Over the last few months, we’ve been talking about the Self and the “parts,” which are separate from the Self, and more like individual personalities. Hopefully this is a concept you have come to understand and accept because it is so important during the healing process for trauma victims. Those “parts” can be anything – [...]
For many trauma victims, the concept that they have “parts” is entirely new to them. It never occurs to them that they might be fragmented, and it certainly never crosses their minds that there could be value in facing and empathizing with those “parts.” But the reality is that it can make such a huge [...]
If you’re currently in recovery for sex addiction, congratulations! Getting help is the first, and often the hardest step. Whether it has been days, weeks, months or even years, preventing relapse is a continual journey. One of the most effective ways to do this is to have a sexual addiction recovery plan. From enlisting the [...]
When therapists first began treating trauma victims, they heavily relied on a therapeutic tool that is has been the most accepted practice in psychotherapy – talk therapy. In her book, Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors, Janina Fisher refers to this as the “talking cure.” It is a method that allowed therapists to address [...]
A lot of people do not seek trauma therapy until they have been flooded with responses and memories from their “parts.” If you remember correctly, the “parts” are what often happens when people develop depersonalization, chronic depression or other symptoms. This is often falsely diagnosed as dissociative identity disorder, but the presence of certain symptoms [...]
The last couple of months have been difficult for everyone. The outbreak and spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has seen many countries around the world placed on lockdown. This has meant businesses have had to close, people have lost their jobs and at a time when we need more support than ever before, we’re not even [...]
We’ve been discussing the internal family systems model of treating trauma. We’ve discussed the “self” and the various internal parts of ourselves and how they relate to each other. There is a fragmentation that occurs within trauma victims, and that fragmentation drives the way they relate to other people, the world and themselves. Therapy involves [...]
At first glance, the Internal Family Systems model can come as quite a shock. We’ve talked about the Self and how various parts exist within the Self. We’ve discussed how those different parts seek to be understood and known, and how they can change the course of our lives. But not every trauma victim gets [...]
It almost seems inevitable that at some point during trauma therapy, people end up experiencing a sense of “stuckness.” The client starts to feel worse instead of feeling better, and the therapist is left with the worry that they did something wrong. It’s hard place to be in for both sides. It is also quite [...]
Everyone responds differently to trauma, and in the same way, it makes sense to expect that the resulting fragmented self would be unique. People who have histories of chronic trauma, or who have gone through multiple types of abuse or neglect often appear normal. But what has really happened is that they have formulated a [...]