Understanding the effects of trauma rather than focusing on the events that caused them opens up a new pathway to healing even for survivors with many years of therapy. In Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment or TIST, the ongoing effects are understood as implicit nonverbal feeling and somatic memories held by fragmented parts of ourselves. Why does trauma cause fragmentation? Because traumatic experiences are too overwhelming to be tolerated, especially by children, and dissociation gives us a way to distance from what is happening. Fragmenting helps us to survive but then becomes a barrier to healing. Rather than pathologizing trauma-related symptoms and the parts that carry them, this approach emphasizes acceptance through befriending even our darkest, most destructive parts so that we can find wholeness and healing.