The night in the hospital gave me the time and silence to think. It was a brief hospitalization no doubt, for severe allergic reaction to hair dye (I had colored my hair earlier in the day) which caused the swelling of my tongue and throat. As this could be fatal in case the swelling blocked my air passage way, and in the worst case I might only have a couple of minutes for intervention, I was advised to stay the night for observation. This incident made me ponder the fragility of life. I had at times arrogantly assumed that I would live till old age, this incident started to make wonder what if I was wrong, that that night might have been my last night. I went to bed saying prayers for all the people that I love and those I’ve loved, and feeling thankful for everything I have had and experienced in my life thus far.
As I sat in the waiting room observing the other patients, I started wondering how much of the pain and illnesses experienced by each patient has been brought on by trauma, given the fragility of life, and how to build resilience to the challenges to life that we encounter.
Trauma has been defined by an experience of tremendous stress that is too much for the nervous system to cope or handle, or able to integrate the emotions generated by the experience. Very often, the experience tends to threaten the person’s survival or sense of security (Wikipedia). The emotions and response from these experiences tend to be stored on the person’s procedural or implicit memory which is more consistent and persistent, and harder to erase. The person in future similar traumatic situations, is able to draw on this memory very quickly in order to cope and survive. (Scaer, 2005) Every person’s response to the same traumatic event or stress is relative; the same event may be traumatic to an individual but not so for another, depending on the experience of the person and how effective the person is able to integrate the emotions associated with the event.
In the fight to survive, the body under extreme stress is very likely to be triggered to undergo the fight or flight response. In the event that none of these responses works, the person may unconsciously go into freeze which leads to dissociation. Dissociation happens when a person “locks” a traumatic memory out of his conscious mind for the sole purpose of survival.
In Parts Therapy, the dissociated part is “the wounded child” or “the vaded part” or “X” and is the vulnerable part while the “inner adult” or “Y” is the ego state that is formed after the trauma to survive and “Y” protects the whole self by rejecting “X” as “Y” deems “X” harmful to the whole self. (Stephen Lew, 2017) “X” however, will continue to manifest itself in different ways in the individual’s life. A person who has “locked” the traumatic memory of being physically abused by his grandfather out of his conscious mind would feel anxious and fearful when interacting with his grandfather or even family members who may resemble his grandfather. Over time, the symptoms may worsen through the process of irradiation of conditioning such that the person may react in similar situations related to but not identical to the original trauma (Scaer, 2005). In this case, the person may feel anxious or fearful in any situations that requires him to interact with a figure of authority which may be detrimental to his career in his adult life.
At some point in the person’s life, “X” wants to be processed, to be recognized, and to be re-integrated back to the whole self. At this time, “the adult child” or “XY” or “the client” would feel the need for change and perhaps consider therapy to seek help. The therapist through the process of hypnosis, would help with the healing by first acknowledging and recognizing “X”, have “X” go through catharsis to release all the repressed and pent up emotions and energy, and then help XY to go through the forgiveness process, before re-integrating “X” to the whole self. (Stephen Lew, 2017)
The process of catharsis is similar to what Scaer has described as freeze discharge. In the animal kingdom, after having been through a traumatic event, animals having undergone the freeze state and have survived would instinctively undergo the freeze discharge to let go of all the pent-up energy accumulated during the freeze state. In human beings however, the freeze discharge process usually gets thwarted and the trauma victims end up being locked up in freeze resulting in dissociation and other undesirable symptoms.
Not all parts in us are traumatic parts. An ego state (or part) is defined as a consistent feeling, thinking and behavior developed through repetition of behavior and experience. There are 3 broad categories of ego states or parts. We touched on hurt ego states such as traumatic part like “X”. Another hurt ego state is one that is in constant fight or flight mode, an example of which is a person who’s constantly full of rage and resentment. Another broad category would be destructive ego states such as the inner critic or the inner judge who is constantly belittling the inner child or inner adult, or even an inner perpetrator that is constantly causing harm internally in some ways. Yet another broad category and a very important one is the resourceful ego state. These resourceful parts are the helpful and positive ego states that help us move through life in a positive manner.
All of us possess a combination of all the ego states. Again, I cannot overstate the importance of self-awareness. Only in the presence of awareness are we able to identify the ego states at play and especially when certain destructive ego states become too dominant that they may be detrimental to our living life fully.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_trauma
