In terms of enhanced resiliency, victims once healed will never be “normal’ again, but, instead, often exceed their own expectations. Resolved trauma leads survivors to expand their range of resiliency and capacities because. In order to recover, they must access resources they may never have accessed otherwise. During the completion stage of recovery, the client often enjoys a treasure hunt- exploring an unfolding new life that includes mastery, empowerment, and the inner knowledge that the challenge of trauma can be met.
— Dr Diane Poole Heller

Unprocessed pain keeps our system of self-preservation on permanent alert. In addition to sudden intrusive memories, a wide range of situations, many non-threatening, may activate the alarmingly high levels of pain and fear stored in our body. Our partner might raise her voice in irritation, and the full force of our past wounds—all the terror or rage or hurt that lives in our body—can be unleashed.  Whether or not there is any present danger, we feel absolutely at risk and compelled to find a way to get away from the pain.

In order to make it through such sudden and severe pain, victims of trauma typically dissociate from their bodies, numbing their sensitivity to physical sensations. Some people feel “unreal,” as if they have left their body and are experiencing life from a great distance. They do whatever they can to keep from feeling the raw sensations of fear and pain in their body. They might lash out in aggression or freeze in depression or confusion. They might have suicidal thoughts or drink themselves senseless. They overeat or starve themselves, use drugs, obsess, and in other ways try to numb or control their experience. Yet the pain and fear don’t go away. Rather, they lurk in the background and from time to time suddenly take over.

Dissociation, while protective, creates suffering. When we leave our bodies, we leave home. By rejecting pain and pulling away from the ground of our being, we experience the dis-ease of separation—loneliness, anxiety, and shame. Author and psychotherapist Alice Miller lets us know that there is no way to avoid what’s in the body. We either pay attention to it, or we suffer the consequences:

The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, and conceptions confused, and our body tricked with medication. But someday our body will present its bill, for it is as incorruptible as a child, who, still whole in spirit, will accept no compromises or excuses, and it will not stop tormenting us until we stop evading the truth.

SYMPTOMS OF TRAUMA

• Anxiety/Panic attacks and phobias
• Feeling disconnected and detached
• Feeling isolated and alone
• Depression
• Fears and Helplessness
• Hyper-vigilance
• Hyperactivity
• Mood swings
• Weight gain
• Extreme sensitivity to light and sound
• Insomnia
• Nightmares
• Loss of memory
• Physical pain
• Chronic Fatigue
• Loss of vitality
• Constriction
• Dissociation
• Reduced ability to deal with stress

TREATMENT STRATEGY & TOOLS FOR SOMATIC TRAUMA RESOLUTION

• Recognition that the trauma survivor actually did survive the trauma.
• RESOURCES – Develop an inventory of resources to help you access a sense of safety support and love. This helps neutralize over-arousal in the nervous system. We then install these new positive images and beliefs and build a new neural brain circuitry. Here we will use an adjunct to EMDR called Resource Tapping.
• FELT SENSE/SENSATE FOCUS – Helps you to develop a relationship with your body and track your experience in your body.
• PENDULATION AND MODULATION – Helps you to shift your attention back and forth between the calming effect of resources and the high activation of traumatic material in a manageable, balanced way.
• PACING AND TITRATION – The part of our brain where we are in freeze and immobility is called the reptilian brain. It processes seven times slower than the neocortex. We need a slower pace and rhythm to integrate traumatic material. We break the activation down into small pieces so that the integration will be easier and safer and to prevent flooding and overwhelm.
• RESTORING BOUNDARIES – We use various methods to restore personal space and containment that allows you to feel safe, protected, and empowered.
• SOUL RETRIEVAL – Healing the encapsulated self. In traumatic events, there is usually no time or space. A part of us becomes dissociated and encapsulated in the traumatic event. Here we close the gap between the present you who has survived, and the past encapsulated wounded self, for integration and development.
• BIOLOGICAL SEQUENCING – Working with your innate biological sequencing in terms of how your body deals with threat. Here we use modalities developed from the work of Stephen Porges and his Polyvagal Theory.
• DISCHARGE – Supporting discharge in the autonomic nervous system and completing defensive orienting responses. Releasing the trauma energy from the body.

SOURCES AND CAUSES OF TRAUMA

• Abandonment
• Birth trauma
• Bonding break with parent
• Consistent criticism and judgement
• Anger and violence
• Rape
• Incest
• Sexual molestation
• Car crash
• Surgery medical and dental
• Divorce
• Death of a loved one
• War
• Suicide of a loved one
• Forced emigration or loss of homeland
• Illness
• Torture
• Accidents and falls
• Any experience that causes a threat to your life
• Natural disasters