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Understanding Trauma Within Dynamic Energetic Healing®

In the Dynamic Energetic Healing® model, the long-term consequences of trauma frequently emerge as the primary feature from which all subsequent disturbance patterns arise. The tentacles of trauma reach into all areas of people’s lives. Dynamic Energetic Healing® recognizes the complexity of trauma and its many consequences, and through its array of powerful interventions has demonstrated to be successful in generating positive therapeutic outcomes to restore wholeness once again.

People who have been wounded by severe trauma end up feeling stuck in very specific areas in their lives. Though this may seem overstated, the truth is that trauma is part of life and no one is insulated or protected from injury (physical or emotional) in the passage through life. Trauma not only limits what people feel capable of accomplishing; it also creates significant ambivalence and confusion in one’s efforts to seek help. Trauma victims are often filled with shame, and many believe they are broken or damaged by their utter helplessness to escape from their inner prison. Because of these feelings and the accompanying vulnerability, many individuals are hesitant to seek counseling assistance. When trauma victims do finally seek psychotherapeutic help, it is doubtful whether the clinician is sufficiently emotionally integrated (let alone professionally trained) to support these individuals and see them through to a positive therapeutic outcome. The literature supports these assertions.

Since the diagnosis of PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder) has finally become accepted within the larger psychological community, its complex symptomatology has become legitimized. What would previously have been regarded simply as “neurotic” behavior is now accepted and understood as the aftermath of experiences that overwhelm the human organism’s capacity to cope. PTSD has provided the framework for better understanding how we are affected and shaped by our experience.

If clients with PTSD do not feel safe in their physical body, I literally see them as being somewhat dissociated — a part of them is hovering above their head. This kind of out-of-body dissociation is one of the common responses to trauma. When I see this, I establish the intention for them to be 100 percent in their physical body. This intention often generates a circuitous route to finding out the energetic origin(s) of the traumatic event(s) that must be uncovered and resolved in order for the intention to be realized. If individuals do not feel safe physically, it is fairly predictable that they will not feel safe in any context. I have found that when a PTSD victim is fully embodied, their ability to remain present in a relationship is enormously enhanced. This often initiates a shift from clients being in their head (and cut off from their emotions) to being more present in the here and now.

What exactly is dissociation? When specific memories and feeling states associated with a traumatic event are split off from your core personality (i.e., your normal self), they return as various symptoms that seem bizarre and out of your control. Most often, these symptoms become intrusive, persistent and uninvited. They may include panic attacks (overwhelming anxiety for no apparent reason), which are experienced physically; visual images, which may include flashbacks and nightmares; experiences of depersonalization (perceiving that you are outside your physical body watching yourself go through your day in a robot-like fashion); and an inability to stop thinking about something obsessively. Repeating or reenacting any part of the traumatic event is also an aspect that can become out of your control and therefore intrusive. One of the most perplexing aspects of the dissociation experience is that the parts of you that split off carry the memories with them. This means that the memories and feelings connected with the trauma are frequently forgotten because they can no longer be accessed — they are hidden from conscious awareness, protected by the dissociated parts that harbor them.

When people start reenacting aspects of the trauma that are out of their conscious awareness, their relationships suffer terribly because of interpersonal communication patterns that don’t make sense. Indeed, the victims of trauma end up feeling tremendous shame for continually acting out behaviors that run counter to their goal of having a mutually respectful, cooperative, loving relationship. This is because traumatized individuals often experience the same emotional intensity of the original trauma but without a proper historical context or understanding of why the emotional eruption occurs. Thus, PTSD victims tend to react to a stimulus in much the same way as they originally did; that is, with a fight or flight response completely out of proportion to the current event. The relationship between memory and trauma has been a key issue in the study of trauma for decades.

It is now well noted that when a particular trauma is not healed and integrated into the person’s overall life experiences, a fixation on the trauma results. A tragic irony is that in spite of all efforts to avoid any aspect of the traumatic event, sufferers of PTSD frequently end up with a lifelong preoccupation with repeating the trauma. Even when they try to push traumatic memories out of their conscious awareness, the memories continue to return as intrusive and dissociated symptoms.

Dynamic Energetic Healing® incorporates a variety of powerful interventions from energy psychology and core shamanism which has shown to be a successful treatment for PTSD. In the energy psychology model, it is understood that traumatic events cause an energy imbalance when specific meridian points or chakras in your energy system are negatively affected. One explanation is that some of the energy in that particular meridian or chakra may become disrupted or depleted, creating an imbalance. Tapping on one or more acupoints or chakras increases the flow of energy through direct percussive stimulation, which enables that acupoint or chakra to come back into energetic balance. Remember, each meridian and each chakra has its own emotional correlates. When your energy system is in proper balance, your vital energy is flowing freely throughout your body so that each meridian and chakra is in optimal energetic balance. Trauma, either physical or emotional, generates an energy imbalance which leaves you unable to resolve the trauma-induced problem and keeps you vulnerable to similar problems whenever they may recur.

It is important to understand the central role that trauma plays in reducing our choices to live an intentional life (i.e., being in alignment with our intent). If trauma continues to interfere and intrude in our lives, we will continue to focus on and re-create experiences that only confirm our relationship to the trauma and selectively keep out the positive experiences we wish to generate in our lives. Dynamic Energetic Healing® is a comprehensive psychotherapy and healing model designed to collapse, dissolve and transform persistent trauma patterns, leaving restored human beings who are completely free of the trauma. As you experience this, it’s possible for you to be able to move into your full potential and embrace and creatively express the unique task that you are here to accomplish.

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