Intrusive thoughts are thoughts that suddenly appear in our head and that we perceive as stressful and beyond our control. The content is often shameful or mean and there is a certain tone to them. Such thoughts can be very distressing, especially if they are never actually quiet. And thoughts are not as easy to […]
mindset & thoughts
Separating inside and outside reality
One of the tricky problems with complex trauma is that our healthy separation between inside reality and outside reality is under-developed. We struggle with both sudden overwhelm from outside events and a tendency to take our inner experience as a literal reflection of outside reality. Separating ourselves from outside events You might know […]
Learning how to Reflect about Reality
In our quest to make sense of ourselves and the world we will spend quite some time reflecting about experiences. We already shared how to reflect on inner experiences. Now we will look at how to make sense of the world around us. Constructivism We all know only fragments of all the things there […]
Learning how to Reflect about the Inner Experience
Those of you who have read books on DID treatment have seen the phrase ‘the phobia of the inner experience’ and noticed that the reflection about this experience is a basic skill for all inner work. But scientists always forget to explain what the Inner Experience is supposed to be. How would we know? Nobody […]
The circles of suffering
The circles of suffering are an ACT exercise that can help us to realize the costs of avoidance of difficult topics in our life. We start with the main issue we avoid and then analyze the suffering that happens on top of it. That way we might get convinced that overcoming the avoidance and tackling […]
Dealing with mistakes and failure (perfectionism)
Growing up in a trauma family often means learning that mistakes are not tolerated. Caregivers might have expected us to do things right every time, even if it is the first time we try. We found our own strategies to cope with this toxic atmosphere by hiding ourselves and our mistakes or by trying […]
Hierarchies and Cooperation
Most people with DID experience some kind of hierarchy among the different parts. There are those who tell everyone what to do, call them controlling EPs, managers, gatekeepers, abuser-imitating parts, protectors or diplomatically, ‘advisors’. Their job is to keep everyone functioning and in line to avoid failure, punishment or pain. Then there are those […]
Dealing with trance logic in dissociative disorders
Trance logic describes logical glitches that can exist when people get hypnotized and enter a trance state. In that state of mind we can accept statements as true even though they deeply contradict each other. We simply don’t notice that they can’t possibly be true at the same time. Nothing is questioned or reality-checked, it […]
Changing trauma-related thoughts and beliefs
Part of trauma therapy is to address unhelpful thoughts and beliefs. They keep us stuck in painful emotions or disrupt our relationships with ourselves or others. What we believe shows in how we live and what choices we make. Often there cannot be change unless we change the way we think. Standard approach In […]
Elements of Integration 4: Presentification
Presentification is an integrative mental action where we connect our experiences with their specific time in our life. There is a realisation, that the past is past, that we are currently in the Now and that there is a future ahead of us. Life events can get sorted into their place on a timeline and […]
The Good Enough Host
Being the host of a system is a difficult job. It is not difficult in the same way carrying the trauma memory is, but in its own way. Between managing daily life, the system, therapy and ourselves it is easy to feel inadequate and just never good enough. And it is true that we […]
The Logic of Survival – Understanding Coping Behavior
Traumatized people usually show behavior that is outside the norm in at least some areas of life. These coping behaviors often get stigmatized as mental illness and dysfunction. But once we understand how a child survives unsafe situations we realize that these behaviors are strictly logical. They can be understood and they make sense. They […]