Acute trauma forces sudden, overwhelming, drastic change on the body. It is natural to expect that some equally drastic treatment can undo the change and restore health. Chronic trauma can be an accumulation of sudden blows, or a long-term lack of essential nurturing and care. Unlike trauma, healing is slow, gentle, and incremental. Healing from… Read More
Articles
Intervene for a Better World
Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle. —Ian MacLaren The dearest hope of many survivors is to fit in smoothly with society, to look and act “normal“. We want to interact with other people skillfully. We want to be liked. We want to be heard. We want to give and receive courtesy and… Read More
Careful Conflict
Children growing up in abusive families not only associate conflict with violence and abandonment, but also miss out on learning about healthy conflict. Resolving friction Healthy conflict is about resolving friction between different people’s needs and preferences. People in healthy conflict share goals to resolve a problem or repair a ruptured relationship. They may be… Read More
Support a Friend in Crisis
Many of us (especially if raised female) are socialized to only feel valuable when we are helping someone else. We might leap in to rescue a friend in distress, without regard to our own limits. We might get enmeshed in a helper role, always seeing the other person as someone who needs help. At the… Read More
Make Room for Grief
Grief is emotional pain in response to a loss. “Something is missing!” It can be knife-sharp and overwhelming, or a dull ongoing ache. Unlike sadness, which can be about something happening to someone else, grief is visceral, personal, immediate. It can include heartbreak, bitter disappointment, and rage at the unfairness of loss. Wail aloud Grief… Read More
How to Leave Your Practitioner
Leaving a long-term practitioner is a skill, one we do not get a chance to practice much and probably did not learn growing up. We might learn the polite, “I don’t think this is a good fit,” while we decline to reschedule with someone we saw once or twice, but it is harder to know… Read More
Elements of Refuge
Unresolved trauma acts like an internal abrasive, leaving the survivor’s nervous system feeling raw. After trauma ruptures both emotional and physical boundaries, the survivor feels exposed and endangered. Each change in the environment has to be evaluated as a possible threat. Healing practitioners can provide a calm refuge for overwhelmed survivors by offering a stable… Read More
When Help Means Rescue
While survivors of childhood abuse are often wary of receiving help, we also long for rescue. Dreams of rescue Children growing up in abusive or neglectful homes dream of their “real” parents sweeping in and scooping them up, or running away and finding a better home somewhere else, or being careful and quiet and good… Read More
When Help Means Danger
For survivors of childhood abuse, there are both internal and external barriers to getting help (therapy, bodywork, medical care, etc.) with their healing process. Neglect and abuse cause invisible losses, skills and experiences that simply did not happen. For example, a bodily sense of safety from being tended and held with gentle hands. A deep… Read More
Grow Away from Enmeshment
In an emotionally enmeshed relationship, there are two people, but only one point of view. All kinds of relationships can be enmeshed: parent and child, siblings, a romantic couple, close friends, coworkers, etc. Enmeshment is different from interdependence, where two people support and care about each other, but still maintain separate selves. Usually there is… Read More