Virtues come in opposing pairs that balance each other (see the v-square). Most of us are familiar with Radical Acceptance. The lesser known counter-part to that is Radical Openness. Radical acceptance is used to reduce suffering caused by rejecting things we can’t change. Radical Openness helps us to change, when we have accepted something that […]
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The 8 Phases of EMDR
EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. It relies heavily on scripts, which makes it easy to research. A multitude of studies show that it works just as well as other easily researched approaches for trauma confrontation while being more gentle for both Ts and patients. Why exactly EMDR works is not fully explained. […]
Getting out of chronic dissociation Part 2
With exercises for getting out of chronic dissociation the way the exercise is done is vastly more important than the action in itself. We will first look at the position of the Engaged Explorer, explain how to do titration and revisit the trinity of regulation for a solid foundation. Only then can we approach the […]
Getting out of chronic dissociation Part 1
Complex PTSD is sometimes accompanied by chronic dissociation. It means being in a permanent state of disconnection from our body, our emotions, our needs and sensations and the people around us. We are still functioning in everyday life, but certain areas of our awareness are offline. That’s why this is also called functional shutdown. This […]
Capacity and Avoidance
There are different opinions about avoidance and they seem to fall short when it comes to the reality of living a functional life with cPTSD. So we will take a short look at the extreme statements about avoidance and explore the body work concept of capacity to create more clarity. Avoidance Contra Some believe […]
TRE for healing complex trauma?
TRE stands for Tension and Trauma Release Exercises. It is a new form of releasing stress through working with the body. To understand why and how TRE works we need to take a look at physiology and a polar bear. Theory In mammals we can find a natural response to extreme stress that keeps […]
Impulse and Control
Trauma usually comes with problems in self-regulation and self-control but people differ in the way it shows. Under-control (UC) like chronically unmanageable emotions or intense, often destructive, impulses are usually diagnosed as BPD, sometimes it shows in impulsive eating disorders like binge eating or bulimia. We think that under-control is addressed well in DBT, so […]
Chillaxing with Otters (guided imagery)
This is not your classic water imagery of a person having a bath in a lake. I personally struggle with that kind of imagery; doing it all dressed feels unnatural, getting undressed or changing clothes doesn’t feel safe at all. Imagining my body in clothes appropriate for bathing brings up emotions that are not helpful […]
Epiphany #7: War and Peace
Most of my therapy journey was based on scanning my body permanently, looking for early signs of dissociation, so I could choose the right tools to counter it. I was looking for reasons to act. It is stressful to live like that because it keeps up a certain degree of hypervigilance at all times. I […]
Dealing with body flashbacks
This article is triggering. I didn’t see a way to openly talk about this subject otherwise. I am limiting the most triggering information to a paragraph that I will mark with **** at the beginning and end and that can easily be skipped without effecting the comprehension of the rest of the text. Because we […]
Orientation and Grounding
When we get triggered our first response should not be an effort in self-soothing. That would be unnecessarily hard to accomplish as long as we are not oriented in time, space and body. Our nervous system is still reacting to the past. First we need to realize that we are safe in this situation, then […]
Becoming a safe church
In my heart I wanted to write an article about the small things the church could improve to make it easier for people with cPTSD to be there and feel safe. Things like a careful use of the ‘laying on of hands’ so people won’t get touched without giving consent. Or maybe preachers using a […]
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