Conclusion: What does it mean to heal trauma? (Part XVI)

Welcome to the final installment of the series exploring the question, “What does it mean to heal trauma?” In this post, I’ll share some reflections from my own healing journey, some ideas on where I am going with my own trauma research, as well as an open-ended conclusion on where to go from here.

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED FROM MY OWN TRAUMA HEALING EXPERIENCE?

Many of the threads we explored in this series have been paths I have directly experienced – or, paths that I experienced by absence. When I started focused efforts on healing the wound of sexual trauma, I did not have a definition of healing. I did have an instinctual desire to feel better, to end the symptoms, so I began with both a sense of wanting to “cure” how I felt by making the symptoms go away, as well as wanting to restore a sense of safety in all areas of my life. As I deepened my healing work, especially through graduate school and study, I came to see and know healing in terms of integration, evolution, state shifts, surrender, relationship, spectrums, spirals, and spheres, binding and unbinding, in an impersonal way as through the lens of the gunas, in both big picture and tactical terms, and as ananda or Bliss.

Regardless of the various lenses that are taken on and off, the “Three Truths” of trauma healing I shared earlier are what have persisted: I am not alone, I am not broken, and I can not only heal, I can grow.

For me, this process has taken a long time. These three truths, and all the various paths we have explored, unfolded over the course of more than 30 years. For example, I did not land upon the concept of traumananda until 35 years after the sexual abuse I experienced when I was eight. I do not think I could have even conceived of that idea any sooner. At times the idea of experiencing the Bliss of trauma release can seem ludicrous. In some respects, at some levels of consciousness, it always will be ludicrous, because in certain states or levels of consciousness, the possibilities are limited. The idea of safety, healing, or growth is impossible for certain states of mind.

In addition to learning how long the process can take, I have also learned that even the idea of the ascending spiral can mean that when old material is experienced again, but at a different level of healing and consciousness, it can feel like setbacks. I do not think I have ever experienced a flashback, for example, without the aftermath of feeling like I have not recovered or healed at all. I have felt shame, embarrassment, discouragement and defeat. Part of that is because of the state of consciousness that is involved in the flashback experience – it is a state of highly limited, highly constricted consciousness, along with a feeling of profound danger and disconnection. When the experience passes and the state of consciousness shifts, those elements that I thought I had healed and recovered remained. Which meant that although the state of the flashback and its immediate aftermath felt as if I had regressed, I had actually just shifted into a state of lower integration and a more “bound” state of consciousness. This shift was temporary, and did not result in any long term loss of my sense of ultimate connection to myself, other, or the Divine.

Which brings us to one of the hardest lessons I have learned from my own experience of healing trauma: healing does not necessarily mean eliminating all symptoms forever. I learned this in the context of group-based healing alongside other male survivors of child sexual trauma. It was through the voices and stories of other survivors that I learned what others had come to realize: that their symptoms were likely to stick around. Integration meant becoming bigger, including them as part of life but playing a diminished and diminishing role over time. The metaphor I shared earlier came from this context of group-based healing, that of becoming like an 18-wheeler. It (the trauma symptoms) might remain, but they share the road with 17 other wheels. Thus, healing seems to mean acknowledging that this is a part of my life, and may always be. Coming to peace with “may always be,” can be considered a part of the healing process itself.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO HEAL TRAUMA WITHIN A RESEARCH STUDY?

Within my own research, I have grappled with how to define the healing of sexual trauma. I think it is important to be clear about how this is being conceptualized within the confines of a study so as to be able to maintain integrity and validity in advancing any claims that may come of the work.

For participants in a study, I think it is important for them to be clear on their goals, as well as their personal orientation towards healing. For example, is a participant’s goal to focus more on symptom elimination or management; or, are they in a place where they are more oriented towards growth?

Aside from my own conceptualization for the purposes of my dissertation work, there is also the challenge of universalization within the trauma healing field. I say “challenge of universalization” really to mean that this is a challenge for a materialist-based framework like capitalism, which seeks to standardize literally everything so as to optimize mass production of treatments in order to maximize the possible profits from the sale of treatment resources. This is not to say that those within a capitalist orientation do not have good motives. One can be a capitalist and a good person and even a great therapist or healing professional! It is simply to acknowledge that the model depends on predictable consumer behaviors in the consumption of goods and services. Thus, this economic model is challenged because it seeks to establish a kind of homogeneity among individuals so as to predict “consumer” needs as accurately as possible, and again, systematize treatments. The challenge with the category of PTSD (as laid out in the DSM, which lies within the allopathic medical model) is that there are more than 100,000 possible combinations of trauma symptoms that can exhibit to reach the same diagnosis. This is a problem for capitalistic-oriented approaches, as standardization remains elusive. It appears easier to focus on symptoms of trauma, such as anxiety and depression, and to establish standards and universal treatment approaches for them when the goal is to optimize profit.

Part of what this discussion confronts is the difference between materialist approaches to healing and consciousness-based healing. Materialist approaches tend to emphasize healing as improving symptoms. Consciousness-based healing includes the improvement of symptoms for trauma survivors, but also includes spiritual growth and personal transformation as part of the healing process. This could also be called the “transpersonal” perspective on trauma healing, and allows for the spiritual dimension in the experience (the growing field of Post-Traumatic Growth also includes the spirituality of survivors in its purview).

Finally, given the amount of work I have done in integrating yoga with trauma healing, it is interesting to note that within its own references, yogic paths do not really address “healing” in the sense that the allopathic approach conceives of it (“in the West”). Instead, the “healing process” is better equated with the definition and goals of yoga itself, that of union/uniting with the Absolute. It is about integration and wholeness – which also happens to be similar to the language of IPNB, which is in terms of integrating. In this framing, healing as yoga is serving the ultimate goal of integrating one’s entire being, evolving consciousness, expanding consciousness, raising consciousness, and realizing Oneness.

CONCLUSION

There are many ways to conceptualize both trauma and healing. In addition, the healing of trauma is not an easy endeavor. Perhaps because of these two things – both the challenge of defining and the challenge of healing – we find ourselves with an increasing number of ways in which trauma might be imagined as well as healed through a growing variety of frameworks and methods.

Be that as it may, what I argue remains utmost is the centrality of the survivor’s experience in the process. It is this suffering that drives the enterprise of healing. It is this suffering, this dukkha, that fuels the efforts to realize wholeness, to recover important dimensions of our lives that are often dramatically altered as a result of trauma. It is also this suffering that I argue urges us to be more aware of how both practitioners and survivors understand trauma and its healing. Again, I am not asserting that we must arrive at a universal concept and method. I am asserting that the growing number of ways in which trauma and healing are described makes it increasingly important to know where we stand, to have a sense of what is meant, and what is understood. By recognizing the importance of understanding one’s orientation towards trauma healing, and integrating this step as a critical part of the studies I conduct, I hope to further the field of trauma healing through my continued research… as well as my continued journey of healing. This greater awareness may better support the efforts of survivors to find the relief, recovery, and realization they long for.

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