Trauma work

From my practice I’ve met someone who told me the following:

<<My doctor asked me if I’ve done "trauma work" with a therapist before (I have a long history of trauma) and I said no. Why? I don't know. I'm terrified because I suppose that once the lid is off I'll not be able to put it back on and I'll never be able to even pretend I'm ok ever again.>>

If you’ve been through a trauma in your life this probably resonates a lot with you.

This type of response is related to protecting oneself, the “survivor” part of us that helped us survive in the moment of the trauma.

From Franz Ruppert’s teachings, during a traumatic event, in order to protect us, our psyche splits in 3 parts: the surviving self, the traumatized self and the healthy self.

Each of these selves carries some memories, beliefs and feelings that are connected to the trauma.  When we talk about the parts (as in “part of me feels this”) instead of talking “from within” (as completely identified with the parts “I am ovewhelmed”, “I am terrified”), we recognise that this part exists. This gives us the possibility to also allow other parts to emerge and be seen from the healthy self as resources to be accessed. 

The survivor part decides it will protect us from feeling that which we experienced in the traumatic event.

From Richard Schwartz, he talks about the same categories with different names – Exiles, Managers and Firefighters. If we associate the two models, Exiles are traumatized parts, and Managers and Firefighters are the survival parts. 

The undamaged essence-self that Schwartz speaks about would be the healthy self from Ruppert’s work. The healthy part/self is confident and comes up to lead the healing process.

It’s a bit like having multiple facets of our personality and each time we might be speaking and feeling from another part of ourselves. It’s important to bring that into our awareness, become conscious of which part we’re speaking from, identify them, as they might not be aware of each other.