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Helping Parts to Heal from Acute Trauma

By David McCallum

connection Enjoying Life mental health internal family systems ptsd EMDR

Posted: November 1, 2024

When approaching trauma, it is important to understand that there are different types that require different treatments. Traumas must be addressed according to their specific needs. In your lifetime, you may have experienced what is called a single incident or acute trauma. Examples of these include car accidents, assault, sudden death of loved ones and acute medical illness. If this is the case, take a moment to recall some of the symptoms that were cued within you amidst that time.

Unburdening: Healing Trauma through IFS

By David McCallum

Trauma

internal family systems shame stigma

Posted: September 30, 2024

Trauma can be understood as a relational violation – or, put another way - a violation of connection (Frank Anderson). Seen through the lens of Internal Family Systems (IFS), trauma creates a chasm between our Core Self and parts of our psyche. These parts come into being at the origin of a relational violation/violation of connection. Many of them are protective and try to mitigate - in proactive and reactive ways - the pain that is held by deeper exiled parts in our systems. In this sense, parts can be viewed as adaptive vs. defective and bad. Such a non-stigmatizing approach can help parts soften (i.e. turn down in intensity), and release the burdens (e.g. shamefulness) that they carry as a result of trauma.

Trauma: The Body Keeps the Score

By Graham Watt

Trauma

stigma

Posted: August 1, 2024

Bessel Van der Kolk in his landmark book, The Body Keeps the Score, writes, “We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present. Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.”

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