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Facing TraumaSouthern TA Conference
Salisbury November 2013Michael Gavin
Michael Gavin embodiedtherapy.net
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OPUS CONTRA NATURAM
a work against nature
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The triune brain1. Reptilian brain2. Old mammalian brain3. Neocortex -
primate/human brain
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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.”
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stages of arousal 4
Mobilising
for fight or flight
-> focus
-> preparatory movements
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Fight
-> focus
-> intense purposeful action
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stages of arousal 5
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stages of arousal 5Flight
-> focus
-> intense purposeful action
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the brain in the hand
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Nervous system activation
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It takes two minds…
• It takes two minds to think one’s disturbing thoughts.
Michael Gavin embodiedtherapy.net
Thomas Ogden - quoting Bion
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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
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The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.
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Winnicott Playing and Reality
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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.”
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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.
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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
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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
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Germ layers
endodermgutsinternal organs
CENTRINGmesodermbones muscles blood vessels
GROUNDING
Ectodermskinbrain Nerves
FACING
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Embodiment: germ layers 3CENTRING
GROUNDING FACING
CENTRING endoderm gutsinternal organs
GROUNDING mesoderm bones
muscles blood vessels
FACING ectoderm guts
internal organs
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The capacity for Facing rests on the foundation of solid, resilient
Grounding, a lively, robust and interactive connection to one’s
Centre.
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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
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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.
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As explanation falters image, metaphor and myth come into play.
Images from Nature:
Volcanoes, earthquakes, typhoons and hurricanoes
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“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!
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volcano
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The reactor’s core
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Persus and Medusa
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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.
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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;
T.S.Eliot Four Quartets
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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:
T.S.Eliot Four Quartets
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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.
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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.
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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
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What else do we need?
• We need the right support.
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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.
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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.
Michael Gavin embodiedtherapy.net
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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.
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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.
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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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for a PDF of this presentation and other relevant in formation
go to
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for information about supervision and training withMichael Gavin
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www.embodiedtherapy.net
01202 237 712