Healing from Trauma

If we face a threat to our life in the face of absence of control—a state of perceived helplessness—our brains process the experience in quite another manner. To heal from these effects, we must change the perception of our survival brain from a state of persistent helplessness to stable and ongoing control. We must change trauma memory, and all of its triggers, from representing an ongoing threat to being only an old event in the past—an event admittedly emotional but now harmless, one that may contribute to who we are but no longer has control over us. The body sensations and feelings that accompanied that event may be experienced from time to time but are no longer warnings of impending danger. They only tell us that our current level of life stress has brought up some of our old self-protective reflexes. We are now able to use this recognition of body states as useful messages rather than indications of present threats. And by achieving all of this, we will have achieved wisdom—the integration of emotions, the feelings of the body, and our ongoing conscious awareness and thinking. We will have progressed from the state of being a trauma victim to becoming a trauma survivor.

All of this is a pretty tall order, and authors, writers, and speakers in the field of traumatic stress have produced thousands of books and articles on the topic of overcoming trauma. Only a few, however, have addressed it from the viewpoint of the trauma victim—or survivor. Jasmin Cori has done that with clarity, incisiveness, and deep insight in Healing from Trauma. She has approached this task from the sorely neglected standpoint of the physical (somatic) components of the traumatic experience. Cori addresses the features of trauma physiology just enough to provide a logical basis for her observations and recommendations for the lay reader.

Very few books that discuss trauma address the needs of the client from a client perspective. Cori does so with practical simplicity. How do you choose a therapist? How do you know if the therapist you're seeing is really the right one for you? How do you know when you're finished with therapy—from your standpoint? These are practical matters that the therapist cannot really solve. The sensitivity of the client/therapist mix is never more tenuous or critical than in the case of complex trauma. And only the client can decide whether the unavoidable traumatic memories triggered by a certain therapist can be overcome.

This is a relatively short book—a blessing for the trauma victim, who often has difficulty with complex reading and concentration. But it is remarkably inclusive of a wide range of important considerations in the experience and healing of trauma. Cori emphasizes a generally holistic approach to the understanding of trauma and to available means of healing, including many of the newer and admittedly controversial somatically based trauma therapies. She emphasizes the use of supplements and herbal remedies for those who are intolerant of psychotropic medications. Information is provided not so much to tout specific treatment regimens as to address what's available outside of standard cognitive behavioral approaches.

What is perhaps most important is Cori's message of hope through her courageous use of her own personal trauma experience and her journey from helplessness to mastery. This is a book that victims of complex life trauma can use as a mirror for their own life experience, to understand the meaning of their chaotic inner life without being traumatized by its contents, and to assimilate the message of hope, healing, and transformation.

Being a writer and feeling that trauma survivors need information tailored to their needs, I decided to write a book that sifts through the mounds of information and presents a condensed version fashioned on more of a need-to-know basis. Although I am a licensed psychotherapist, I am writing as much from the other side of the desk, a place from which I can speak more personally. I know what it is like to be vulnerable. I know what it is like to need help. I know something about this journey—not from the safe(r) distance of the therapist role, but from being right there in it.

Healing from Trauma is written primarily for people who have been through significant life trauma and want help in understanding trauma and learning what they can do to further their own healing. Certainly partners and therapists of various kinds will benefit from this book, and I ask for their understanding when I use the word "you" throughout to speak to readers who are trauma survivors.

This holistic guide can help you manage the disruptive impacts of trauma as they arise, as well as create a larger plan for a more complete healing. This book will:

Understanding the mechanisms of trauma is helpful. It helps normalize what a survivor is going through and helps make sense of some of what feels so confusing and destabilizing. I know of survivors who have not yet recovered memories of what happened to them, yet the footprints of trauma are all over their lives. Understanding these footprints and learning about the healing process can help, even if you don't have specifics about the traumatic events you experienced.

Hearing about other people's trauma is particularly difficult if you've experienced a lot of trauma yourself. Your nervous system isn't starting from neutral, and you may not have the hardiness of those for whom hearing about such events seems to slide right off their back. This is the basis for two decisions I made about the content of this book.

First, I will not be telling trauma stories. Many books on trauma are filled with such vignettes, and if you want that, you have plenty to choose from. I believe that just reading about the mechanisms of trauma is challenging enough without flooding you with personal stories. I do include anecdotes in the main text and a few longer profiles of healing, but they do not take you into traumatic events. I also include my own story in a chapter at the end, which you can certainly bypass without detracting from the basic educational approach of this book. My account focuses primarily on my journey of healing rather than recounting graphic details of traumatic events, which is what I find unnecessarily activating.

Even with this "lean" approach, you may find yourself feeling upset or shutting down and may need to pace your reading. You can do this by consciously deciding to take your mind off it for a while and doing something comforting and by processing what you've already taken in through conversation and journaling.

A second decision was to be as concise as possible. If you are recovering from trauma, you've already got a full plate and don't likely have the time and internal space to slog through a hefty theoretical book sifting for what you can apply. My intention is to keep the book practical; I am attempting to streamline the field into a manageable chunk that can support healing. This is a book for those of us who are in the trenches, rather than those in the universities or conference circuit. In keeping with that idea, I have avoided jargon as much as possible. A glossary in the back provides definitions of some of the terms that you might want to have clarified or for quick reference. Terms included in the glossary appear in bold the first time you see them in the manuscript (after this introduction). I also cross-reference material in the text that you may want to refresh yourself on and provide an index.

The first four chapters lay out the territory of trauma before turning to the tasks of healing. Chapter 1 begins with some basic facts about what trauma is and why it affects us so much. Chapter 2 outlines the physiological basis of trauma. Understanding this physiological component helps us understand the symptoms or "footprints" of trauma that are described in chapter 3. The last chapter in this segment gives an overview of trauma-related disorders and talks briefly about the collective costs of trauma.

Chapters 5 describes the journey of healing, what tasks are involved, and what resources are needed. Chapter 6 helps you choose the best people to aid you on your journey, and chapter 7 outlines particular interventions. Regardless of whether you are working with a psychotherapist or on your own, you will need tools for dealing with trauma symptoms and particularly with states of activation and dissociation. Chapter 8 provides these. Chapter 9 is called "Tools for Living" and offers broader strategies for creating a life that helps stabilize you so that you can counterbalance the impacts of trauma and minimize their hold on you.

For trauma survivors, spirituality can be both an unparalleled resource and an area of troubled waters—sometimes at the same time. Chapter 10 is devoted to examining both of these aspects and offers a provisional description of an integrated spirituality that is part of our support system without becoming part of our defense system.

Chapter 11 takes a look at the healed life and what it means to gain mastery over trauma. This is followed by my story (chapter 12), some useful reminders, a list of resources, and an appendix of bodywork therapies.

There are a number of exercises in the book, which you are free to complete or not. There are also pauses throughout the book that invite you to digest the material and reflect on your own situation. These are indicated by a special kind of bullet and most are in question form. I encourage you to take a moment to consider these, listening for what comes to mind as you read them, even if you don't take it on to formally answer each question (perhaps in writing) as you might. If you are on this journey through trauma, you are a student of trauma. It is my fervent belief that the best students are not necessarily those who have plodded through the most information, but rather those who have integrated information and make use of it. These questions can help with that task.

As the book grew from its original core, I included additional information, knowing it would not be pertinent for every reader but that having it available made the book more complete. Feel free to skip over information if it does not seem relevant to you or if it is not a priority for you in this moment. You can always return to it later.

I have had trauma survivors tell me that they needed to read the material more than once for it to register and to recognize the elements that are descriptive of them. This makes perfect sense. We take in our traumatic histories in layers, and the denial and dissociation that helped us originally may still be at work as we learn about trauma. This denial and dissociation try to protect us from painful truths by blocking them out or not staying present to take in what is happening. By reading through sections at different times, you will likely absorb something a little different each time. This gradual process is really at the heart of healing, so don't be down on yourself for not taking it all in during the first pass. This is actually how nature intended us to integrate what is difficult.

Unfortunately, there is no 1-2-3-step process anyone can offer that will work for everyone, because each journey is individual and unique. What this book can do is try to provide every advantage possible for you so that you know what the territory is like, what you need, where you could get lost, and what you might gain if you persevere. This book is your map and compass. Use it well. Blessings on this most sacred journey!