Working with the Effects of Trauma on Sense of Self

This weekend workshop is designed for counsellors and therapists who want to develop how they work with clients who present as being stuck and attached to negative, troubled, or self-defeating parts of themselves.

Traumatic events in a person’s life such as attachment issues, loss or bereavement, abuse, or conditional learning may cause such stress that parts of themselves become fragmented or split leaving them distressed or disturbed in some way in their whole sense of themselves.

Neurobiology research indicates that trauma produces stress reactions which are to protect and/or maintain the survival of the person from traumatic events. Flight or fright processes are activated in experiencing trauma though the person may not be able to run, hide, or fight back and is left with parts of their self holding the effects of the traumatic event/s.

The person may experience reoccurring negative thoughts that prevent them functioning well; they may feel anxious or depressed, they may feel shamed or angry, or have some other troubled state of being which makes it difficult for them in their lives and relationships.

There is much evidence that indicates that identifying and focusing on the events that may have caused negative, troubled, and self-defeating parts to develop is not as healing as working with the effects of such events in the present.

Rather than seeking to work through the events that may have caused clients to develop a fragmented sense of self, it may be more therapeutic to acknowledge the fragmented parts of a person as their efforts for survival or ability to cope with their lives, and to bring understanding, acceptance, and compassion to those parts.