Healing as relational. (Part VIII)

Healing as relational.
Welcome to part VIII of the series exploring “What does it mean to heal trauma?”

Judith Herman and many other trauma workers emphasize the relational aspect of healing a great deal. In Trauma & Recovery, Herman states:

“Recovery can take place only within the context of relationships; it cannot occur in isolation” (Herman, 2015, pg. 133).

The idea comes from the fact that individuals are hurt or traumatized by others. There is always some relationship involved. There are many different kinds of relationships and relationality, which we will explore below.

First, we can think of this as healing in relationship “within oneself,” or “with oneself.” There may be aspects of our self-esteem, self-concept, relationship with our body, emotions, and mind, and these relationships may be damaged as a result of trauma. Therefore, part of the work of healing is to repair and sometimes re-establish these relationships in a new and healthier way.

There is then the healing in the context of interpersonal human relationships that Herman writes about. The primary intention is to include group-based work with other survivors as part of the healing process, and not to include only individual therapy. What Herman and others have argued is that placing one’s healing journey only within the confines of a 1:1 therapeutic environment maintains the secrecy, and sometimes the shame, of the traumatic experience. The power a group offers in witnessing, being witnessed, and also being supported through the experiences of others, provides a treatment experience that individual therapy alone cannot provide.

In addition, healing in relationship also means addressing the ruptures and damage of relationships with others. This does not necessarily mean that one has to cultivate a friendship or even realize forgiveness for one’s abuser, for example. Instead, it might mean repairing the existing relationships we have that have suffered at the hands of patterns of behavior that stem from the trauma. It can also mean having healing experiences within relationships that meet our needs in ways that those who failed or traumatized us failed to satisfy. For example, through the attachment lens, those who may have had insecure attachment styles as children can have healing experiences as adults that cultivate what is now referred to as an “earned-secure” attachment style. We might recall Peter Levine’s suggestion that trauma does not have to be a life sentence. There are new experiences we can have as we age that are healing and reparative.

We can also consider the idea of healing as communal, or healing within community. Similar to the idea of group-based healing, this type of healing is both for the individual and for the collective. Sometimes an entire community has been traumatized and damaged by overwhelming experiences. These experiences might include war, racism, gun violence, natural disasters and sexual violence. All of these cause damage on both an individual level and can damage what we might think of as the “social fabric.” There is an impediment to the community’s ability to integrate. Thus, healing in community provides an anecdote to both the individuals and the community through actions and interventions that remove the impediments to integration and support the differentiation and linkage of a community among its various members.

Finally, healing in relationship can also be thought of as addressing one’s relationship with “The Divine.” Speaking from my own experience, I had lost any sense of spirituality for many years following my exodus from the evangelical community and church in which I was both raised and sexually abused. I lost any sense of the Presence of the Divine in and among all things. I lost any sense of the Imminence within myself. I lost any sense of the Divine as myself.

As I began to heal on the level of symptoms, then move towards safety and other avenues, a natural curiosity began to arise. Then, in many ways, it began to appear as an experience of the descent of Grace. I began to have a strong sense of Presence in my life. I began having deep direct experiences of the Divine, all of which served to shift the entirety of my life in the direction of a spiritual orientation. It was like my compass had been spinning or thrown off its ability to calibrate direction. As it was repaired, I regained a sense of orientation towards the Spiritual North, and it felt as if the entirety of my life fell into place, along with a deep sense of meaning and purpose. I sometimes describe it as the veil beginning to get thinner and thinner until it eventually just disappeared.

Part IX continues this series, exploring healing through a concept from Polyvagal Theory known as “story follows state.”

REFERENCES FOR THIS SERIES

Aurobindo, Sri. (1990). The Synthesis of Yoga. Lotus Press.

Badenoch, B. (2018). The Heart of Trauma (First edition ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.

Banerji, D. (2016). Seven quartets of becoming (Second impression ed.). Nalanda International.

Blackstone, J. (2018). Trauma and the unbound body. Sounds True.

Damasio, A. R. (2019). The strange order of things : life, feeling, and the making of cultures (First Vintage Books edition, February 2019. ed.). Vintage Books.

Freud, S. (2010). Civilization and Its Discontents. W. W. Norton & Company.

Herman, J. L. (2015). Trauma and recovery. Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

Larson, G. J. (1969). Classical Sāṃkhya (1 ed. ed.). Motilal Banarsidass.

Levine, P. A., & Frederick, A. (1997). Waking the tiger : healing trauma : the innate capacity to transform overwhelming experiences. North Atlantic Books.

Levine, P. A., & Kline, M. (2008). Trauma-proofing your kids : a parents’ guide for instilling confidence, joy and resilience. North Atlantic Books.

McLaren, K. (2010). The language of emotions. Sounds True.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Heal. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 23, 2022, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heal

Miller, A. (1997). The drama of the gifted child : the search for the true self, revised edition. Basic Books.

Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory : neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation (1st ed. ed.). W.W. Norton.

Porges, S. W. (2017). The pocket guide to polyvagal theory : the transformative power of feeling safe (First edition. ed.). W. W Norton & Company.

Siegel, D. J. 1. (2012). Pocket guide to interpersonal neurobiology : an integrative handbook of the mind (First edition. ed.). W.W. Norton & Company.

Siegel, D. J. 1. (2018). Aware : the science and practice of Presence, the groundbreaking meditation practice. TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

Solomon, M. F., & Siegel, D. J. 1. (2003). Healing trauma : attachment, mind, body, and brain (1st ed. ed.). W.W. Norton.

Van der Kolk, Bessel A. 1943-. (2015). The body keeps the score : brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Penguin Books.