic manuals, there is often significant overlap between different diagnoses. This raises important questions about how researchers and professionals understand stress, behavior, adaptation, and human diversity.

What stands out to me is how often trauma, chronic stress, and nervous system dysregulation appear alongside many different diagnoses.

This seems understandable, because people naturally become stressed when they struggle to make themselves understood while repeatedly feeling dismissed or misunderstood by those around them.

Autism and the Experience of Overwhelm

Autism is often associated with withdrawal from social environments.

But is withdrawal always an autistic trait, or can it also be a natural response to overwhelm and chronic stress?

Anyone who has experienced illness, burnout, or exhaustion knows that social interaction can become overwhelming.

From this perspective, withdrawal may not be uniquely autistic, but also a universal human response to overstimulation, exhaustion, or feeling unsafe.

The reason it may occur more frequently among autistic people is that many autistic individuals experience sensory, social, or cognitive overwhelm more intensely and more often.

ADHD and the Challenge of Environmental Fit

ADHD is often described as an attention disorder.

But is attention disruption always caused by ADHD itself, or can it also arise when people are forced to work in ways that conflict with their natural rhythms and ways of functioning?

Many people struggle to focus when working against how they naturally learn, think, or regulate energy.

Some people function best through short, intense bursts of concentration rather than prolonged linear work.

From this perspective, attention difficulties may not simply reflect individual pathology, but also environments that fail to accommodate human variation.

BELONGING, ADAPTATION, AND HUMAN DIVERSITY

In one sense, human beings are fundamentally similar: we all possess bodies and nervous systems constantly attempting to adapt to our surroundings.

In another sense, we are all different. Each person has a unique profile of sensitivities, strengths, and needs.

When people appear unable to adapt, we should ask what function their behavior is serving rather than immediately viewing it as dysfunction.

Many of the struggles associated with stress, burnout, trauma, and neurodivergence are therefore not only individual issues, but also reflections of the environments and systems people live within.

As human beings, we depend on acceptance, belonging, and connection.

When people repeatedly experience rejection, invalidation, exclusion, or chronic pressure, the nervous system responds accordingly.

Creating trust and safety is not simply one part of a trauma-informed approach.

It is one of the foundations for helping human beings thrive in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world.

» Belonging

On Vulnerability, Love and Human Connection

28 December 2024

A personal reflection on connection, vulnerability, and what it means to belong to ourselves and to each other.

 

I’m about to share some of my most vulnerable reflections yet—about belonging, love, and the raw emotions that connect us all.

Admitting how deeply I cherish the feeling of belonging fills me with a strange sense of shame.

I also feel ashamed writing about why I find both monogamous and non-monogamous relationships difficult.

I think most of us struggle, regardless of relationship structure, because vulnerability is so difficult.

We live in a culture that constantly tells us we are not enough, while missing the deeper truth:

vulnerability is essential for connection,
and connection is essential for belonging.

The very first time I heard Brené Brownspeak in her TED Talk, I just loved her.

She spoke about being a Texan with the family motto “Lock and Load.” She admitted: "You know how I feel about vulnerability. I hate vulnerability… I’m going to totally deconstruct shame,  I’m going to understand how vulnerability works, and I’m going to outsmart it"

That was me fiften years ago.

 

“To love is to be vulnerable … And there is an increasing number of people in the world today

that is not willing to take that risk.

They will never know love, then to know hurt or grief, and that is a huge price to pay.

Belonging—we are wired for love; we are hardwired for belonging; it’s in our DNA.”

 

— Brené Brown

researcher on vulnerability, shame & belonging

 

Fast forward to the conclusion: love is what makes life worth living.

I never thought I would say such (true) fucking bullshit.

Belonging is one of the most difficult feelings to grasp, despite the fact that our survival as a species and our ability to thrive depend on our sense of connection to other people and our communities.

We live with so many taboos, and we need to drop the bullshit because it disconnects us from ourselves and from each other.

If I were a comedian, I would probably wrap this message in humor and lightness, but I’m not.

So brash honesty will have to do.

We need to belong to ourselves so we can belong with others.

And to do that, we need to belong to our communities—our parents, siblings, children, friends, colleagues, and partners in crime.

We need to feel part of a family, whether by blood or by choice, that sees us for who we truly are and lets us see them for who they truly are.

To experience true belonging with others, we must allow ourselves to be vulnerable and to connect.

 

VULNERABILITY

Vulnerability is about opening yourself up and showing your true self. It’s about having the courage to show up when you cannot control the outcome.

“Vulnerability is the emotion that we experience during times

of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.

Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”

— Brené Brown

Vulnerability is the foundation of both connection and belonging.

It takes courage to show up authentically, but only through that risk can we create meaningful relationships. Without vulnerability, we build emotional walls that block the deep connections we crave.

Vulnerability sits at the center of difficult emotions: fear, grief, scarcity, and shame.

The foundation of vulnerability is shame.

Brené Brown describes shame as the feeling of walking out of a room where people who know you begin saying things so hurtful that you no longer know if you can ever face them again.

Shame is the fear of disconnection—the gnawing question: Is there something about me that, if others truly saw it, would make me unworthy of connection?

We live in a vulnerable world where we are constantly taught that we are not enough.

As a result, we become afraid of vulnerability in ourselves and in others, and so we try to protect ourselves by numbing our emotions. We armor up to stay safe.

But the problem with the armor is this: you cannot selectively numb emotions.

When you numb pain, you also numb joy, gratitude, happiness, and love.

No one wants to talk about shame, yet the less we talk about it, the more power it gains.

And when it comes to vulnerability, you really only have two options: you do vulnerability knowingly, or vulnerability does you.

CONNECTION

Connection happens when vulnerability is reciprocated and understood.

When two people engage openly, empathetically, and honestly with one another, they form a bond. Meaningful relationships emerge when vulnerability is met with empathy and understanding.

Connection is about feeling seen, heard, and valued.

“Connection is the energy that exits between people when they feel seen, heard, and valued:

when they can give and receive without judgment;

and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”

— Brené Brown

Yet because we live in a vulnerable world, we often pretend that our emotions and actions do not affect others.

But that is the surest path toward disconnection.

And in the absence of connection, love, and belonging, there is always suffering.

People who live wholeheartedly possess a deep sense of worthiness. They have the courage to be imperfect and the compassion to be kind to themselves and others.

As a result, they become authentic and willing to let go of who they think they should be in order to become who they truly are.

That willingness is essential for connection.

They believe that what makes them vulnerable is also what makes them beautiful.

They do not describe vulnerability as comfortable.

They simply recognize it as necessary.

Rabbit Trail — Stonewalling at Work

While vulnerability fosters connection, its absence can lead to behaviors like stonewalling—both in personal and professional settings.

Stonewalling has been a recurring challenge throughout my professional life. These experiences have taught me that true belonging is not simply about being seen—it is about genuinely being valued and included for who you are.

Danish culture is blunt and shaped by the idea that we live in a small egalitarian society where everyone is supposedly alike.

While this creates social cohesion, it can also create an aversion toward difference. People who deviate from the norm are often met with subtle forms of avoidance or exclusion.

I have experienced stonewalling many times throughout my professional life.

I have had meeting invitations ignored, leaving me sitting alone waiting for people who never arrived. My questions have been deflected. People have refused to talk openly about mistakes. I have been excluded from crucial information, avoided through lack of eye contact, and witnessed people physically withdraw from interactions altogether.

Studies show that emotionally non-reactive behavior often makes other people feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, or anxious.

Human beings are wired for empathy and social connection. Mirror neurons help us internally respond to the emotional states of others. It is one of the foundations of relational life.

What many people do not realize is that when we suppress our emotions, the nervous system often shifts into protective states where facial expression and emotional responsiveness become reduced.

I sense this every single time, and it always unsettles me—sometimes to the point of panic.

And the difficult thing is that cultural norms often restrict what we are socially “allowed” to say about these moments.

I was raised to believe that I should not take things personally.

So if I address the disconnection directly, I risk being perceived as rude or overly emotional, especially because the other person often believes they have hidden their reaction successfully.

I have never worked in an environment with enough psychological safety to openly address relational ruptures and repair them afterward.

To me, that is a profound cultural problem in Denmark.

 

BELONGING

A sense of belonging emerges when connection affirms your worth and authenticity.

Belonging to yourself—through self-acceptance—must come first because it allows you to be vulnerable with others.

True belonging arises when connection is both authentic and consistent.

It requires mutual acceptance and the courage to uphold your values while allowing yourself to be fully seen by others.

Belonging happens when you feel connected not because you have conformed, but because you have been accepted for who you truly are.

“True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply

that you can share your most authentic self with the world

and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness.

True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are, it requires you to be who you are.”

— Brené Brown

 

We are hardwired to belong.

It is in our DNA.

Belonging gives meaning and purpose to our lives.

Vulnerability is emotional risk, uncertainty, and exposure.

It is also one of our clearest measures of courage.

Allowing yourself to be vulnerable means allowing yourself to be seen honestly.

And vulnerability is also the birthplace of creativity, innovation, and change.

Connection happens when vulnerability is reciprocated and understood.

When we dare to be vulnerable, we connect more deeply.

And in that connection, we find belonging—both to ourselves and to the world.

You see, it all boils down to this: love is what makes life worth living.

 

Rabbit Trail — Down Childhood Lane of Belonging

I’m reminded of my own experiences as a child, navigating feelings of connection and disconnection. Reflecting on my childhood, I can see how those formative moments shaped my understanding of community and belonging.

As a child, I often felt disconnected from the world. Being neurodivergent, my nervous system was constantly overwhelmed—sensorially and emotionally. Yet at the same time, I felt deeply connected to my community, and that gave me a sense of belonging. It made me feel liked.

I could spend hours wandering around, going places, talking to people, and feeling welcomed wherever I went.

I remember one of the places where I lived had unusually tall basements—so tall that the windows were almost as high as me. In some of those basements, small communities would gather around shared interests like sewing or woodworking.

If people were there, I would go down and talk to them.

They were always friendly and eager to show me what they were working on.

I don’t know whether the 1980s were still shaped by some lingering post-war sense of community—people gathering around fires roasting marshmallows together—or whether market-driven individualism simply had not yet convinced us that we should all be “enough” on our own.

It feels as though modern narratives and fairy tales have left us torn between two ideals:

finding belonging within ourselves, or conforming in order to belong with others.

For many years, I believed that belonging to myself was enough.

I did not understand what I was missing.

I had never truly been alone. I was always part of some kind of community: family, partners, friends, schoolmates, coworkers, or people I met through shared interests.

But I had overlooked something important.

I am only capable of truly belonging to myself when I am part of a community that sees me—and where I can see them in return.

My early experiences taught me that belonging is not simply about self-sufficiency.

It is about being part of a community that sees and accepts you.

 

Rabbit Trail — My Identity and Connection to a Community as an Adult

My childhood experiences gave me a foundation for understanding belonging, but as I grew older, I realized that belonging is not static. It evolves alongside our identities.

For me, finding belonging as an adult meant navigating both my neurodivergence and my queer identity in a world that often felt alien to me.

Although I have always had a strong sense of who I was internally, I have rarely felt that I had a clear identity.

I do not understand the concepts of “man” and “woman” in the way society seems to understand them. Nor do I fully understand heterosexuality or homosexuality as rigid categories.

I do not understand the heteronormative world.

And so, much of my life has been lived in opposition to it.

But living in opposition to something does not create an identity you can truly belong to.

And with that disconnection comes shame—the feeling of not being enough.

Over the past six months, I have spoken with many different people who share one thing in common:

they are neurodivergent queers who do not see themselves reflected in heteronormative society.

And for the first time, I have started to see myself in my own right—not merely in opposition to society.

I see people like me, expressed in countless variations of gender, sexuality, relationships, and ways of existing.

I feel like a Rubik’s Cube—after years of restless turning, my sides are finally beginning to align, revealing a clearer picture of who I am.

I am no longer trying to become myself through opposition.

I am simply becoming myself.

One thing I have always struggled with about myself is that I smile—a lot.

I have often felt strangely out of place because of it.

I do not fit the stereotype of the serious lesbian who never smiles.

This connects to something known as the “still face problem.” The original experiment from the 1970s explored how infants react when caregivers suddenly stop showing emotional responsiveness.

The results were clear: when a caregiver becomes emotionally still and unresponsive, it creates fear and distress in the child.

Children need emotional connection to feel safe enough to navigate the world.

Recent studies show that infants as young as four months old are already highly attuned to facial expression and emotional responsiveness.

In some lesbian spaces, however, emotional stillness can signal seriousness, control, confidence, or dominance.

As a top, I have sometimes felt an expectation to embody that stereotype—to become emotionally controlled, untouchable, intimidating, perhaps even cruel.

But that is not me.

I am a top, but those expectations often clash with my internal state.

I love to smile and laugh.

And yes, I do enjoy inflicting pain and making someone feel exposed—but in a caring, consensual, emotionally connected way.

I enjoy it because I love seeing someone smile.

Finding community allowed me to begin finding myself.

It taught me that we are nothing without each other.

 

MONOGOMOS AND NON-MONOGOMOS RELATIONSHIPS

I am going to be bluntly honest in this section, and you may not like it—because part of my intention is to provoke reflection.

I have spoken with many people about open relationships, including non-monogamy, polyamory, and ethical non-monogamy.

One friend in particular became very important to talk with because I was able to explore both my fear and curiosity without feeling judged.

That gave me the space to investigate why certain aspects of non-monogamous relationships frightened me.

Around fifteen years ago, I explored poly, swinger, and tantra communities because I wanted to understand whether there were alternative ways of relating.

At the time, my conclusion was harsh: many of the people I encountered seemed highly self-focused, emotionally detached, and lacking empathy toward the people they were involved with.

But one person stood out.

They genuinely seemed to care deeply about the people in their life. They were aware of how their behavior affected others. They spoke about relationships with groundedness, empathy, and emotional responsibility.

Today, I would probably say that they belonged to themselves.

They had boundaries, communication skills, and enough emotional maturity to include multiple people in their life in a caring and healthy way.

To be clear, I do not think monogamous people necessarily behave differently.

They simply tell themselves—and others—a different story.

As Esther Perelsays, the deeper question is not whether a relationship is monogamous or non-monogamous, but what kind of relationship people actually want to live in.

After all, infidelity exists in both.

 

“You don’t want to leave your partner,

but you want to leave the person you’ve become.

And it is not because you’re looking for another person;

you are looking for another self

or reconnect with parts of yourself that have gone dormant for decades.”

                                                                                                                                                                             

— Esther Perel

psychotherapist & auther

 

My thoughts on relationships—monogamous or non-monogamous—are still unresolved.

The answer feels deeply personal and shaped by my evolving understanding of vulnerability, attachment, connection, and belonging.

A friend once described the process as walking down a road while slowly leaving old things from your backpack behind and picking up new things along the way.

Eventually, you find yourself surrounded by people who genuinely care about you—and whom you genuinely care about in return.

 

Rabbit Trail — Am I Monogamous or Non-Monogamous?

My thoughts on monogamy and non-monogamy are not simple.

They are shaped by my experiences, my fears, and my evolving understanding of what it means to connect deeply with another person.

For me, the answer is not binary.

It depends on the people involved, the relationships themselves, and the willingness to be emotionally vulnerable.

I have noticed that the people I feel the deepest connection and respect for—those with strong communication skills, emotional awareness, and clear boundaries—are the people I could imagine building a relationship with, whether monogamous or non-monogamous.

I have also noticed something else.

And admitting this feels strangely shameful in modern society, where we are constantly told we should all be “enough” on our own.

Part of my hesitation around non-monogamous relationships comes down to a surprisingly simple question:

Do I trust that you would feed my cat while I’m traveling?

Would you visit me in the hospital if I became seriously ill?

As Esther Perelmight put it, these questions are really about secure attachment and emotional reliability.

And honestly, I do not think most people—monogamous or non-monogamous—are very good at this.

The irony of writing this is that I do not think it fundamentally has much to do with relationship structure at all.

I think it has more to do with whether someone possesses the emotional capacity to include multiple people in their life while still offering care, consistency, honesty, and responsibility.

Whether as a partner, lover, friend, fling, or something else entirely.

People in non-monogamous relationships sometimes forget—or choose not to talk openly about—how difficult multiple relationships can actually be.

Balancing several deep emotional connections requires enormous amounts of time, communication, emotional regulation, honesty, and energy.

And if someone already lives with a long-term partner or children, another relationship often becomes structurally unequal from the beginning.

At some point, difficult questions emerge:

Are you building a shared life together?

Or are you primarily occasional lovers?

Adding the word “ethical” in front of “non-monogamous” does not automatically resolve those asymmetries.

So when I say “it depends,” it is because I know I could imagine myself in either kind of relationship.

When I genuinely like someone, I really like them.

But I would still have fears.

Would that person truly dare to see me—not only my strengths, but also my vulnerabilities?

And would they allow themselves to be fully seen by me in return?

Because ultimately, this applies equally to monogamous and non-monogamous relationships.

At the end of the day, the longing to belong is profoundly human.

 

COMMUNICATION AND REPAIR

Communication is incredibly difficult.

Vulnerability is often the only path back to each other.

And the truth is that many of us were never taught how to have honest, emotionally vulnerable conversations where we can sit with difficult feelings without either fiercely defending ourselves or collapsing into shame.

Few of us learned how to navigate disagreements in ways that allow us to reconnect afterward rather than simply deciding who was right and who was wrong.

Very few of us learned how to create enough safety for shame to exist without destroying connection.

But the good news is: we can learn.

Belonging starts with belonging to yourself first.

It means speaking honestly, telling your story truthfully, and refusing to abandon yourself in order to gain acceptance from others.

True belonging does not require you to become someone else.

It requires you to become more fully yourself.

And that is vulnerable.

The people who truly belong—the people capable of breaking things apart and putting them back together again with greater honesty and care—are the people who continue choosing connection.

They are willing to stay in the conversation.

They are willing to repair.

They are willing to remain emotionally present even when things become uncomfortable.

Those are the people I know I can share my life with.

Looking back, I realize that love truly is what makes life worth living.

I never thought I would believe—or even say—something so cliché and yet so undeniably true.