21 Jan 2026
Episode 21: Culture & Trauma Recovery: Embodiment, Ethics and Care
In this deeply connected conversation, we speak with Dr. Stephanie Arel about trauma recovery through an integrated body-mind-spirit lens and the ethical responsibilities that accompany this work. Dr. Arel shares her journey at the intersection of theology, psychology, spirituality, and meaning-making, and how both her academic research and lived experience inform her approach to trauma care and recovery. She describes her work in her trauma-focused therapeutic and consultative practice, highlighting how movement and practices like Pilates and somatics help reveal trauma held in the body and support trauma recovery. The conversation explores how trauma is defined and experienced, including distinctions between “big T” trauma and cumulative “little t” trauma, particularly among immigrants and those in vulnerable environments. Finally, Dr. Arel emphasizes embodiment, nervous system regulation, and spirituality as essential to trauma recovery, while highlighting how practitioners can offer safe, ethical support through self-reflection, awareness of bias, and trust-building. She underscores the importance of cultivating a supportive community after trauma, moving slowly, and continually tuning into the body as a guide for safety within oneself and in relationship with others.
Authors and books referenced:Ann Ulanov
Peter Levine
What Happened to You by Oprah Winfrey
Dr. Arel's Bio & Contact:
Dr. Stephanie Arel currently teaches at Fordham University. Her research focuses on pastoral practices around trauma, shame, and empathy. Her most recent projects address acts of commemoration in memorial museums and how those who mediate human memory and suffering offer a model for what it means to care for the other. Her book Bearing Witness: The Wounds of Mass Trauma at Memorial Museums (Fortress 2023) is an ethnographic exploration of workers at memorial museums around the globe considering their possible interpretation as public, pastoral theologians. She has conducted workshops in Bosnia Herzegovina, Israel, Germany and the US on the psychological costs of confronting traumatic content in the form of material and people. Arel is also author of Affect Theory, Shame and Christian Formation (Palgrave Macmillan 2016) and co-editor of Post-Traumatic Public Theology (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), Ideology and Utopia in the Twenty-First Century: The Surplus of Meaning in Ricoeur's Dialectical Concept (Lexington 2018) and Probing Human Dignity: Exploring Thresholds from an Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Springer 2023). She is a somatic experiencing practitioner and holds a certificate in treatment for trauma in the clinical setting from the New York Institute in Psychoanalysis and has been teaching in trauma and theology for 12 years. You can find her at instagram, substack and one her website below:
vanagrowth@gmail.com
https://www.vanagrowth.com/ (https://www.vanagrowth.com/)
https://www.instagram.com/vanagrowth/ (https://www.instagram.com/vanagrowth/)
https://www.instagram.com/stephanie_arel/ (https://www.instagram.com/stephanie_arel/)
https://stephaniearel.substack.com/ (https://stephaniearel.substack.com/)
https://www.youtube.com/@StephanieArel (https://www.youtube.com/@StephanieArel)
