Left untreated, childhood trauma can reverberate through adult relationships and make it difficult for your client to get close to other people.
But Terry Real, MSW, LICSW has a way of thinking about the psyche that can help clients understand the aftereffects of trauma . . .
. . . and help practitioners retarget their interventions with clients who are struggling in their relationships.
We’ve created an infographic to lay out his 3-part model for you below. Have a look.
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Now according to Terry, while most trauma interventions focus on the wounded child, it’s the adaptive child that we need to address to help a client move forward.
So tomorrow, we’ll get into how to work with a client’s adaptive child in the final session of the Advanced Master Program on the Treatment of Trauma.
We’ll also look at what to do when one of the specific trauma responses we’ve covered over the last four weeks is hurting your client’s relationships. (That’s the freeze response, dissociation, collapse/submit, please and appease, and shame.)
You can sign up to watch right here.
Now, please let us know your key takeaway from the infographic by leaving a comment below.
I am the adaptive survivor child at 68
And
I am alone
I cant trust myself to pick good people
So
I hide
I am so lonily
But
I am protected
Is it worth it
I dont know
I find your info graphics so helpful, easy to understand for clients due to the brief yet ‘spot on’ descriptions and the pictures for those that learn visually. Thank you for making these accessible to everyone.
I’m grateful to view the info graphic and will strive to learn more about the adaptive child.
This is really helpful and easy to understand, makes such sense and will really help my clients to understand.
I would have loved to have joined the gold programme as I work with trauma in the UK and benefitted from one of the webcasts tgat I was able to access. Unfortunately, being semi retired due to a health condition, the costs of the gokd package are prohibitive. Would be great if you could offer a concessionary rate?
this is wonderful! one of the best nutshells I have ever seen.
Thank you so much. Your infographics are always so helpful for my clients.
Thank you for this graphic. Terry Real is a fabulous teacher, and his work with couples is amazing. People may also find the work of Thomas Huebl interesting, as his focus on collective trauma demonstrates how the lack of integration in ourselves/patients is reflected in major issues we face as society. Individual trauma work is the way to begin the healing for us all. Thank you for this series. I am a survivor of early childhood sexual abuse, and — despite a successful career — have had seriously negative personal outcomes from poor therapy. This series has been enormously helpful to me.
I’m not a therapist. I choose to make a therapy with a psychologist specify with trauma. Some flash back, nervous behaviour for a long time, some crises that put a shock in my neck. To much suffer when it’s not the time.
I decided to ask help but with someone that can help with trauma even it is not just some part. The response is not all over trauma. I notice that also when the psychologist give me the analysis of the test.
She decided with me that i can be guide by her. I will have to write on everything that pass and is sad or suffer.
9 months after, I know more how to manage when there is sadness or suffer or I feel reject in my life.
I have tools.
I decided to buy the notebook
The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook
by Kristen Neff and Christopher Germer.
A good tool to continue that work on me.
I also decided to meditate with the teaching of Tara Brach. I use also the teaching of Nicole Bordeleau a french one from Québec.
Thank you for the chart which is very clear is concrete. I print it.
Thank you
Rose-Marie Couturier
Je suis dans la même situation que vous. Mon thérapeute est Jean-Pierre Marceau sur le Boul St. Joseph à Montréal
Rose Marie Couturier
I am in Australia, and also really like listening to Tara Brach and decided to resume listening. I have just bought a short program from NICABM on shame, and am finding it very helpful. I would love to heal the relationships with my two brothers, each married with adult children some of whom also have children. This has not been easy, as our family was programmed to blame me. And I accepted from a position of please and appease and collapse and submit.
It seems clear to me that to accept all the inner parts (Internal Family Systems Stephen Porges) and remain in the Self will be a key step.
Je vous souhaite la bonne chance.
This is brilliant!!! I have found that one of my biggest tasks is to teach clients the dark side of resiliency. This is a difficult task, especially in a world that teaches people to “suck it up,” “get over it,” “pull up your bootstraps,” etc. I have referred to this as the Resilient Part, and it often blocks the work we do in therapy because it minimizes the wounds. This resource will help me to explain this concept. Thank you so much!
Not a therapist – 25 year old (f) looking for resources to try and self heal from childhood trauma. I won’t be able to afford the therapy I need, so I’ve really appreciated this series.
Despite being an otherwise successful and independent woman, my relationships, especially friendships and my romantic relationship with my long term partner, are strained because of my insecurity and tendency to view things negatively. I often feel that I’m perceiving a different world than what is happening in reality – a much more negative and harmful world. It’s as if I’m trying to predict people’s bad intentions ahead of time to protect myself. To be able to tell myself “I knew it all along, they were trying to do me wrong”, when they were being perfectly reasonable.
I identify with the adaptive child because they see things as black or white, good or bad. I feel vulnerable when I am close to someone, so making friends can is stressful. I also think that I am dependent on conflict, and even though my aggressor is not longer in my life, it’s as if I am looking at my partner as my new aggressor, despite him being a good person.
I can’t wait to learn about how to treat the adaptive child.
I respect your resilience! However, I urge you to ask around. Many therapists will work for a reduced fee for people unable to afford their standard fees.
I wish you well in your search for health.
Great infograph. The course has really opened new perspectives for me on various freeze responses.
I am really looking forward to the last session to learn how to process a clients shame for their freeze response during childhood sexual abuse and the shame which their adaptive child has caused, in their adult relationships, having “please and appease” (promiscuous) affairs with aggressor type (narcistic) partner(s).
Thank you for your input. I have come back to your comment several times because it has helped me to understand some of my maladaptive behavior a little bit better, while removing some of the self-blame and shame I’ve always attached to it. It feels like a logical explanation, and while I have learned to embrace the parts of me I hated, I still struggle with believing that I am not entirely to blame for my unhealthy behavior. I have stopped dating because of the fact that I am drawn to destructive types. Until I can trust myself, I will stay single.
The use of rain in the infographic is very clever, since rain is associated with tears and the need for protection, but also is needed for growth and developement. As long as we have the right protection, the ambrela, we can “sing in the rain” and even have someone walk with us under the ambrella.
I was also reminded of self care model of RAIN by Tara Brach which is all about self compassion.
So let it rain…
Hannah,
I so appreciate your reference to rain being needed for growth and development…actually your entire analogy. Thank you! That really did it for me.
The distinction between the wounded child and the adaptive child is very helpful. The need to protect the wounded child is obvious – but the development of the adaptive child to fill this role has been overlooked for so long. The little graphics and associated bullet points are very effective.
Thank you all for this exceptional learning package.
After watching your sessions, the parts language used here implies to me that this info graphic applies to clients with Dissociative Identity Disorder and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder. Is this assumption correct or does every traumatized person have these parts? If so, what is the difference between these parts and the parts in DID/OSDD, besides having less integrated ability and capacity? How does one differentiate in case the parts language used here is not about DID/OSDD?
Thank you for posting your comments. I had similar thoughts and questions. I’m not well versed in Internal Family Systems but I do know that as a treatment for trauma, anxiety, depression, PTSD, and SUD that IFS views “psychic multiplicity as the norm” and that “we all have parts”, (Anderson, Sweezy, and Schwartz, 2017). I’m hoping the answers to your questions are provided in the broadcast. I need clarification too.
So insightful and clear … I wonder how subsequent trauma reinforces the adaptive child’s defence mechanisms. Again, it all hinges on acknowledgment – counselling after traumatic events for children esp would be so beneficial… thank you for sharing your knowledge.
This is such a clear way to show and explain the way the trauma impacts on the life of the adult – thank you. Enormous gratitude to Ruth and all her excellent therapists (and all the technical people) for offering these teachings to us all throughout the world. Following the positive change beginning for you in the US, hopefully a more caring and empathic attitude will start to permeate through all of our countries. I know there is a very, very long and difficult path for this. Warm wishes from Sydney, Australia
Thank you so much for this info graphic. It’s pretty clear where to begin and how to move forward in therapy.
Hallo, thank you, I’m very grateful for your message and the materials. I do work with adaptive child with my clients and I find it very helpful to show them how this part affects their current life and relationships. I’m looking forward to watch tomorrow’s lectures so to learn more techniques how to engage the functional adult. I’m very happy to have your course and I’m grateful for your work. Best regards to all psychotherapist taking part in this program. Greetings from Poland, Warsaw, Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology.