reflection papers, Over Trauma and Recovery 3
Love Life
pc408.session_2.pptxTrauma, Terrorism, Catastrophes and Pastoral Care
Prof. Cedric Johnson
PC 408
Spring 2017
Trauma & Recovery
How might you see Legion as a survivor of trauma (Mark 5:5-9)? Symptoms? Process of recovery?
Using the 3 stages of recovery, how would you design a small group ministry for trauma survivors? What do you need to be attentive to?
Using the 3 stages, how might you design a congregational healing ritual for trauma survivors?
Three major forms of adaptation that enable a child to survive in an environment of abuse:
Dissociative defenses
Fragmented identity
Pathological regulation of emotional states
Forms of Adaptation
The victim’s self-representations remain exaggerated and split.
These contradictory identities cannot integrate.
Fragmentation becomes the central principle of personality organization.
Fragmented Identity
Dissociative process may lead to a complete disconnection from others and disintegration of the self.
Connection between childhood abuse and self-mutilation.
Here, self-injury is not intended to kill but to relieve emotional pain.
Reading Legion through the lens of trauma: “My name is Legion, for we are [fragmented].
Fragmented Identity
The abused child often constructs some system of meaning that justifies the abuse – often concluding that her own innate badness is the cause.
Emotional States
It is often camouflaged by the abused child’s persistent attempts to be good.
In an effort to placate her abusers, the child survivor often becomes a superb performer:
An academic achiever
Efficient housekeeper
Model of social conformity
Emotional States
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse may reenact the relationship with the perpetrator by participating in forbidden or risky sexual behavior.
The patient may assume that the only value she can possibly have in the eyes of another is as a sexual object.
Sexualized Transference
Establishment of safety
Remembrance and Mourning
Reconnection
With self
With community
3 Stages of Recovery
The acutely traumatized person needs a safe refuge.
Begins by focusing on control of the body and moves outward toward control of environment.
Assess the degree of continued threat and what precautions are necessary.
Be attentive not only to the survivor’s psychological capacity to protect herself but also to larger power dynamics.
Establishment of Safety
Though the single most common counseling error is avoidance of the traumatic material, probably the second most common error is premature engagement in work without sufficient attention to the tasks of establishing safety and securing a therapeutic alliance.
Establishment of Safety
The need to preserve safety must be balanced against the need to face the past.
Intrusive symptoms should be monitored so that the uncovering work remains within the realm of what is bearable.
Remembrance
Reconstructing the trauma story begins with a review of the survivor’s life before the trauma to restore continuity with the past.
“The ‘action of telling a story’ in the safety of a protected relationship can produce healing.
“Reconstructing” the trauma entails reframing the meaning of the event.
Remembrance
The counselor normalizes the survivor’s responses, facilitates naming and the use of language, and shares the emotional burden of the trauma.
The goal of remembrance is integration.
The premise is a belief in the restorative power of truth-telling.
Remembrance is not merely the exercise of thought. The remedy for injustice also requires action, a determination of what must be done.
Remembrance
Since so many of the losses are invisible or unrecognized, the customary rituals of mourning provide little consolation.
While numerous social rituals facilitate the normal bereavement process, few communal rituals recognize the mourning that follows traumatic life events.
Mourning
Genuine contrition in a perpetrator is a rare miracle; it includes confession, repentance and restitution.
Fortunately, the survivor’s healing depends on the discovery of restorative love in her own life.
Mourning
Positive aspects of the self are recognized and a greater appreciation for her own adaptive resources.
Survivors shed their “victim identity.”
Often requires repudiating those aspects of the self that were imposed by the trauma.
Reconnecting / with Self
The survivor can sometimes begin to identify “traumatic growth” – positive aspects of the self that were forged in the traumatic experience, even while recognizing that any gain was achieved at far too great a price.
Reconnecting / with Self
She seeks mutual friendships not based on performance, image, or maintenance of a false self.
With lovers and family, she is now ready for greater intimacy.
Survivors may begin to speak about the “unspeakable” in public in the belief that this will help others.
Reconnection / with Others
The relationship between survivor and mental health professional is only one relationship among many.
When safety and self care are established survivor groups that are “stage of recovery” specific are vital to the healing process.
Groups for safety
Groups for remembrance & mourning
Groups for reconnection
Reconnection / with Others
Counselors who work with traumatized people also require an ongoing support system.
Traumatic countertransference includes the entire range of emotional reactions to the survivor and/or to the event itself.
Otherwise, the counselor may act out, burn out or withdraw emotionally from the therapeutic alliance.
Countertranference
