Unconditional Love As A Principle of Trauma-Informed Care, with Rev. Sanghoon Yoo
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In This Episode
Reverend Sanghoon Yoo has walked an incredible journey - from a social worker dealing with trauma and crisis to becoming a pastor and experiencing his own period of trauma and burnout. This led him to the trauma-informed care movement over a decade ago.
In this episode Rev. Yoo shares how principles of unconditional love and creating a "community of belonging" are key to being trauma-informed, even for those without clinical training. He powerfully reframes trauma-informed practices not just as an individual healing approach but as a societal justice issue that we all contribute to positively or negatively.
Rev. Yoo's perspective bridges the worlds of faith and science. He highlights how showing compassion and safety and making space for people's stories without correction creates the foundations for a trauma-informed community. Just as importantly, he emphasizes that to hold space for others' pain, we must start with self-love and self-care.
Ultimately, Rev. Yoo casts a vision of communities becoming resilient together across all divides - faith traditions, sectors, politics, and more. Being trauma-informed is an ongoing journey, but one that can bring hope through the powerful pivot of asking, "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?"
Listen as we learn from Rev. Yoo, whose lived experience and spiritual wisdom make him a unique voice in the trauma-informed movement.
About Rev. Sanghoon Yoo
Rev. Sanghoon Yoo leading a trauma-informed movement in the faith space. He’s the founder of The Faithful City and Arizona Trauma Informed Faith Coalition and has led ministries and social services at Arizona State University and the Phoenix metropolitan area for over three decades.
Connect with Rev. Sanghoon Yoo
Connect with Maria
Speaking & Training | LinkedIn | Email
Transcripts
Maria: Hello and welcome. Today, I'm sharing space with Reverend Dr. Sanghoon Yoo, who has had quite the journey as a social worker turned pastor. He is the founder of The Faithful City and the Arizona Trauma-Informed Faith Coalition. He has led ministries and social services at Arizona State University and in the Phoenix metropolitan area for over three decades. He is leading a trauma-informed movement in the faith space, and I’m so grateful to have this gentle spirit with us today.
Maria: Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. You have such an interesting intersection of trauma-informed care and the faith community. How did you get there? What was your journey into this intersection?
Rev. Yoo: Thank you, Maria, for having me today. Three decades ago, I was doing social work—my area was trauma and crisis intervention. It was too heavy. I knew I was called to be a pastor and work with young people and in community ministry. Meanwhile, I entered my own traumatic season after working with congregations and communities. This is what we call vicarious trauma, or secondary trauma. When you hear people’s stories and deal with trauma regularly, it affects you.
I got to a place where I almost gave up everything. I was experiencing suicidal ideation. Around that time, I attended a conference in D.C., and nearby there was another event—a Trauma-Informed Congregation Conference. I had never heard of anything like that. I didn’t think mental health, church, and pastoring could work together. I was fascinated.
That was my first encounter with the trauma-informed care movement. When I came back to Arizona, I connected with leaders here. We have the Arizona ACEs Consortium—ACEs stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. I joined them and started building a faith-based movement alongside them. This work became so vital. That was over ten years ago.
But the most important part is my healing testimony. Faith and science working together—it actually happened in my life. Since then, I’ve trained churches, faith communities, schools, government agencies, and more. With this local and national movement growing, here I am today. Of course, it's all by the grace of God, and with so many amazing people working alongside me. Sorry—I talk too much. I'm a pastor.
Maria: I’m a daughter of a pastor, so I understand and appreciate it. I find it fascinating that you were in social work, working in trauma and crisis, then moved into pastoral work—and you didn’t really get away from trauma and crisis, did you?
It sounds like you were now living with vicarious trauma while also navigating your own lived experience. And it’s so interesting that you were doing this ten years ago. When did the ACEs study come out? I think that was in the 90s?
Rev. Yoo: Yes, it was published in 1998. But I don’t think it got much attention until neuroscience and brain science really started to develop. That’s when it began to get picked up more widely.
Maria: It’s been both slow and fast, hasn’t it? But ten years ago, you were really at the beginning—not just of the trauma-informed movement, but of applying it beyond veterans or war-related trauma. And very quickly, you were bringing that into the faith space. Why is it so important that people are trained to be trauma-informed in faith-based communities?
Rev. Yoo: Thirty years ago, most people didn’t know what PTSD was. Trauma-informed care was not widely recognized. But everything shifted during the COVID pandemic. We call that a collective trauma. Trauma became not just an individual issue—it became global. The pandemic, racial tension, political division—it all surfaced at once.
The good news is that we no longer have to explain what trauma is. People recognize it. Faith leaders now see trauma, mental health, and substance use as central issues. Many say, “It’s not that I don’t want to deal with this, but I don’t have a degree in counseling. I’m not equipped.”
That’s where I come in. My work is about building a movement, not just offering a certification. It’s about helping people create therapeutic communities, even if they aren’t therapists. Because we can be powerfully therapeutic just by how we show up.
For example, in trauma work we say, “Instead of asking, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ask, ‘What happened to you?’” That shift alone can be deeply healing. You don’t need credentials to create a trauma-informed church, synagogue, mosque, or community. What you need is a shift in perspective and a heart posture that creates safety and welcome.
Maria: I can absolutely imagine being a pastor and feeling overwhelmed—holding space for so much pain without having a social work background. It’s similar for me as a storyteller. I have training in how to tell a good story, but not in how to sit with someone who’s experienced the most painful parts of their life.
That’s why I think it’s so important to do two things: First, equip people who don’t have formal training with basic trauma-informed tools. Second, help them recognize where their boundaries are, and when it’s time to pass the torch to someone with more training. There’s room for both—learning how to ask questions differently and hold space, while also knowing our limits.
Take me back to ten years ago. What were some of the challenges when you were just starting these coalitions and trainings in Arizona?
Rev. Yoo: The challenges are ongoing. Even ten years ago, people would say, “Yes, we need healing,” but as long as we stay in an “us and them” mindset, healing is limited. The problem is, people think, “You’re in pain, I’ll help you.” But trauma has long-term effects. You might have a great session with a counselor, then return to a workplace where your boss doesn’t understand trauma at all—and you can be re-traumatized immediately.
That’s why I talk about this as a movement. It’s like fighting racism. We need everyone involved. Trauma is connected to justice, race, politics, society. It’s not just about healing—it’s about transformation. I’m not asking people to become social workers. I’m saying we are already contributing to trauma-informed care—positively or negatively. Which side do you want to be on?
Maria: That’s powerful. This isn’t just a role for leaders—it’s for everyone. Of course pastors should have this training, but so should congregants, community members, neighbors, bosses, coworkers. Trauma is pervasive. We’ve all experienced it, especially during the pandemic. I love what you said: we’re all contributing, one way or another.
Rev. Yoo: Exactly. Even the top scientists say the key to healing trauma isn’t a pill or a particular therapy—it’s relationships. Anyone can contribute to creating safe, healing relationships.
Our movement is all about safety. We talk about asking “What happened to you?” but safety has to come first. If someone shares their story and is met with judgment or correction, they can be re-traumatized. That’s why we say, “Connection before correction.” You don’t need a degree to do that. Even therapists need to remember this. Trauma-informed care is about kindness, compassion, and presence.
Science is now confirming what faith communities have always taught: compassion matters. Safety matters. I was surprised to see science catching up to what we already believe.
Maria: That’s so true in my work too. Diana Ifeoma Henrik mentioned this on the podcast—how we forget the power dynamic when we ask people to share their stories. She said, “Start with being human.” And you’re right—sometimes we forget to do that. We forget to be compassionate.
You have this “Weave and Cleave” theme. Can you tell me more about it?
Rev. Yoo: Yes, trauma keeps finding me—it’s part of my calling. Ten or fifteen years ago, a young man in my ministry said, “Pastor, you’re a weaver,” because so many different people came together in our space. I held onto that.
The word cleave comes from the Bible—it means to separate from the past and join with something new. It’s used in marriage language, but it applies here too. We each come with our own histories, pain, and joy, but we can cleave to a new community of belonging—not because of what we do, but because of who we are. That’s what Weave and Cleave is about.
Maria: That’s beautiful. And you work with such diverse communities. Do you have to adapt your trauma-informed principles based on different cultural backgrounds?
Rev. Yoo: It’s hard to find common ground when everyone comes from different places. Whether it's food, climate preferences, or traditions, it can be difficult. But one thing is universal: everyone wants to be accepted and loved unconditionally.
Unconditional love is the foundation. That’s both a trauma-informed care principle and a spiritual one. I’m a pastor, so I’m supposed to know unconditional love—but I realized I didn’t. In helping professions, we often carry guilt and shame. I realized I was preaching unconditional love, but I hadn’t fully received it myself.
God wants me to love myself because God loves me. Only then can I love others well. That’s why I always preach the importance of self-care. If I’m not healthy, I can’t help others in a healthy way.
Maria: I’ll be vulnerable here—I didn’t truly understand unconditional love until I became a mother. My now five-year-old had a very strong attachment to my husband and rejected me for two years. It was developmentally normal, but it was hard. I learned what it meant to love someone who wasn’t returning that love. That season matured me.
For storytellers, I think that lesson is important. What does it mean to love the people whose stories we tell? What does it mean to love our audiences, even when we don’t agree with them? And how do we love ourselves through it all?
Rev. Yoo: You are absolutely right. We can only hold space for others as much as we have been healed ourselves. Your story about your daughter is a perfect example. Now, you can extend that kind of love to others too. That’s what trauma-informed care is about.
Maria: One last question. What is your hope or vision for trauma-informed care in faith-based spaces?
Rev. Yoo: Resiliency. People are divided—by faith, politics, race, education—but I believe we can come together to build resilience. That gives people hope. That’s what I want to see in faith communities, and in every community.
Maria: It’s a journey, not a destination.
Rev. Yoo: Amen.
Maria: Thank you so much for coming on When Bearing Witness. It’s been such a joy to listen to your perspective and learn from your decades of experience. Thank you for sharing space with me today.
Rev. Yoo: Thank you, Maria.
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