A Comment on Trauma

I would like to take a moment and address those of you who might have come here because of “trauma”. And I do not mean the general trauma that is the subject of all therapy. I am referring to somatic/body and psychic trauma coming from overwhelming, shattering, or neglectful experience in childhood or adulthood. The body and psyche can be left in a state that is no longer congruent functioning. A car accident, the death of someone close, prolonged or severe neglect—any event that breaks the continuity of self (often noticed by difficulties sleeping, triggering memories etc). Some people say there is small t trauma and big T trauma. In that sense, I work with big T trauma.

Unprocessed trauma usually has a way of living our lives for us. It can quietly organize our life from the background. People who carry this kind of trauma usually know it but may not realize how specific trauma and its symptoms show up. Trauma triggers tend to show up in two forms: black and white thinking that aid avoidance of stress, or; in quick aggressive or sad emotional states that feel, "out of control". In many cases a person experiences both. Trauma can cause unknown avoidance or repeatedly entering the same relationships and situations despite our want prevent this return.

Now while trauma can be severe it is in trauma that we can recover important pieces of our strength and wholeness that provide new and deeper forms of self recovery. In this way trauma can present a gift from the painful dark - those choosing to work with their trauma can not only move towards regulation and safety they can also recover more than was lost prior to the trauma.

A client and I once found an image: trauma is a vase that has cracked, sometimes in many pieces, or sometimes one deep crack. Therapy is the careful mending of those cracks. When the work is thorough, the vase from the outside looks whole again, it feels whole again - because it is. And yet, the gifts of mending oneself and repairing ones own wounds extends far beyond one injury - it extends to all injuries.

I cannot do the mending for you, but I know this terrain well enough to sit with you while we sort through the pieces, collect the materials and begin mending what ails you.