Trauma and The Soul
“Our sense of wholeness is eclipsed or occluded by the “deforming mirrors” of childhood “imprints”—the distorted ways in which we are often seen by parents or significant others. It also implies that the ways we are often seen by others become the ways in which we see ourselves—inner deforming mirrors. Trauma, the subject of this book, leaves us with many such “deforming mirrors,” and with a sense of ourselves that is less than, and different from, the real person we are—from the standpoint of the soul. This is because after trauma, dissociative defenses are set up in the innerworld and these defenses distort what we are able to see of ourselves and others. They become anti-wholeness factors in the psyche. They dis-integrate and fragment us. To glimpse the possibility of our wholeness the deforming mirrors created by these defenses must be transformed so that we can “see through” the dissociative barriers to our authentic selfhood—to the soul-life that wants to unfold its pattern of wholeness in our developing lives. Sometimes it takes another person to hold up a more accurate mirror in which the possibility of our wholeness can be glimpsed. This is the most common way in which our distorted interpretations of ourselves are challenged by alternative interpretations offered by someone who sees us like we haven’t been seen before. Sometimes the psychotherapist can offer such alternatives, throwing the all-too-familiar voice of the SelfCare system into question. If such interpretation is effective, the patient may suddenly see themselves through another lens, undistorted by the mirrors of childhood.Life suddenly seems possible, here and now.Sometimes the inner experience can release us from our deforming mirrors.For example, an experience of a numinous vision or dream may evoke our truer deeper selves, liberating us momentarily from the deforming images we have acquired and allowing us to see through into a deeper truth about ourselves and our potential life…our potential wholeness. Our best therapy can come from these private inner resources, not just from the interpersonal field. By examining dreams and their responses to events within the #transference/countertransference field.In the process we can witness the operation of anti-wholeness defenses which seem to fight for their own “deforming mirrors” of the patient’s life, against the growing #consciousness of a larger vision which threatens to integrate the painful affects surrounding trauma.By exploring recent research in contemporary #neuroscience, especially the work of #IainMcGilchrist and #AllenSchore, whose combined research underscores the importance of working back and forth between the hemispheres of the brain in the interest of wholeness, we can observe that the separate hemispheres of the brain mediate very different worlds of experience, and that optimal functioning involves both hemispheres working in concert.The findings of this research illuminate how defensive processes resulting from early trauma may dis-integrate the brain’s normal #holistic functioning leading to actual damage to the right hemisphere.This, in turn, may lead to lasting deficits in emotional integration and processing and (possibly) to a premature over-reliance on the left hemisphere.The result is a progressive split between the body and the mind, limiting the #embodiment of the Self.These findings carry important implications for the psychotherapeutic treatment of trauma.”
Excerpt from Trauma and The Soul by Donald Kalsched
Books mentioned:
Trauma and The Soul by Donald Kalsched
