My psychological mentor, Dr. Eugene Gendlin, first drew my attention by saying that change doesn’t happen unless it happens in the body. As a yoga teacher, I knew this was true. That’s when I began to study Focusing with him. Focusing, as you know, is a sort of inner yoga.
One of the physical ways of releasing trauma held in the body is described below by guest blogger Ramona Ng. Here is what she has to say about her approach to the body. Read more
I asked Sarah Olson to be my guest blogger. Sarah, like me, has chosen to write a book in order to share with others her story of childhood trauma.
Sarah’s form of dissociation was particularly severe.
A child’s brain does whatever is necessary to survive trauma. First lines of defense are daydreaming, numbing, forgetting, going dead inside or floating out of body while looking down at “another child” being abused. When all these strategies are insufficient, the child’s brain creates “other children” to suffer the abuse. The “self” remains unaffected. All the bad stuff happens to others, known as “alters.” As new, intolerable abuses occur, more parts split off to form more alters.
Here then, is Sarah Olson’s message: Read more
I’ve asked a number of writers to provide us with guest blog entries over the next few weeks. I hope you find their fresh perspectives useful in guiding you along your own healing path or that of a loved one.
Guest blogger Sharon shares with us an insider’s experience of suffering from childhood trauma that was severe enough to cause her to survive by splitting off parts of herself into “alters.” Sharon, or Shen as she is known, is one of us women survivors of childhood trauma who chooses to write about her experience to educate and help others. Here is how Shen describes her recent integration:
