Lesson 3: Discussing Various Types of Trauma: In this session, participants embark on a deep exploration of trauma in its multifaceted manifestations, gaining insights into its impact on individuals and communities. Specifically, we’ll:

Analysis of Trauma: Engage in an analytical discussion on the nature and manifestations of trauma, exploring the conceptual psychological, emotional, and societal dimensions.

Mapping Different Types of Trauma: Delve into the diverse landscape of trauma, mapping out various types such as physical, emotional, ancestral, and intergenerational trauma, while fostering participants’ ability to discern and understand the nuances of each.

Understanding Trauma Dynamics: Examine the primal needs, the concept of the split, and the underlying causes of disease, while equipping participants with the skills to listen empathetically and decipher the core of communicated information.

Trauma-Informed Care: Introduce the concept of trauma-informed care, elucidating its principles and practices for creating safe and supportive environments that prioritize healing and resilience.

Community Implementation:

Transformative Healing in Community (Transformation): Explore the transformative potential of collective healing within communities, examining how shared experiences can catalyze profound shifts and empower communities to thrive amidst adversity.

Navigating Community Cataclysms: Navigate the complexities of community cataclysms, including collapse and emergence, and delve into strategies for addressing crises, conflicts, and disruptions within community settings, fostering resilience and adaptive capacity.

Strategies for Addressing Crises: Equip participants with practical strategies for addressing crises and conflicts within community settings, emphasizing the importance of proactive interventions, collaborative problem-solving, and nurturing a culture of solidarity and support.

Lumina: Reading a story

Why Stories

Reflecting on Mistakes

Conceptual Aspects of Trauma

Different Types of Trauma and its Impact

More on Trauma

Trauma-Informed Care (Julia Seng)

On Dissociation, Split and How This May Manifest in a Community

On Primal Needs, Primal Trauma and Possible Projects for the Community

Group Sharing

Γιατί ιστορίες;

Εννοιολογικές Όψεις του Τραύματος

Πρωτογενείς Ανάγκες, Διχασμός

Εφαρμογή στην Κοινότητα

Fatin Atrooz, Karim A. Alkadhi, Samina Salim, Understanding stress: Insights from rodent models, Current Research in Neurobiology, Volume 2, 2021, 100013, ISSN 2665-945X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crneur.2021.100013. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2665945X21000097)

Boersma GJ, Tamashiro KL. Individual differences in the effects of prenatal stress exposure in rodents. Neurobiol Stress. 2014 Nov 4;1:100-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2014.10.006. PMID: 27589662; PMCID: PMC4721332.

Vicarious traumatization: Concept analysis

Read this paper written by William Emerson on Somatotropic Therapy
Journal-5-2-Somatotropic-Therapy

Below you find the original Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire
ACE-Questionnaire-for-Adults-Identified-English-rev.7.26.22
latest litterature about ACEs:
Webster EM. The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Health and Development in Young Children. Glob Pediatr Health. 2022 Feb 26;9:2333794X221078708. doi: 10.1177/2333794X221078708. PMID: 35237713; PMCID: PMC8882933.
Vasiliki Tzouvara, Pinar Kupdere, Keiran Wilson, Leah Matthews, Alan Simpson, Una Foye, Adverse childhood experiences, mental health, and social functioning: A scoping review of the literature, Child Abuse & Neglect, Volume 139, 2023, 106092, ISSN 0145-2134, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2023.106092. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014521342300073X)

This is the link to Trauma Informed Care where you can find a lot of resources

The link to Arthur Janov’s Website is https://primaltherapy.net/arthur-janov

Read or download Janov’s book on Primal Healing:
Arthur_Janov_Primal_Healing_Psychology_B

Concepts of psychological health and disturbance
Notes on Aspects Discussed

We are naturally healthy mentally, just as we are naturally healthy physically. We have basic needs to exist, for protection against danger, for contact comfort, for love, for sustenance, forexploration, for communication, for respect, and so on. As long as these needs are satisfied, we will stay healthy and grow, as Maslow (1970) more than anyone else has insisted. But if we get poison instead of food, isolation instead of contact, exposure to danger instead of protection, hate or indifference instead of love, insecurity instead of security, emotional withdrawal instead of support, mystification or double-bind instead of learning, then those basic needs will remain unmet or unfulfilled.

When such primal needs are unmet by parents or other caregivers, or seem to be from the infant’s point of view, the child will experience primal pain. And needs do not go away – they still remain – so the child has primal pain and unmet needs, too. This is what is meant by trauma.

This primal pain can be too much to bear. Lake (1980) describes four levels of experience:

• Level 1 is totally need-satisfying: everything is all right.
• Level 2 is coping: there are some unmet needs but they are bearable, still within the realm of the ‘good enough’.
• Level 3 is opposition: pain of this order cannot remain connected up within the organism; it is repressed, and many aspects of the matter are pushed into the unconscious, in the manner suggested by Freud. Defences are then set up to preserve this solution, and to make sure that it stays forgotten.
• Level 4 is transmarginal stress (this term is taken from Pavlov’s work) and here the pain is so great that the much more drastic defence of splitting has to be used. The whole self is split into two, and only one part (the ‘false self’ as described by Winnicott (1958) and others) is adapted to the new situation, while the other part (Winnicott’s ‘true self’) is hidden away as too small, too weak and too vulnerable.

The self is then defined as not-OK or bad (this is now the false self, which is all that is present in awareness) and can even turn against itself, willing its own death and destruction. In this area Reich, Balint, Winnicott, Janov, Grof and Laing are in substantial agreement, emphasizing that Level 4 is not an unusual response.

… Wilber (1984) distinguishes nine such developmental fulcrums, though he says much more about some of them than about others. Janov (1975) has his own simpler version of this idea, and describes three broad stages of development, which correspond to different traditions in psychotherapy, and also to three different areas in the brain:

• Third-line traumas are those which occur when we have access to speech. These are the events which the classical Freudian analyst is most commonly working with-the Oedipus complex may be involved in some form. They are registered in the cerebral cortex-the newest part of the brain-and language and meaning are very important. Often three peopleare involved in such late traumas-the child and the rival parents.
• Second-line traumas are much more primitive, going back to the time before speech came on the scene, but when emotions were developed and deeply felt, often involving dramatic fantasies. Language is not important in these cases, and may be altogether absent. And this is usually a pre-Oedipal two-person relationship, which the object relations school are very happy working with (also Kohut and Lacan). Such traumas are involved with the limbic system of the brain-this is the area in which tranquillizers are aimed at, and where they have their main effect.
• First-line traumas are more primitive still, going back to the time before any differentiation of the emotions took place, and where survival is the main issue. This involves the reptilian brain or R-complex-the most basic and oldest part of the brain, which we share with most of the animal realm. There is hardly even much sense of two-ness here – just deep fundamental feelings of positive or negative. …
  

  WRITER	PERIPHERAL	CENTRAL
  Adler	Guiding fiction	Creative self
  Assagilli	Subpersonalities	I
  Janov	Unreal self	Real self
  Jung	Persona	Self
  Laing	False self	Real self
  Mahrer	Operating potentials	Deeper potentials
  Moreno	Conserved roles	Spontaneity
  Perls	Self-image	Self
  Winnicott	False self	True self

  …

  Body movements can be very helpful in enabling the therapist to assess this, particularly in the pre-verbal area. Swartley (1978) gives some guidelines in the matter:

  Conception trauma: Hands at sides, feet move like a tail, most of the physical activity is focussed at the top of the head. (Sometimes the client will identify with the egg.) Implantation trauma In most cases, the psychosomatic energy is focussed in the forehead which searches for the right spot of skin on another person on which to attach.
  Birth trauma: Here the energy is directed toward breaking out of mother’s womb. Pushing with legs very characteristic. Pain in head, which wants to be held tight.

  Emerson also has some unpublished work on the typical movements associated with the first trimester in the womb.

  If the body gets stuck – that is, there are signs of tension but the body is not moving – we may do some primal massage. We look for the tense spots and very gently move into them with our hands. This very often releases more feelings and more movements. Or sometimes it is pressure which is needed, on the head or on some other part of the body. We encouragethe person to make sounds of any kind, as this helps to mobilise energy and keep things moving. If we can just keep the client still moving, still active, still breathing, more regression is likely to occur.

  But there are other ways of enabling the client to get in touch with inner experience. …
  Read more or the whole publication (3 articles) written by John Rowan here

Swartley, W. (1977). Crippling our Children. Self & Society, 5(6), 194–198. https://doi.org/10.1080/03060497.1977.11083572

A Collection of papers on prenatal/ birth/ social/ ancestral  trauma

Understanding how communities can collectively transform and thrive after challenging experiences

The idea that what people conceive as trauma might be rooted in their inability to understand the deeper meaning or correlation of the experience is an interesting perspective, but it’s also quite complex. Let’s break it down a bit.

Subjectivity of Trauma: Trauma is a deeply subjective experience. What one person finds traumatic, another might not. This subjectivity is influenced by various factors including past experiences, cultural background, personality traits, and coping mechanisms.
Meaning Making: Humans are meaning-making beings. We often try to make sense of our experiences by assigning meaning to them. This meaning-making process is crucial for our psychological well-being, especially in the face of adversity or trauma. Inability to Process: In some cases, individuals may struggle to process traumatic events due to various reasons such as overwhelming emotions, lack of support, or cognitive barriers. This difficulty in processing can lead to ongoing distress and symptoms characteristic of trauma-related disorders like PTSD.
Complexity of Trauma: Traumatic experiences can be complex and multifaceted. They often involve a combination of physical, emotional, and psychological elements that can be challenging to fully comprehend or integrate into one’s narrative or sense of self.
Therapeutic Approaches: Therapeutic approaches like trauma-focused therapy acknowledge the importance of understanding and processing traumatic experiences. They help individuals explore the deeper meanings and associations related to their trauma in a safe and supportive environment.
Resilience and Growth: While trauma can have profound and long-lasting effects, many individuals also demonstrate remarkable resilience and post-traumatic growth. This growth often involves finding new meanings, perspectives, and strengths derived from the traumatic experience.
Diverse Perspectives: It’s important to recognize that perspectives on trauma vary widely across cultures, belief systems, and psychological theories. What one person views as a failure to realize deeper meaning may be seen differently by others, such as viewing trauma as an injury that requires healing and integration rather than a lack of understanding.

In summary, while exploring the deeper meanings and correlations of traumatic experiences can be valuable in the therapeutic process, it’s essential to approach such discussions with sensitivity to the individual’s unique context, cultural background, and subjective experience of trauma. Therapeutic interventions that blend empathy, validation, and cognitive restructuring can help individuals navigate the complexities of trauma and promote healing and resilience.

If we consider the hypothesis that trauma can stem from an inability to make sense of experiences where there is underlying meaning, then expanding individuals’ capacity to make sense of themselves as part of the cosmos involves a multifaceted approach that integrates psychological, philosophical, and existential perspectives. Here are some ways we might support such a process:

1. Therapeutic Exploration: Utilize therapeutic modalities such as narrative therapy, existential therapy, or prenatal psychology to help individuals explore the deeper meanings and connections within their life experiences. Encourage reflection on personal beliefs, values, and existential questions related to their place in the universe.
2. Meaning-Making Frameworks: Introduce individuals to philosophical and existential frameworks that explore concepts of meaning, purpose, and interconnectedness.
3. Mindfulness and Contemplative Practices: Incorporate mindfulness meditation, contemplative practices, or reflective journaling to help individuals cultivate awareness of their inner experiences, emotions, and thoughts. These practices can foster a deeper understanding of self and one’s relationship to the larger cosmos.
4. Connection with Nature: Encourage experiences that promote connection with nature, such as ecotherapy, wilderness retreats, or nature-based mindfulness activities. Engaging with the natural world can evoke a sense of awe, interconnectedness, and perspective that can enhance one’s sense of belonging in the cosmos.
5. Integration of Science and Spirituality: Explore the intersections between scientific understanding (e.g., cosmology, quantum physics) and spiritual or philosophical traditions (e.g., classical philosophies, indigenous wisdom). Encourage dialogue and inquiry into the nature of reality, consciousness, and human existence.
6. Community and Support: Foster supportive communities or therapeutic groups where individuals can share their experiences, insights, and existential questions in a safe and non-judgmental environment. Collective exploration and shared meaning-making can enhance personal growth and integration.
7. Creative Expression: Encourage creative outlets such as art therapy, writing, music, or movement practices that allow individuals to express and explore their inner world, emotions, and connections to the broader cosmos in symbolic or metaphorical ways.
8. Education and Resources: Provide access to educational resources, workshops, or seminars that delve into topics related to meaning, spirituality, cosmology, and personal growth. Empower individuals with knowledge and tools to continue their journey of self-discovery and sense-making.

By combining these approaches, we can create holistic and supportive environments that help individuals expand their capacity to make sense of themselves as integral parts of the cosmos, fostering deeper insights, resilience, and a sense of interconnectedness with the world around them.

Matoba, Kazuma. “’Measuring’ Collective Trauma: a Quantum Social Science Approach.” Integrative psychological & behavioral science vol. 57,2 (2023): 412-431. doi:10.1007/s12124-022-09696-2

Trauma Terminology

Ambiguous Loss

Ambiguous loss is a loss that occurs without closure or understanding. This kind of loss leaves a person searching for answers, and thus complicates and delays the process of grieving and often results in unresolved grief.

Acute Trauma

Acute trauma is a one-time event that happens under a limited amount of time. This could include sexual or physical assault, going through a natural disaster, or possibly a car wreck. Examples include medical trauma, hate crimes, physical or sexual assault.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Adverse Childhood Experiences refers to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that examined the relationship of prevalence of traumatic experiences in childhood to a number of negative mental and physical health outcomes in adulthood, (CDC, retrieved 2019).

Adverse Community Experience

Adverse community experiences refers to traumas that are experienced by entire communities, as opposed to individuals. The physical, socio-cultural, and economic environments all have an affect on how adverse community experiences proliferate, (Prevention Institute, 2015).

Allostatic Load

Allostatic load is the term used to describe cumulative physiological wear and tear that results from repeated efforts to adapt to stressors over time, (Danese, A. & McEwen, B. S., 2012).

Chronic Trauma

Chronic trauma is where an event may happen over and over again or it may be a multiple layering of events. For example, chronic trauma might apply in cases of ongoing abuse, neglect, domestic violence, human trafficking, or it might be that someone has multiple events happen to them. For example, they have cancer, they’re in a tornado, and then they are in a car wreck— different types of trauma layering one on the other. What is important to understand about chronic trauma is that going through an event once may not be a protective factor but it can actually increase your risk factors for susceptibility when you go through another event.

Collective Trauma

“The term collective trauma refers to the psychological reactions to a traumatic event that affect an entire society; it does not merely reflect an historical fact, the recollection of a terrible event that happened to a group of people. It suggests that the tragedy is represented in the collective memory of the group, and like all forms of memory it comprises not only a reproduction of the events, but also an ongoing reconstruction of the trauma in an attempt to make sense of it.” War, genocide, slavery, terrorism, and natural disasters can cause collective trauma, which can be further defined as historical, ancestral, or cultural, (Hirschberger G. (2018).

Complex Trauma

Complex trauma is a lot like chronic trauma, except that it happens at the inactions or actions of the caregiver, the person that a child should be able to trust. This trauma generally starts in the early years, 0–6, even though it can go beyond that, that’s where we generally see it starting. The importance of understanding complex trauma is because it doesn’t end when the trauma ends, it doesn’t end when the abuse ends, it doesn’t end when the domestic violence or assault ends, or the neglect ends. That’s really important to understand.

Compassion Satisfaction

Compassion satisfaction is experiencing pleasure and satisfaction from work done in helping professions. Whereas many individuals experience compassion fatigue, where they absorb the suffering of their clients, compassion satisfaction is the ability to find enjoyment and fulfillment through helping others, (ProQOL, retrieved 2019).

Developmental Trauma

Developmental trauma is multiple or chronic exposure to one or more forms of developmentally adverse interpersonal trauma (abandonment, betrayal, physical assaults, sexual assaults, threats to bodily integrity, coercive practices, emotional abuse, witnessing violence and death), (ACEs Connection, retrieved 2019).

Historical Trauma

Historical trauma is cumulative emotional and psychological wounding across generations, including the lifespan, which emanates from massive group trauma, (Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart et al, 2011). Although originally introduced to describe the experience of children of Holocaust survivors, the term has been applied to numerous colonized indigenous groups throughout the world, as well as African Americans, Armenian refugees, Japanese American survivors of internment camps, Swedish immigrant children whose parents were torture victims, Palestinian youth, the people of Cyprus, Belgians, Cambodians, Israelis, Mexicans and Mexican Americans, Russians, and many other cultural groups and communities that share a history of oppression, victimization, or massive group trauma exposure (Mohatt, N. V. et al, 2014).

Intergenerational Trauma

Intergenerational trauma is a traumatic event that began years prior to the current generation and has impacted the ways in which individuals within a family understand, cope with, and heal from trauma, (Hill, T. retrieved 2019).

Medical Trauma

Medical trauma can include symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in response to medical experiences such as “pain, injury, serious illness, medical procedures, and invasive or frightening treatment experiences,” (Teach Trauma, retrieve 2019).

Post-Traumatic Growth

Post-traumatic growth refers to the process of individuals who have experienced trauma gaining “positive change and growth” through the healing process of coping with the trauma. It is important to note that post traumatic growth is not caused by trauma, but by the healing process that the individual takes part in, (Trauma Recovery, retrieved 2019).

Race-based Trauma

Racial and ethnic minority individuals may experience racial discrimination as a psychological trauma, as it may elicit a response comparable to post-traumatic stress. Examples include macroaggressions, microaggressions, hate crimes, (Carter, 2007).

Systemic Trauma

Systemic trauma refers to the contextual features of environments and institutions (including policies and laws) that give rise to trauma, maintain it, and impact post-traumatic responses, (Goldsmith, 2014).

Toxic Stress

Prolonged activation of the stress response systems that can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems, and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment, well into the adult years, (Center on the Developing Child, retrieved 2019).

Traumatic Grief

Traumatic grief is a response to death and/or grief that is similar to other reactions to trauma. Individuals may ruminate on the details of the death, have difficulty with memory and development, and experience emotional and physical arousal symptoms, (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, retrieved 2019).

Vicarious Trauma

The term Vicarious traumatization (VT) was coined by Pearlman & Saakvitne (1995) to describe the profound shift in world view that occurs in helping professionals when they work with individuals who have experienced trauma. Helpers notice that their fundamental beliefs about the world are altered and possibly damaged by being repeatedly exposed to traumatic material, (TEND academy, 2018).

Resilience

Resilience “is both the capacity of individuals to navigate their way to the psychological, social, cultural, and physical resources that sustain their well-being, and their capacity individually and collectively to negotiate for these resources to be provided in culturally meaningful ways,” (Trauma Recovery, retrieved 2019).

Vicarious Resilience

Vicarious resilience refers to the process of service providers experiencing positive personal development caused by witnessing their clients’ resilience and growth through adversity. By being a part of the healing process for their clients, service providers may experience their own healing and a shift in the way they are able to view their own struggles (Hernandez, 2010).

War Trauma

This includes officially state-sanctioned acts of war; all methods of war for controlling populations including sexual violence and abductions, military coups and violent revolutions; as well as secret acts of violence perpetrated by governments and anti-government forces even when unofficially acknowledged.

Watch this video on neonatal ecosystem

You can find Dr Seuss stories here

Here are some references and resources that can provide further insights into the discussed areas:

1. Trauma and Meaning-Making:
   • Book: “Trauma and Recovery” by Judith Herman explores the psychological impact of trauma and the process of healing and meaning-making.
   • Article: “Making Sense of Loss and Benefitting from the Experience: Two Construals of Meaning” by George Bonanno and Anthony D. Mancini discusses how individuals find meaning in traumatic experiences.
   • Research Paper: “The Role of Meaning in the Context of Trauma Recovery” by Crystal L. Park and Joseph M. Currier delves into the role of meaning-making in coping with trauma.
2. Existential Psychology and Philosophy:
   • Book: “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl explores existential themes through the lens of surviving the Holocaust and finding meaning in suffering.
   • Philosophical Texts: Works by existential philosophers such as Martin Heidegger (“Being and Time”), Jean-Paul Sartre (“Being and Nothingness”), and Simone de Beauvoir (“The Ethics of Ambiguity”) offer deep insights into human existence, freedom, and meaning.
   • Research Article: “Existential Concerns and Psychotherapy: A Framework for Positive Prescriptions” by Kirk J. Schneider and Orah T. Krug discusses existential themes in psychotherapy.
3. Mindfulness and Contemplative Practices:
   • Book: “The Miracle of Mindfulness” by Thich Nhat Hanh introduces mindfulness practices for cultivating awareness and presence in everyday life.
   • Research Article: “Mindfulness-Based Interventions for Trauma: A Comprehensive Review of Theory, Practice, and Effectiveness” by Victoria L. Follette et al. explores the role of mindfulness in trauma recovery.
4. Nature and Well-being:
   • Book: “The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative” by Florence Williams explores the psychological and physiological benefits of connecting with nature.
   • Research Paper: “Spending at Least 120 Minutes a Week in Nature Is Associated with Good Health and Well-being” by Mathew P. White et al. discusses the positive effects of nature exposure on well-being.
5. Creative Expression and Healing:
   • Book: “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron offers insights and exercises for using creativity as a tool for personal growth and healing.
   • Article: “The Healing Power of Expressive Writing: How to Overcome Emotional and Psychological Pain with Words” by James W. Pennebaker explores the therapeutic benefits of writing for processing emotions and experiences.

Participants’ contributions: PubMED Forcada-Guex M, Pierrehumbert B, Borghini A, Moessinger A, Muller-Nix C. Early dyadic patterns of mother-infant interactions and outcomes of prematurity at 18 months. Pediatrics. 2006 Jul;118(1):e107-14. doi: 10.1542/peds.2005-1145. PMID: 16818525.

Barnard KE, Blackburn S. Making a case for studying the ecologic niche of the newborn. Birth Defects Orig Artic Ser. 1985;21(3):71-88. PMID: 4052595.