#Asami has surprisingly good coping methods despite the trauma she's experiences

[thatonebirdwrites]

This is so, so accurate. LOL They really do all need therapy.

What I find interesting in the show, Asami, despite having intense trauma and a storyarc that mirrored Korra's, is also the best adapted with coping methods. She also seems to have a better handle on how to dismantle negative core beliefs and transform them into more hopeful and loving core beliefs.

You see this in that filler episode in Book 4. Korra is talking about how all the things she did failed to do anything good. Asami counters this by reframing.

Reframing is an excellent coping and healing technique for taking our negative core beliefs, which trauma instills in us, and transforming them into something new. Reframing adjusts the perspective to allow us to see our own resiliency and positive impact (despite the trauma faced). It can help take us out of the spiral of pain that traumatic memories can easily cause.

For example, when Korra sees the pain she suffered with Amon, and how she felt like she did no good. Asami takes that and reframes it to show that her actions did cause good things, and despite the pain and trauma - which Asami is careful to validate as real - Korra helped bring about good change.

Asami does this for each traumatic fight Korra describes. Her reframing starts to break down Korra's despair and transform it back into hope.

And then Tenzin barges into the scene with his hogwash that doesn't challenge the negative core beliefs Korra has but reinforces it. Which is not healthy thing to do at all.

Asami's actions in that scene challenged Korra's negative core beliefs about herself in a gentle and loving way.

Tenzin's actions later in the scene reinforced the negative core belief.

This is why I think Asami has a better handle on healing and spiritual support because she sought to validate Korra's emotions and also gently challenge her negative core beliefs.

Negative core beliefs often come about because of our trauma, where we internalize what happens in a way that hurts us, where we take responsibility for things others did to us when that's not on us to own, where we punish ourselves (knowingly or not) for events that hurt us.

Reframing can help dismantle all of that, and crack the negative core belief. It is only one tool in the toolbox for therapists assisting us with transforming negative core beliefs into healthier and more hopeful/loving ones. There's a lot of other techniques as well, but I found it interesting that of all the characters, Asami Sato is the one that seems to have mastered the reframing technique.

So in essence, Asami is very good at assisting others in a therapeutic way, far more than Tenzin, but she is not particularly good at doing it for herself.

lok screencaps + therapy tweets because boy do they all need it