This is part three of three of an article. You find the first part here: Part one, and the second here: Part two
About Trauma in general
One definition of (shock) trauma is, that something was too fast, too much (for the nervous system). There was no possibility to go into fight or flight. So you have to freeze. This freeze energy gets often stuck in the system. It creates a sense of helplessness that with time not only is associated with the situation, where the trauma occurred, but becomes more and more general.
Trauma has an disorganizing effect, which is that big in the organism, that it becomes fragmented. For example the memory of the trauma has no or very little connections to the rest of the memories. These trauma memories stay as islands. Normally memories dissipate, they create links to other part of our experience and merge with them. Trauma memory doesn’t merge. That’s why a lot of trauma survivor, when the trauma memory is triggered, smell what they smelled when the trauma occurred, or feel the touch as if it is happening now. These memories are frozen in time.
Our system tries always to integrate the memory, but because it was too much to take for our nervous system at that time and it is still too much intensity stored in it, it cannot be integrated. So when it cannot be integrated the self builds a wall around it, a wall of not feeling for example. The energy/ intensity is still stored, it cannot flow, it cannot be used. This block can create many symptoms, like …. chronic fatique, migraine, etc.
Also the stored intensity creates a subtle, underlying restlessness, a vibration in the nerves that is always there and makes it difficult to relax fully.
Our system can only have a specific amount of fragments or islands that are not connected, till it collapse. If we use again the picture of a network, the trauma creates dead knots. Also a network collapses when there is a specific number of dead knots. That could be the underlying mechanism to schizophrenia: there are so many fragmented parts, that there are several big fragments.
Like in the memory trauma creates islands, disconnection, it also creates disconnection in the outside world. Parts of the trauma survivor cannot brought into contact to others. The person cannot bring it into contact with themselves, cannot feel it, so it cannot brought into contact with others, too.
Another interesting link is, that trauma creates also less physical coordination.
Here I want to bring another model of learning:
In the nervous system there is always activation and then relaxation. There are always ideal learning thresholds of the intensity, that are high enough, so that it is a bit challenging. If we reach them and then relax fully, the capacity grows.
A new situation could be called a perturbation that creates an activation, when there is time of deactivation it can be integrated. If the perturbation is too big, like a trauma, it cannot be integrated. There is then a constant effort to integrate, which means bound energy. As I wrote, sometimes the perturbation is that big, that it is needed to build a wall around it, so that it doesn’t influence the rest of the system. Trauma work means to integrate the trauma, which needs to grow the capacity, till the capacity is big enough, so that the person can feel the experience without going into helplessness. It also is needed to create links between the trauma memory and the rest, so that it can dissipate into the rest of the memory network. That happens through feeling it, but also on other ways. In the end through integrating trauma the absolute capacity grows.
That means perturbations are needed for learning and growing. Trauma is generated if perturbations are too big for the moment, but can be integrated later or over time. So Trauma means also unintegrated resource.
One more thing about self-regulation: When a person fails to self-regulate by the means of their body, there are several ways to regulate by overeating, self-harming behaviour, alcohol, overworking, drugs. The more trauma there is, the more difficult it is to regulate on a healthy way. So it is needed to address trauma and disconnection when dealing with these topics.
If it is not clear yet, trauma is something that is happening on the body-level. So it is needed to be addressed there and it is very often not enough to talk only without addressing the body.
In this model trauma is part of the spectrum of human experience. In the human experience is joy, anger, frustration, but also helplessness and freeze. It is on one end of it for sure, so that it creates a singularity, something new from the rest of the spectrum. It is connected to an experience like everything on the spectrum, for trauma this experience is helplessness for example. But the singular thing is, that it creates an island in the experience which is not connected to the rest. This is one reason why it is important to look at trauma when we speak about the human experience. The other reason is, that there is so much trauma happening. I would need to make this article much longer to quote all the studies and numbers of how much trauma is happening, which I will not do this time. If you are interested to know more about Trauma, the body and all around it, I recommend the book “The body keeps the score” by Bessel van der Kolk.
When Trauma is a singularity on one end of the spectrum and the singular thing is disconnection, there is something on the other side of the spectrum that builds connection. That could be love, but maybe also uniqueness. So with that I mean, when I feel who I am, what makes me unique, all the things I love and feel connected to (which has much stronger effect than general love, because it is specific and it is different things, like a star constellation of who I am), it’s something that can create a singularity in terms of connection. This is more an abstract thought, so I am not sure about that, for now it fits and completes the model.
Journey to growth and inner peace
In this part I want to give an overview of the guiding principles I found helpful, which are for sure evolving all the time.
I like the following thought: “Healing means not to become whole, you can start with wholeness”. There is a part in us, that is whole, we are good on the ground, we don’t have to get there. In this way we can start from a place of self worth.
In Organic Intelligence there are 3 phases, that a person can be in, described: Chaos, Complex and Coherent. In the Chaos phase, the person cannot follow instructions, sometimes is not even willing to try that. They are so much in the vortex of the trauma, that they even would fight, if we try to bring them out or just cannot escape it. In Chaos there are always sequences of order in the bigger picture of the chaos. It is needed to give these moments of order some more attention, to get with time to the next phase. In the Complex Phase it is again possible to follow a plan. In the Coherent phase it is needed to let go of the planing/ doing and to follow the own system what it wants to do. It is about letting go of control.
I would like to add the picture of the heroes journey for that: In the first phase, something happens to show the hero that he cannot live his life as he know it. Sometimes even several things have to happen till the hero understands the call. Now the hero has to start his journey and needs to find companions and the key, something he needs so that he can complete his quest. In a way to try to bring someone out of this phase without the key makes no sense for the person. Some part of the person will say “No, I don’t have the key yet, I have to jump into the chaos again”. Often the hero refuses to follow the quest, till he found his personal answer, why he does this. So he has to find his own life purpose. This key is often found in old wounds and trauma, that is why these things come up so strong in this phase. The hero needs to face the truth, that he didn’t wanted to see before, so that can continue. After finding this key, the hero can really start the journey. If the person knows their purpose and still is in Chaos it is either because the purpose is only understood mentally and is not really in the body; or one part of their truth of why and how to proceed is still missing. You can also think of it as following: Before the chaos, the person is aware of one part of their story and is living his life with this knowledge. Now something happens, that is out of range, the start of the heroes journey. The knowledge the person had before is not enough, also the knowledge and understanding the person has from his/herself is not enough. So this is why in this phase it is, as if the person has to dig deeper in their own history, so that they can integrate more of him/herself. The challenge is here, that in the Chaos phase the person has not enough capacity to integrate, so you have to be careful not to dig in the story forever, without integrating.
The complex phase is the phase of training. Now when the hero is with all of his being is behind the quest, he has to train. He has to learn and exercise what is needed to fulfill the quest.
Often shortly before the completion of the quest, the hero has to let go of a belief that he held, or a knowledge he had and only then he sees clear and becomes a true master who can solve the quest with ease. What he has to let go is often connected with something that was true and important while training but which is needed to let go for mastery. This is the Coherent phase.
Another thing that I learned, especially through Organic Intelligence, that there is always something organizing happening and that it is just needed to put the attention to find that, in the sense of, being open to receive it the moment you become aware of it.
It is about following the natural waves and help the system to relax after a upward wave.
Another big influence for me is the Pantarei Approach: While Organic Intelligence is about following what wants to happen, the Pantarei Approach is about the uniqueness of the client. It’s an active exploration of what makes the client special and unique. In these qualities lies the answer for all questions. For me the beauty in this lies that through this it’s not focused on the trauma or problem, but really on the person and who she/he is.
Another perspective on this is, that in the Pantarei Approach it’s about the hero of the journey and his/her abilities. This uniqueness is there from the beginning, you can find it in all 3 phases (if we again take the 3 phase model). It can express very different in these phases. When focusing on the uniqueness, we give our clients their power back, the thing that will help them through all their journey. To be totally correct, the uniqueness is not one thing, but complex.
In Organic Intelligence the focus is also not on the trauma, but on the waves of intensity and the system inherent organizing impulse that leads in the end to a self-organizing system.
This is so needed and I wonder how the world will change, when we focus on all the beauty and uniqueness of everything that is.
I wrote a lot about trauma, because it is needed to know what it creates in the body or in the experience of someone. It is needed to see what it creates on a social level and how much trauma we all have in us. As equally important is, that in being together, helping each other to grow or just enjoy the company of others, we need to focus on the uniqueness, to be curious about the other person from a place of loving attention. It is needed to focus to see the person has whole, to find where I feel safe, open, what are my gifts and all of that. This is primary, integrating trauma is happening on the way.
What would change socially if we use this model?
This is a big topic and I have my thoughts about it. For now I would like to ask some questions, without answering them, so that everybody can answer them on their own: What would change if we really understand the connection between body, mind and emotions? How would we think about illnesses and how would we treat patients? What would change if we recognize how big the theme of trauma is and what it creates?
What needs to change in rising our children, how we treat old people, prisoners, people who abuse drugs?
What insights arise from the model?
A new model is only helpful if it creates new conclusions or questions. What would it create, if we use the knowledge of integration of body and mind and emotions? Where do we would act differently?
For me it is interesting to so see what this model shows in regard to how we experience our life and how we can change this experience. It puts emphasis on the body as where we experience everything and that this means that it is important to have the body much more in our attention when we try to create a change or we just want to live to the fullest and experience to the fullest. The emotions as the fuel are important as well as the thoughts that are part of the integration/learning.
Literature
If you are interested in these topics have a look at
“The body keeps the score”, by Bessel van der Kolk
“Trauma and Memory – Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past”, by Peter Levine
Also have a look on the webpage of the Pantarei Approach, where I learned the holistic bodywork I do:
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