How can we foster resilience in clients who have experienced trauma?
A person’s response to trauma is often to lock away the parts that were wounded by their experience.
But that can leave them feeling protective and fragile – and fearful about being triggered again.
In the video below, Richard Schwartz, PhD shows how working with a client’s inner parts can strengthen their resilience. Take a look – it’s less than 5 minutes.
What are some ways you’ve helped clients work with the parts of themselves that have been hurt by trauma?
Please leave a comment below.
This is helpful. I am still learning about how to work with those hurt by trauma.
This video clip reminds me to revisit IFS concepts with some of my “stuck” clients. Thank you.
As a Shamanic Healing Practitioner I offer Soul Retrieval as a path to healing and wholeness. My helping spirits will find and return to the client only those Soul essences that are ready to return for the best and highest good of the client at that time.
Love to all,
Jody
As a shamanic practitioner and a mental health counselor in training, I was also struck by the similarity of IFS in action and soul retrieval as I learned it from Sandra Ingerman. I can see where these two modalities can be integrated for rapid and effective healing from trauma.
What Schwartz is saying really resonates for me. He gives voice to something that I still struggle with and that is the attitude of honoring that society in the main adopts when people rebound…and the expectation in society that people should rebound!! When a person has undergone complex trauma throughout a life time whether it was from childhood trauma or throughout their adult life and has rebounded after a couple of life situations-I feel that there is a tipping point at which it becomes a much larger task to recuperate from the various traumas and which varies according to individual make up and constitution. I really like this. Schwartz values and honours the self and recognizes that unlocking the frozen parts, the bits packed away in a trunk of the self is where the real work begins with the important point that it takes much time to get to this. Scwartz honors something that for me has been extremely difficult and that is the attitude of others that you should be able to get on with life now. Thank you for this.
Matrix Reimprinting . A technique that involves visiting the part and putting things right and discovering the belief made at that time which is probably influencing the person in the present
The idea of cultivating compassion for the wounded parts is often new and frightening, but essential to healing. This is a long process for some clients, and often a new idea entirely.
Dear Ruth firstly thank you for your emails I have just completed Bill O’hanlons rapid writing course, it was brilliant! I work using a combo of EFT, colour mirrors and matrix Reimprinting and all that’s mentioned in the video is effectively transformed with these modalities!
Thank you all for sharing your experiences
I would suggest adding on Visceral manipulation & Somato Emotional Release Bodywork.
If you are comfortable with hands on making it part of talk therapy or sending client to an experienced SER therapist to release what is held in organs & tissue of physical body. For example the liver is known to hold anger; the small intestine is known to hold worry, etc. After my many years as a VM/SER practitioner, many psychotherapists & clients have seen quicker self compassionate healing with this add on.
This video is a real gift. Thank you very much. As an EFT Master Practitioner working with trauma, one example that comes to mind is a client who was repeatly told by her mother that her mother tried so many times to abort her and one of the results for my client was that she could not eat food (survived almost only by eating breadsticks) or even sit down at a table to eat with anyoe or even by herself. Now, in her middle 60’s, we listed all the parts of her that were so deeply hurt by her mother and we did EFT Tapping on those parts and the specific experiences that connected them. After clearing away many of those parts and their experiences (about three sessions) I asked her about any memory she might have of love between her and her mom. When i had asked her that question earlier in our work, she only “snarled” at me and screamed quite loudly that her mother did not want or love her. But, after clearing some “parts”, she remember, quite clearly, a truly beautiful experience with her mom during a walk together in the woods, gathering flowers. My client has, since that session, made many lovely drawings of flowers and is eating and even sitting down to eat with people. Much love, Judith xoxoxo
It seems to me, the fear of rejection, is the real brittle bit. Namely, vulnerability. Opening up is terrific and terrifying.
I loved the love life and unity that I am with all my heart mind and soul so I was loving That in Them and joining with them.
This reminds me of self counselling exercises in which you have a dialogue with self using Egan type responses ‘You feel… because of… and the effect is…’ I think written exercises are useful at least as self help. And I think many of us suffer from problems with anger management and the way that compromises our rationality and genuineness. So I often have an internal board room meeting in which I invite the managers I’ve got to know into discussion, and yes my firefighting parts such as Recalcitrant me can be drawn back to the boardroom table and thereby become less single minded. This was an interesting starting point for further study because I can do with more insights into how to engage with other people in a IFSmanner.
I’ve been using IFS since graduate school, and it is my favorite method for addressing childhood wounds. Many childhood wounds are traumatic. But every human has experienced pain in childhood, and I find IFS is useful for healing even the less traumatic pain that we all have experienced. I currently work with children, and find it refreshing how easy it seems to be for them to recognize, and connect with, parts of themselves.
I attended a Tapping group in early spring. It is interesting to move through the tapping points, while speaking OUT fears and concerns. After a while, I became aware of a question forming through the rounds of tapping. I – and the other tappers were generally speaking out our fears, worries, failures, and frailties. After a short break, I realized I wanted to TAP IN resilience. I started thinking about the other positive, strength-oriented qualities that one could tap in! This felt wonderfully empowering. I think of the saying, “what you focus on grows.” YES! I came to see how tapping in resilience would lead to more, and more integrated resilience. This has become a new tool for me. I have pre-verbal trauma, and as I worked with strength-oriented qualities, I could feel the presence of the more positive, empowering feelings joining my psyche. I thank all of the fore-mothers and fore-fathers for being the early explorers. We would not be here without the paths you paved. I offer my heartfelt gratitude. Sherry
Excellent insight. Thank you.
Thank you Dr. Schwartz. I have found it is helpful for clients to understand sub-personalities, and they ways they helped a client survive, in order to see that part as “part” of a whole, and not who they are.
Excellent advice.
Yes recognising the quest for Wholeness
That’s important bringing the exiled part/S home to Self: This speaks to how in Trauma there is repression of feelings, denial of the issue and sometimes dissociative splitting to keep a functional albeit false personality in tact, to continue to cope with the world. What Dr Schwartz says sounds very like Psychosynthesis (Assagioli’s) – he identified SUBpersonalities as defenses, protective strategies to sustain a vulnerable self that often become habituated and begin to trap the true and walled off self… acknowledging the parts, thanking them and beginning to relieve them of their duty without totally decommissioning them frees up the energy to recover and re-member the whole person. Sh personality work goes hand-in-hand with recovery from trauma… mending the empathis failures.. thanks for the video this is deep and vital work, resilience comes AFTER the broken off part returns…
I think it is helpful to think of our entire country and its many leaders as our “clients,” as you modeled for us. That is, we owe them the same compassion for their past hurts and present struggles that we show our clients. And just as our clients do not deserve blame for their dysfunctional ways of coping with that past hurt, neither do our leaders. And with each, we hold high expectations for fully functioning, smart thinking, compassionate leadership, openness to change and the courage to be fully human.
I encourage a daily practice of checking in with each of the exiles and making sure they are here on this planet in the present and not stuck in some god forsaken place in the past. To the degree we can welcome our personal exiles, our hearts can become more open to welcoming those who are exiled in present life rather than continuing to think that “cutting people off” or “sending them away” is a real solution.
I totally agree with Dr. Schwartz. I certainly use this method with clients of mine. To not brush away the feelings of trauma, rather look gently at what it may have brought up of former psychological buried hurts that are now coming to light due to present trauma. This must not be ignored, they have surfaced now, needing the opportunity to be noticed and healed before the person can truly recover.
As a parent of a 28yo who is seeing a wonderful therapist . My daughter spends days in bed and emotionally very unstable. How should I respond to her pain and anger towards me
Many of us know how to do some significant healing for ourself and for our clients, but Richard helped me put into perspective what I have been seeing in clients. I realize we are in this world together, need to help even more to heal the parts within the human and not be constantly mind driven without the connections to the body. This computer adds to that significantly. Clients I have noticed seem to be more protective of their harmful history even though that is why they have come into counseling. It is as if they have this new lock that has been added and worried about their internal safety. I do think the state of the Union has a major impact on that increased fear. It is like when you have an illness with a lot of pain, it becomes hard to decrease the FFF response because each pain pops a person right back into that fear response no matter what healing has gone on before. If you could address this, I would most obliged. It also has helped me see how so many parts of world have no access to heal those parts because they are always in trauma surrounding them, forcing this trap within the human. How to heal in chaos is a challenge. We need to help that stuck sympathetic nervous system from no hope of repair.
Hi, I’m a Wholistic Kinesiologist with 30 years experience. I have developed my own way of supporting people to heal their inner core and the connection to their life energy. When the trauma is big enough, the person can go to a place ‘with no words’, the experience is held in the body, affecting flexibility, being able to see the bigger picture, feeling grounded etc, sometimes even an energetic disconnect like ‘being beside themselves’.
The body knows where the trauma is hidden, often in such early childhood that the client didn’t have words to know what the overwhelming feelings were.
Body feed-back finds the age and the stored emotions. It finds under how many layers we’ve hidden the pain….even from ourselves.
I find that a combination of energy work, bodywork, remedies (Homoeopathic and flower essences), re-setting the nervous system and meridian system in relation to the trauma, nutritional supplements and emotional healing processes in age recession (not regression) will bring lasting new freedom.
For those who took offense in Richard’s comment about Trump in noting that the President takes the ‘approach of rugged individualists who thrives but is protective’, I saw nothing more than an observation of patterns. I heard nothing political, only a clear assessment of the patterns exhibited. I wonder what came up for those who got ‘triggered’? This is true for any of the political leaders. Working in the field of extreme abuse, I hear the stories of those sex trafficked and ritually abused and used by the upper eschelon. So his statement seems accurate to me. Again, it wasn’t political…just observational.
I found Richard’s talk very helpful in not supporting what is often called emotional bypassing, to move forward never dealing with the deeper issues. This only creates mass projections and triggering down the line. And this is exactly what many Presidents and political limelighters have demonstrated over and over.
My clients are supported in building resiliency by facing their truths using a non-dualistic approach of ThetaHealing. I use the techniques through what is called Creator’s teachings and belief changes. that shift neuro-connections and receptor sites. Structures are gently broken down (for each part to come into co-consciousness in their own pace) and then new teachings help to build the resiliency up with new concepts and possibilities that the psyche doesn’t know or understand. I do the same with all childhood trauma clients also.
Again, appreciations for Richard in sharing in what I heard and resonated as truth.
Thank you Ruth and Richard and all who left comments. Human Development over the Lifespan is my theoretical base, so Attachment and Family Systems are a natural extension for me. I do EMDR for trauma and “parts” talk fits well there. Most of my practice is Play Therapy with children. This week, I’ll be looking for creative ways to implement “parts” of self in a playfully experiential, bodily-sense way.
As to the reference to President Trump: Richard, I was not offended by your brief reference. (Many workshop presenters are offensive to me, but I value our American freedom of speech and cultural tolerance.) I didn’t read your personal political stance into how you commented. I am a Christian and have become a supporter of President Trump. The political scene is psychologically very interesting to me. Living examples to test our theories! As citizens, we owe it to our country to be aware and involved. I want to be well informed with a balanced perspective. Truth usually comes to light. But I’m careful which News media I watch.
Goodness. He just said he has been traumatized and he is an example of someone who outwardly protects himself. He did not say he was “bad” or “sick” or….”not smart’.” Your president seems very reactive to me, and interestingly often shows his vulnerable parts but quickly protects them. I think Mr. Trump is not very happy. I think this is why he is partially endearing to many. We see a lot of his human inner parts. We see a lot of humanity in him, take it or leave it. A lot of nations are tired of carefully scripted ‘reality’ shows and politicians. It is ironic he was a reality tv star. A fascinating ride watching US politics right now.
Americans are lovely people. You are, and will be ok in this transition and enlightening political time.
I think Dr. Schwartz could have left off the Donald Trump comment (a bit of hubris to think all of us think the same about that person). This happens all too often. People’s personalities and defense systems are all unique to themselves and without actually being that person’s therapist, Schwartz’ remark is uncalled for. I need science and credible thoughts from “experts,” not backhanded editorials. If Schwartz is “in” on something the rest of us do not know, whatever happened to HIPPA? Anyway, please stop editorializing on politics.
As for building resilience after trauma, the family within is a wonderful tool. I also use both top-down and bottom-up tools (family within is primarily top-down) such as regular practices such as yoga, meditation, networking/support, pilates, aerobic and strength building exercises, religious practice (if that’s part of the client’s source of meaning and comfort), EMDR, neuro-feedback, bio-feedback, and emotionally focused singles and couples therapy.
Please leave Trump out of our discussions and hope and pray he can facilitate a better deal for our country. Think of Trump as one of our family within because leaders are chosen by and mirror their constituents. The democrats aren’t doing much to facilitate and restore harmony. Instead, they’re acting like firefighters. So we’ve got this dumb war within right now. The black and white thinking that is going on in the national discourse is, hopefully, a stupid stage we’re going through. I’d like to hear Schwartz take his family within model and apply it to our nation’s political sickness. Shame on him if he thinks it’s all about one person, an identified patient. As Trump would say, if you truly understand systems theory, “Not Smart.”
I encourage clients to nurture themselves on a daily basis, and also to write loving notes to their child selves that were traumatized.
Real wisdom, sane advice.
Thank you for this deeply reflective portal into regaining one’s “playful buoyancy and joy.”
The “exiles” mentioned that bring rigidity speaks into the quest to brush off the trauma, but leaves the person “brittle.”
I work with clinical hypnosis, as another fine accessing of the person’s perspective regarding how to bring in love and compassion, from spirit, thus creating real and healthy resilience for both body and mind.
Thank you, both, for your integrity, within helping trauma become positively healed in one’s life.
Elizabeth Agnese, M.A.
I have found focusing(see The Power of Focusing by Anne Weiser Cornell) has been helpful in getting the co-operation of wounded parts in the healing process,
The parts based therapies are the most helpful for me, especially given the emphasis on CBT for so many PTSD secondary diagnoses (OCD, GAD, SAD). CBT can just only go so far, I feel.
I think we have to remember the speakers on here tend to be gifted in their field, and if they have made observations about public figures it should be expressed. I remember Peter Levine talking about the startle response and how so many of us with PTSD have the startle response because we’re in fight/flight mode so much and he showed a video of a senator who was tapped by somebody from the back and had that startle response. I don’t see why it’s not okay to talk about these things, out loud. We need more awareness and it certainly shows people acting in ways that you would absolutely expect given their upbringing and tendency to protect from triggers. Thats understanding, not attacking.
I agree with you in people sharing examples of patterns that show up in leaders. It’s more than ok to talk about it!
Richard is very right! When my patients get in contact with the pain of trauma I work with their body with the 5 step program from Stanley Keleman. With his methods the client can lern how to come in contact without getting overwhelmed by the fear, pain, shame. He can lern over the muscular cortical organization to regulate his feelings and to find a new form to be alive.
1. What is our somatic situation? – organize the muscular pattern of our organization
2. Intensify the pattern to make vivid the emotional attitude.
3. Undo the intensified emotional-muscular attitude
4. Pause. Contain the pulsatory response
5. Reorganization of new patterns. Steps two and three, done voluntarily, make it possible to influence unconscious behavior. As we practice increasing and decreasing the intensity of muscular emotional shape, we generate specific sensations an feelings. This voluntary practice grows the cortical function to influence reflex responses, making them personal.
He did not explain exactly how to reach and heal those parts of self.
In my work I use hypnosis to heal where the wound was inflicted. Also using the resources of the subconscious to confront the fears, challenge and destroy them through various means.i.e visualizing, employing all the senses, going into combat with them and winning, or simply asking the subconscious with all its understanding of the self what would be the best and easiest way to release the fears. I will also create a method based on the individual’s psychic profile. There is no one size fits all method.
Regarding your mention of Trump: I find it refreshing that you as a mental health practitioner not only see Trump’s behavior for what it is- responses to trauma- but you also say it in a public forum. Too many people are normalizing that behavior. And that is a type of mental illness.
I understand in what you wrote that you were protective of the president. I noticed you were telling Elizabeth what to do, and wonder why you need to protect him as he’s capable speaking to most things, and why you need to tell Elizabeth what to do?
I agree that political opinions should be keep to yourself.
We had a party. One of my clients who was hurt very badly was seeking integration and healing. She invited all her parts into the office and we listened, cried, laughed, and embraced all her hurt parts and invited them to form a circle around us holding hands together to receive strength and consolaton. n She reported she would engage in the ritual dance with her parts, friends, and family. Eventually she felt totally integrate and whole not needing the ritual anymore. Oh yes, all her symptoms went away as well.
Parts work is the hub of my work as a trauma specialist. I think what is often under emphasized however is the need for the therapist to be actively involved in directly nurturing these deeply shamed and frightened traumatized child parts. It takes a long time of modeling attunement, empathy, gentle reframing of distortions and so on for clients to begin doing this for themselves via trasmutung internalization of compassionate parental type mothering and fathering and a slow maturation of a part who can witness with acceptance and learn to love and be loving.toward fragile childlike subparts. The resistance, shame and self loathing are tough barricades to integration.
I work with high functioning adults and it takes years to grow new self structure. Amazing to be part of helping adults heal and transform themselves in an environment of consistent love and compassion!
These points are well presented – it is disappointing that politics becomes interwoven into such issues and the US president is not spoken about with respect instead criticized and used as a negative example – there are many many Presidents who adopted this approach particularly when fighting evil such as in world war 2 – Winston Churchill for one from the country I am from- It would be preferable to exile politics as contextual understanding is absent and focus on addressing trauma states in general which was a powerful and useful short piece in itself. Thank you for this piece –
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I help them identify some of the positive aspects the tragedy produced like being to emphasize with people who experienced similar tragedies. I encourage them to find the treasure that lies among the ruins. My goal is not to teach them to manage their symptoms but to transcend their tragedy thereby finding meaning and purpose for their painful experience and then to help others.
I’ve just had some training with Janina Fisher, and have started using her ‘parts’ model with clients (it’s neurobiologically informed, and based on Richard’s Internal Family Systems Theory, along with Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, attachment theory, ego state techniques and mindfulness-based cognitive therapies, among other approaches). Janina is a great believer in psychoeducation, and when I’ve shown traumatised clients her parts model in diagrammatic form, they’ve understood and related to it immediately. She’s just published her approach in a book ‘Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors’ and I can’t recommend it highly enough
Bringing our President into this video is shameful no matter Who you are! Shame on you! My clients already have enough issues as it is.
I stumbled onto a talk in 1992 in Aurora, IL when I was just graduated. It was a guy named Dr. Schwartz. He talked about being trained as a family therapist and having a break through realization that his individual clients had parts that displayed the same system dynamics. I was riveted! The best part of the talk described the Self, an anchor of wholeness and health that could not be impaired by life’s tragedies — the deep part who, if tapped, could lead the client to their own unique healing. This was a bombshell that linked me to clinical work congruent with my Christian spirituality. I couldn’t get all of this out of my mind, it was so insightful and practical. Over the years as a beginning therapist I tried out these new ideas and always had useful progress with the very damaged abuse clients I was working with. Though I stayed eclectic in my work, this approach was validated with use and research for Dr. Schwartz and his school. Without fail, no matter the population, this concept of helping parts change while honoring them, and finding the Self, always liberates any person who reaches for a way to heal.
I help people deal with trauma through family constellations which helps people accept what is and disentangle relationships in a way that gives back what does not belong to them and yet cultivates belonging. Look up Bert Hellinger’s Family Systems Constellations!
Even in physical injury recovery or taking the next step to advance, I learned actually from a friend of “self” talk…..”self”, she would say, “you’re going to do thus or such”…. Good synopsis by Richard!
Appreciate another perspective on how to help a traumatized individual get in touch with their core ‘self’ again – that part of them that cannot be hurt and knows how to recall and heal the ‘exiles’ – by actually GOING THERE, and inviting themselves back into a framework of compassionate healing. When we start thinking that there is no one out there to help us re-integrate, we should try to remember that somewhere deep inside of us, there is that unaffected SELF which we can go to and probably engage in some of the more meaningful and effective recovery efforts available upon our immediate disposal. Once again, thank you, NICABM. – Nia Innes (cult abuse related dissociative disorders & ptsd)
I use focusing to get people in touch with parts of themselves that have been traumatized
I integrate IFS unburdenung ego
States and readying the client for EMDR
The combination works well!!!
What Richard Schwarts has to say is completely validating of the work that many of my colleagues and I do. I usually start my nurturing the hurt part of a client, then teach the client how to befriend and nurture their vulnerable sides. Often, there is great resistance at first as many clients ‘hate’ the vulnerable side of themselves, but do notice that they feel better when the hurt part receives nurturing from myself in the early stages of trauma work.
Thank you so much for sharing this video clip.
Debbie Davis
MSW, RSW
Some great points!
Not sure it was necessary to bring the President into it, though. Have you had him as a client? I kind of doubt that, and if you have – shouldn’t be sharing anyhow, ha.
People need to work through trauma with a compassionate therapist in order to get unstuck. Parts of a person can get stuck because their trauma has not be identified or addressed – thus never worked through and healed. It’s like an open wound which can get worse over time, esp. if exposed to similar trauma. (PTSD) Some people need to be taught how to have self-compassion which the therapist can model first. A child’s resiliency often depends on what support system they have.
People can have what we call a good attitude but if those faulty thought patterns are not recognized and corrected, they are in danger of repeating earlier behaviors. (Those thought patterns which have roots in trauma and/or neglect.) Emotional trauma if often harder to name and can be overlooked.
I’m unclear what Richard means by the term “parts”. Can someone clarify? I understand the tendency to exile the trauma but in what way does a person use compassion to defuse the trauma? Just saying kind words to the self?? How does that work?
This is a gestalt concept. Fritz perls stuff. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Examples of parts are the inner child, inner critic, adult parent , child. It’s things like the part of us that wants to move forward and the part of us that wants to stay the same . It’s the inner conflicts that people come to therapy for. The polarities. Good bad. Small bit. Child adult etc. transactional analysis call them ego states parent adult child. Hope that helps…Karen booth
Gestalt psychotherapist and know Practicioner.
Nsw Australia
Thanks for sharing this video and I like how Richard brings into his discussion these current times and comment on watching the Donald’s antiques on various media. Baffling !
However nothing new under the sun Roberto Azzagioli who was a contemporary and colleague of Freud had brought us the concept of subpersonalities about a hundred years so it seemd. However under the branding of Psychosynthesis it is less palatable than under the family systems banner. Personally I have been using this approach ever since I have been working with clients and I found it ever so useful. Some clients need to be encouraged a bit to enter into the dialogues with the parts and the we have to make sure that thereis enough solidity in the therapeutic relationship to provide enough scaffolding until the client has enough of his own resources in place.
This is for what I called normally traumatised clients when it comes to structural dissociation then we are entering another sphere of dysfunctional multiplicity.
I couldn’t agree more. I had been surviving for so long but, now I’m trying to focus on healing my parts. Recently I have been trying to use my voice. I have people that are toxic. They talk over you, diminish and disregard your voice. Try to escalate conversations. I start shaking and feel extremely triggered. I have stayed calm and deescalated while saying what I need and expect. It’s very hard. Especially when physically triggered. I show compassion to myself and try to hear what the emotions are telling me. I feel much freer than the other way and more authentic in my voice. Thank you for your work on this. It’s so important!
Thank you Aspasia Holley. Thank you specialist workin with trauma survivors. The president is a trigger of trauma.
This is vital information. Parts work is so important and few therapists know about it. Thank you.