Facing Trauma

Facing TraumaSouthern TA Conference

Salisbury November 2013Michael Gavin

Michael Gavin embodiedtherapy.net

OPUS CONTRA NATURAM

a work against nature


The triune brain1. Reptilian brain2. Old mammalian brain3. Neocortex -

primate/human brain


The brain has a triune structure: it is “like an old farmhouse, a crude patchwork of lean-tos and other extensions that conceal entirely the amphibian-reptilian toolshed at its core.”

stages of arousal 4

Mobilising

for fight or flight

-> focus

-> preparatory movements


Fight

-> focus

-> intense purposeful action


stages of arousal 5

stages of arousal 5Flight

-> focus

-> intense purposeful action


the brain in the hand


Nervous system activation


It takes two minds…

• It takes two minds to think one’s disturbing thoughts.


Thomas Ogden - quoting Bion

Trauma: a challenging subject

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness.

Certain violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud: this is the meaning of the word unspeakable.

Judith HermanMichael Gavin embodiedtherapy.net

The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.


Winnicott Playing and Reality


According to Winnicott, the encounter with trauma means that people

“carry around with them the knowledge from experience of having been mad.

Madness here means the break-up of a personal continuity of existence.”


The impact of trauma in the psyche

Trauma implies that the baby has experienced a break in life’s continuity

so that primitive defences now become organized to defend against a repetition of “unthinkable anxiety”

or a return of the acute confusional state that belongs to the disintegration of the nascent ego structure.


In the face of traumaMy hope is that this [work] will help us to relax our

gaze. ...we ought not walk around it as if [the horrific] were not there, no more than we should become one with it.

This [work] is a bearing witness, a probing. Its value lies in whether it helps us become a little less afraid of ourselves in ways that are not destructive, enriching the quality of our experiencing capacity.

Eigen, M.(1986) The Psychotic Core. Aaronson NJ


And why do we turn away?

Our subtle and pervasive capacity for somatic resonance - the ground for empathy- enables, even compels us to empathize with and therefore embody - “ ‘dreaded states’ charged with intense affects that can potentially traumatically disorganize the self system.”

Allan Schore Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self.

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But isn’t it our calling to look into the face of trauma?

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And what is Facing?

According to David Boadella, it is one of three basic functions arising from our earliest embryological structure: Grounding, Centring, Facing.

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Germ layers

Endoderm

mesoderm

ectoderm

Germ layers

endodermgutsinternal organs

CENTRINGmesodermbones muscles blood vessels

GROUNDING

Ectodermskinbrain Nerves

FACING

Embodiment: germ layers 3CENTRING

GROUNDING FACING

CENTRING endoderm gutsinternal organs

GROUNDING mesoderm bones

muscles blood vessels

FACING ectoderm guts

internal organs

The capacity for Facing rests on the foundation of solid, resilient

Grounding, a lively, robust and interactive connection to one’s

Centre.


What is it that we have to face?

When we look into the core of traumatic experience words fail.

Words strain,Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,

Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,

Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,Will not stay still.

T.S.Eliot Four Quartets

We enter the realm of the unspeakable, but also perhaps (in a more profound sense) the ineffable- that which not only cannot but should not be spoken.

The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.

As explanation falters image, metaphor and myth come into play.

Images from Nature:

Volcanoes, earthquakes, typhoons and hurricanoes

“hurricanoes” ?

This is how Shakespeare represents Lear’s madness:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!

volcano

The reactor’s core

Persus and Medusa

Can the gods help us?

• We certainly will benefit from all the wisdom and understanding we can get, and all the foreknowledge of the habits and powers of the monsters we have to confront.

• The ability to look reflectively at the faces of people affected by trauma whom we meet, will help us to avoid being frozen in our tracks.

• We need some familiarity with the Underworld, the realm of Hades.

Descend lower, descend onlyInto the world of perpetual solitude,World not world, but that which is not world,Internal darkness, deprivationAnd destitution of all property,Dessication of the world of sense,Evacuation of the world of fancy,Inoperancy of the world of spirit;This is the one way, and the otherIs the same, not in movementBut abstention from movement;


I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon youWhich shall be the darkness of God.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hopeFor hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faithBut the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:


In order to arrive there,To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.In order to possess what you do not possess You must go by the way of dispossession.In order to arrive at what you are not You must go through the way in which you are not.And what you do not know is the only thing you knowAnd what you own is what you do not own

And where you are is where you are not.

We certainly need a sharp sword at times winged sandals can be a blessing when nimble foot work is called for, and let us not forget that crane skin bag, the necessary container.

Back to our world

We are accepting the challenge, and making the attempt to be fully present, embodied, alive, affectively available and reflectively aware for ourselves and for our clients.

For most of us, this is the aimNever here to be realised;Who are only undefeated

Because we have gone on trying;T.S.Eliot Four Quartets

What else do we need?

• We need the right support.

The dialectic of trauma constantly challenges the therapist's emotional balance.

Ideally, the therapist's support system should include a safe, structured, and regular forum for reviewing her clinical work.

This might be a supervisory relationship or a peer support group, preferably both.

The setting must offer permission to express emotional reactions as well as technical or intellectual concerns related to the treatment of patients with histories of trauma.


The therapist who commits herself to working with survivors commits herself to an ongoing contention with herself, in which she must rely on the help of others and call upon her most mature coping abilities.

Sublimation, cultural wisdom, and humour are the therapist's saving graces.

The reward of engagement is the sense of an enriched life.


By constantly fostering the capacity for integration, in themselves and their patients, engaged therapists deepen their own integrity.

Just as basic trust is the developmental achievement of the earliest life, integrity is the developmental achievement of maturity.

Integrity is the capacity to affirm the value of life in the face of death, to be reconciled with the finite limits of one's own life and tragic limitations of the human condition, and to accept these realities without despair.


Integrity is the foundation upon which trust and relationships is originally formed, and upon which shattered trust may be restored.

The interlocking of integrity and trust in caretaking relationships completes the cycle of generations and regenerates the sense of human continuity which destroys trauma.


Self Remembering 101Feet on the floor pressRise to your full stature (lengthen spine)Breathe (5 out 3 in)Look around (name objects colours)Become aware of belly and warmth inside

Smile downwards and inwardsRemember something or someone that makes you feel

good, and generally OKLet your awareness expandWatch the movements of your mindRemember your Self.


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go to


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for information about supervision and training withMichael Gavin


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Facing Trauma

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