Читать книгу Overcoming Shock - Diane Zimberoff - Страница 13
ОглавлениеTHE WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM
As we have said, a minor split of the soul from the ego may create a shadow in which a powerful archetype may begin to influence the ego, allowing it to act in ways that the soul would not normally direct it to. At that level, however, the soul is still present, and the shadow is consciously recognized by the ego. With deeper trauma, the split is more divisive; the soul has fled further away, and the archetype takes substantial control of the ego in a mutual agreement for safety. In the case of shock, the soul has truly “left the building” or split from an aspect of the ego, and the archetype takes control to the point of altering physiology.
We emphasize the point that as part of the ego splits from the true self, it doesn’t just disappear. In its arrangement with one or more archetypes from the collective unconscious, it forms a primitively organized alternative self that has its own identity. When this happens, the soul has effectively gone into hiding, and we use another analogy for this called the “witness protection program.”
We use this term because, in a traditional witness protection program, one who is under some kind of threat finds protection by not only relocating, but also by assuming a new identity. Without a new identity, the new location doesn’t help, because you might still be found. So in the case of trauma, you may relocate by leaving the body, in a sense, or dissociating. You separate the conscious connection with the body, with relationships, even with your own spiritual identity. And so you relocate and create that new identity.
In the witness protection program, you have to get rid of any similarities to your old life to make sure you cannot be found, and this includes the things you used to do. Your work, for example. Prior to trauma you may act in a certain way; but once traumatized, there is a need for protection and a need to act in different ways, to become something you weren’t before.
Maybe, for instance, you had to become really, really good. By this we mean being extraordinarily obedient, doing everything you’re told right away. In fact, you don’t even have to be asked—you anticipate the needs of those you perceive to be a threat (whether this is true or not, it’s your perception that counts). You become hyper-vigilant, tuned in to abusers or other threats in order to proactively minimize pain or danger.
You can see this in the example of a young child. When a child is three years old, undisturbed by trauma, they’ll tell you who they are. They have a very good sense of this. They know who they are, what they like and don’t like, who they like and don’t like, their favorite colors and music and so on. They know themselves. But once they go into this witness protection program, they have to change all that, because they are now so vigilant about what is being demanded of them by a potential threat and they need to become whatever it is that will minimize the danger.
Maybe Mom rejects me and I feel unloved if she doesn’t have all her needs met, so I become a caretaker to satisfy all her needs and to make sure I am loved. Or maybe I am told that I am bad and this is why I’m being abused, and I believe this, because I’m being told this by my caretakers, these adults who have tremendous power and credibility. I start to act according to this new identity that’s been handed to me.
It’s important to remember, as we continue through this book together, that there is no fine line separating trauma from shock, although there are several elements we can look at that distinguish them from one another. Ultimately, what’s important in therapy is that the two need to be treated differently, for shock involves a greater separation between life essence or soul and the ego itself and for this, a different therapeutic approach is required.
DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN TRAUMA AND SHOCK
Remembering that the shift between what we’re calling trauma and shock occurs on a continuum, rather than at one defined point, and that symptoms of shock may develop differently for different people as they enter deeper levels of trauma, here are some of the distinguishing factors that help us understand the progress from trauma to shock:
1) ALTERATIONS IN THE REGULATION OF AFFECTIVE IMPULSES
As we continue along the continuum of trauma to shock and then beyond, we reach additional conditions such as borderline personality disorder, dissociative identity disorder (DID, better known as multiple personality disorder), associative identity disorder and so on. Each is a little bit further into the witness protection program: relocation, dissociation and re-identification. “I’m somebody other than who I started out being.” Regulation of affected impulses has to do with self-destructiveness, so the further we go into shock, the more this will manifest.
2) ALTERATIONS IN ATTENTION
This has to do with the degree of dissociation, which sometimes incorporates amnesia. This includes the part of me that registers memory, so now those memories are stored in my body, because my body was here during the trauma but the rest of me was not. This is why portions of therapy involve bodywork, and why people often recover lost memories through this kind of therapy.
3) ALTERATIONS IN SELF-PERCEPTION
The deeper we go into shock, the more likely we are to identify with guilt or shame surrounding the traumatic experience, even thinking we are the cause of it. Often we give a client a teddy bear or some symbol of his or her own inner child, and ask that the client tell the child (his or herself as a child) how much he or she is loved, how beautiful and innocent he or she is. In most cases this is a powerful healing experience. But sometimes we find that a client pushes the teddy bear away, saying, “I don’t want to have anything to do with her. She is dirty, she is stupid and I hate her.” That’s an indication of how deeply embedded that individual’s sense of responsibility is for what happened to her. She is blaming herself for what happened to her as a child. We can use this technique over time as a measure of recovery, as she is able to slowly embrace that little girl instead of judging and rejecting her.
4) ALTERATIONS IN PERCEPTION OF THE PERPETRATOR
In some cases of shock, the perception is that “I am the perpetrator.” And the deeper the shock, the more this seems to be true. We call this identification with the perpetrator “trauma bonding.” This is one of the new identity options for the person who’s entered the witness protection program. And many, many times, this translates into actually becoming the perpetrator on someone else at a later time—many who have been abused in early childhood become abusers of their own children.
5) ALTERATIONS IN RELATIONSHIP TO OTHERS
The deeper the shock, the more we lose the ability to trust or be intimate with others.
6) SOMATIZATION OR MEDICAL PROBLEMS
The nature of shock, as opposed to trauma, is that it is deeply embedded in the body itself—in the physical systems of the body: the nervous system, the heart, the brain, the limbic and hormonal systems, etc. This is why, as we mentioned previously, it is through those systems of the body that we can access information about the damage done and provide corrective treatment. This is a fundamental aspect of what modern medical practice is now calling integrative medicine. As we begin to understand the nature of shock and how traumatic memories are literally stored in the traumatized parts of the body, the use of clinical hypnotherapy can bring a whole new level of healing from trauma through understanding how to retrieve these long-buried memories literally frozen in the body. Unretrieved, they are silently at work, causing unease and disease in the body.
For example, a woman named Carol, along with her younger sister, was sexually abused from the very young age of three by her drunken father. After several years of this, he then brought in his alcoholic friends to sexually abuse them. This continued uninterrupted by her mother, who had to work to support the girls since her husband drank up all the money. This left the two young daughters in a nearly constant state of vulnerability, where they had to “run away to the circus,” and each developed several circus characters in order to survive the horrendous situation.
Since the traumatic experiences and memories are stored in the body, it is very common in these situations for young women to develop “female problems.” This can include painful menstrual cycles, severe endometriosis and even cancer. When the doctors try to treat the “symptoms,” the next solution is removal. Many women who have early hysterectomies often don’t know about the abuse that happened to them because they have been off to the “witness protection program.” Carol developed multiple personalities which were a result of needing to leave her constantly re-abusing father and his friends. Since her mother was unable to protect her, she developed a creative way to protect herself: literally new identities via the witness protection program. Her sister used alcohol and drugs to accomplish a similar escape from an intolerable reality, to self-medicate her shock.
Learning how to do mind-body work through clinical hypnotherapy can be the road that leads people out of witness protection and gives them the ability to return home.
7) ALTERATIONS IN SYSTEMS OF MEANING
Chronically abused individuals often feel hopeless about finding anyone to understand them or their suffering. They believe that nobody could possibly understand, and they despair that they will never be able to recover from their mental anguish. They have been exiled, for that is the nature of witness protection. You are cut off from every relationship that you’ve had, and you’re denied the possibility of creating new ones because that would only endanger your safety. The whole idea is to be invisible.
