“In the face of intense yearnings for connection and in order to remain in the only relationships available, we develop strategies that keep more and more of ourselves out of connection.”
Carol Gilligan (1991); Gilligan, Lyons & Hammer, 1990
At the core of gender and trauma-responsive practice lies what Carol Gilligan called the Central Relational Paradox. In our yearning for connection, many of us—especially women and girls—develop strategies that protect relationships at the expense of authenticity. We silence parts of ourselves to stay safe, to be accepted, or simply to survive.
Irene Stiver (1990a, 1990b) and Judith Jordan (1991) showed that these strategies of disconnection often emerge in families marked by secrecy, addiction, or abuse. They are adaptive and creative, rather than defective, forms of survival, yet they come at the cost of shame, confusion about one’s own feelings, and a painful sense of inauthenticity. Healing begins when we can name these patterns and create the conditions for reconnection.
Context Matters: Gender, Culture and Family Systems
Gender-responsive care begins by honoring context. Sexism, racism, classism, and other systemic “-isms” are not peripheral. They are part of the lived environment shaping each woman’s strategies for survival. Equally important are the familial blueprints learned in childhood: how emotions were handled, how love and safety were earned, and how disconnection was normalized.
We have to respect the context in which the woman and the family are functioning. What are the external forces impacting her struggles, and what are the familial strategies learned in childhood?
Viewing things through this lens reminds us that resilience and pain are entwined. A trauma-responsive, gender-aware clinician seeks not to “correct” behavior but to understand what each strategy protects and then to co-create safer ways of relating.
From Condemned Isolation to Self-Compassion
Shame is the silent barrier to healing. When we are lost in shame, we are trapped in what Jordan (1991) termed condemned isolation: “I am left out of all connection—and it’s my fault.”
The antidote is self-compassion. Kristin Neff (2003) defines it as extending kindness to ourselves in moments of pain, recognizing our common humanity, and holding our struggles in mindful awareness rather than judgment. As Sylvia Boorstein tenderly reminds us, “It’s okay, sweetie—you’re just hurting.”
Self-compassion transforms avoidance into curiosity. Instead of turning away from difficult emotions, we gently turn toward them. In doing so, we reclaim the energy once spent on self-protection and begin to experience what Jordan et al. (1991) termed the five good things—zest, clarity, sense of worth, productivity, and a desire for greater connection.
Open-Hearted Aliveness
When we remain stuck in avoidance, whether through substances, perfectionism, or control, we expend enormous energy keeping our feelings at bay. Turning toward our experience frees that energy and opens the heart. This is the beginning of what I call open-hearted aliveness: a state in which curiosity replaces defensiveness and vitality replaces numbness.
Kenneth McKenna (quoted in Covington, 1994) describes this aliveness as a form of ecstasy, not in the sense of recklessness, but as the freeing up of energy once bound in fear.
When we are lost in fear, most of our thoughts are occupied with controlling ourselves, controlling other people, and ignoring anything that doesn’t fit our idea about how life should be. Ecstasy is not being out of control or detached from reality; it is an intense joy that arises when we open ourselves to the elastic flow of feeling and energy in our bodies. Our ability to open and connect becomes a source of power in times of conflict and adversity.
Through this opening, women learn to move from self-control to self-connection. The energy once spent suppressing emotion becomes available for creativity, relationships, and purpose.
A Gender-Responsive View of the Twelve Steps
Stephanie Covington (1994), in A Woman’s Way Through the Twelve Steps, reframes step one by admitting powerlessness through a gender-responsive lens. For women who have endured “power over” experiences, the language of powerlessness can re-trigger trauma. The healing reframe lies in empowerment through surrender and in recognizing that letting go is not a sign of weakness but of strength. It reframes this step as:
- Replacing the pain of powerlessness with the concept of empowerment through surrender
- Downplaying the need for others to control our lives
- Recognizing that the power-over paradigm has been painful and abusive
- Accounting for the fact that many women already feel powerless
Gender-responsive practice reclaims the Steps as relational, embodied, and empowering. Recovery becomes less about control and more about trust, including trust in self, in safe others, and in the possibility of connection.
Recovery as Addition, not Subtraction
Traditional models often define recovery by what is removed, such as substances, behaviors, or symptoms. Gender-responsive models redefine it by what is added, including dignity, safety, connection, and joy.
Promote a definition of recovery that focuses not on what is eliminated or removed from a woman’s life but on what is being added to her life.
This shift reframes healing as an expansion rather than a contraction. It centers vitality, belonging, and meaning, which are the natural outcomes of restored connection.
Turning Toward Life
From disconnection to self-compassion and from condemned isolation to open-hearted aliveness, gender-responsive interventions trace a path of courageous reconnection.
When we move from avoidance to curiosity, we free the energy locked in shame. When we surrender control and discover power. When we open our hearts, we rediscover ecstasy, which is the deep, grounded joy of being fully alive and connected.
Relational recovery seeks not to erase the past but to reclaim the self that has always been waiting beneath it.
Sources:
- Boorstein, S. (2010). Happiness Is an Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life. Ballantine Books.
- Brown, B. (2012). Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Gotham Books.
- Covington, S. S. (1994). A Woman’s Way Through the Twelve Steps. Hazelden.
- Covington, S. S. (2008). Women and Addiction: A Trauma-Informed Approach. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, SARC Suppl 5, 377–385.
- Gilligan, C., Lyons, N., & Hammer, T. (1990). Making Connections: The Relational Worlds of Adolescent Girls at Emma Willard School. Harvard University Press.
- Jordan, J. V. (1991). The Meaning of Mutuality. In J. V. Jordan et al. (Eds.), Women’s Growth in Connection. Guilford Press.
- Jordan, J. V., Kaplan, A. G., Miller, J. B., Stiver, I. P., & Surrey, J. L. (1991). Women’s Growth in Connection: Writings from the Stone Center. Guilford Press.
- Miller, J. B. (1988). Connections, Disconnections, and Violations. Stone Center Working Paper Series.
- Miller, J. B., & Stiver, I. P. (1997). The Healing Connection: How Women Form Relationships in Therapy and in Life. Beacon Press.
- Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85–101.
- Stiver, I. P. (1990a, 1990b). The Meaning of “Dependency” in Female Development. Stone Center Working Paper Series.
