In my practice, I work many people who, as a result of childhood trauma, have lost connection to their bodies and their ability to know what they feel or need at a basic level. Recently while listening to a podcast on complex trauma and reflecting upon the difference between these adaptations and my own, I had an epiphany.
I have always had a strong, if not overwhelming, sense of my own body, needs and feelings. And while this has not always been pleasant, it has been useful. As I recognized this, I experienced gratitude towards my estranged, abusive mother for having provided this capacity. In the next moment, it dawned on me that she never intended to provide this to me at a conscious level, it was simply that she had managed to get through her own difficult childhood with these faculties intact, and in that way, was able to pass them on. Conversely, all the relational abilities that she had “ruined” in me were also simply a result of what had been “ruined” in her. Whatever we have been shamed out of in childhood (our feelings, healthy dependency, anger, etc.), we will have a difficult time experiencing in ourselves and tolerating in others.
Often we believe people could have done so much better than they did with us, treated us better, understood us more... Yet the truth is, we can only give to others what we have access to inside. We can only understand about others what we understand and have compassion for in ourselves. Everyone has been hurt and has had to adapt to pain and loss of various types and degrees. This is true of our parents, partners, children… everyone. These emotional heartbreaks, depending upon their timing in our development, have enormous impact upon the way we see, feel and experience life. They create a particular lens through which we view the world, and often, we mistakenly assume others share our perspective. Early childhood trauma and the interpersonal dynamics they create impact our ability to relate to others from a place of present moment awareness and adult consciousness.
There are 5 basic adaptations, and most of us develop a combination of two primary styles that drive us. It’s critical to recognize that these patterns are not “who we are”. They are merely strategies that helped us survive particular environments. We had to foreclose aspects of ourselves that were not welcomed by our caretakers and now act from these unconscious childhood patterns when we feel threatened. It is also important to understand that no strategy is superior to another. There are benefits and gifts to each style, just as there are challenges.
In the next post, I will provide a brief framework these 5 basic survival patterns.
· This information is the synthesis of insights from several therapeutic models from Psychoanalysis and Bioenergetics, to a cutting-edge and powerful body/mind approach that I use in my clinical practice, called the Neuro-Affective Relational Model, or NARM
· Recommended reading: The 5 Personality Patterns by Steven Kessler and Healing Developmental Trauma by Laurence Heller, PhD