Many people enter the therapy process with minimal awareness of their trauma history. When the trauma survivors are dissociative, they have the ability to block out an awareness of their trauma. They may know that their family had problems, or that their family was dysfunctional, etc, but they may believe they were never abused. However, blocking out conscious awareness of trauma does not mean … [Read more...]
12 Tips for Reducing Shame
Need some tips for reducing shame? One of the hardest areas of healing work in trauma disorders is dealing with shame. For many survivors of sexual abuse, healing work involves learning about a lot of intense memories that leave them feeling a great deal of shame, humiliation, and embarrassment. These are difficult emotions to process, and the memory material is typically very overwhelming. Some survivors … [Read more...]
HBO’s “In Treatment” – Is That What Therapy is Like?
How many of you have been watching the award-winning HBO Series, "In Treatment" with Gabriel Byrne, Dianne Wiest, and John Mahoney? This HBO series is currently near the beginning of its second season, centered around how Dr. Paul Weston (Byrne) conducts therapy sessions with four different clients, and then his own individual therapy process with his own therapist, Dr. Gina Toll (Wiest). In my opinion, the "In … [Read more...]
Difficult Holiday Times
For many dissociative trauma survivors, various holidays and times of year are more difficult than other days. Some survivors may know they typically have a difficult time at the change of seasons, or when Easter-time comes, for example, but they may not have the memories or internal information to understand why they consistently have a difficult time at that time of year. Are you struggling more now … [Read more...]
Child Parts – When They Hold Suicidal Power and Influence
We've had some very interesting discussions on the "What do you think about Suicide?" blog article. Thank you to everyone who writes and comments on this blog - your participation is valued and appreciated. One of the topics that surfaced on that thread is the idea that trauma survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID/MPD) may have child parts within their system that can be suicidal, and that the ability … [Read more...]