Licensed Talkspace Therapist, Dr. Karmen Smith LCSW, CSIM is a Clinical Social Worker with over 30 years of experience who has worked to reunite parents with their children who have been in foster care. Most families have experienced generational trauma and are not aware of the patterns they were perpetuating. Dr. Smith has given workshops and classes on understanding the trauma triggers so that foster parents, parole officers and shelter staff can be empathetic caregivers, which stops the cycle of abuse. Dr. Smith developed a psychological model of identifying the energetic motion of dysfunctional behavior called the “Human Hamster Wheel” which provides a visual representation for therapeutic purposes.