In my work with individuals and couples where there is relational trauma, I use somatic healing that employs several embodied, experiential processes for working with relational trauma, addiction, and abusive or adverse experiences that happen across the lifespan from in-utero, through childhood, into adulthood – usually through our relationships with significant others relative to those stages.

Relational trauma has a lasting impact on us and lives in our bodies. In early developmental stages, when those we rely on for our basic needs of trust, empathy, and dependency become abusive or neglectful, we are not only hurt and victimised, but the very people we might go to for solace are the ones harming us, so we are doubly hurt and re-victimised – often over and over for many years, so that the trauma is cumulative over a long period of time.

Our nervous systems are primed for threat – ready to flee to safety or stand and fight, but if we can do neither because, as children, escape is not possible and we remain trapped by our size and dependency, then we freeze, withdraw, shut down, dissociate and split off. We might be physically present but emotionally absent, psychologically dissonant and spiritually disconnected.

In addition to memories we have associated with stories we tell about what happened to us, there also exists a residue of distressing experiences that lives in our body/mind in an unconscious state. Having absorbed experience through our senses without having the language to make meaning of them, so that sense impressions are formed that have no story attached to them and no meaning has been made from them. Similarly, because the thinking mind temporarily shuts down in highly stressful or traumatic situations, we often do not make sense of the experience as it is happening, and, consequently, there is no meaning or consciousness formed around what has happened to us.

This is why there is a saying that goes, you can’t talk your way out of trauma, because talking goes only so far for experiences that we have no words for. Sometimes, we can’t even get at any story at all – there are just these sense impressions where we know that something is wrong, or we realise something is wrong from the evidence in our lives when we find it difficult just to live and be in relationship. Memories may live within us without a context – without an understanding of time or place. We may have body memories and wordless sense impressions; memories are scattered, and we feel fragmented. Memories may remain unprocessed and out of our conscious awareness if it pains us remember. Such experiences reside beneath the level of our awareness until they are triggered. Sometimes we tell our stories over and over but don’t feel like we are getting anywhere, and we keep on being triggered despite apparent processing.  This is when it can be helpful to get out of heads and into our bodies to work with the trauma that resides within.

One particularly powerful way that I found to help with trauma is through something called aspecting work or parts work that comes from Internal Family Systems therapy developed by Dr Schwartz. In this approach, where get to know a cast of characters that make up our internal worlds and comprise different aspects or parts of ourselves that seem to sabotage us, but may be protecting us, and we might have parts that have been exiled altogether when not accepted by us or our familial, societal or cultural milieu.

There are many other therapies that work with the different parts of our inner psyches, and each uses different terminology. Maybe Freud’s conception of the id, ego and superego in 1923 is the earliest and most well-known theorisation of different aspects our psyches, but there have many since then. Not least, is the work of Freud’s close colleague and collaborator, Carl Jung, who developed the concept of complexes into an idea of independent beings that were not necessarily problematic as the term, ‘complex’ suggests, but could be respected and worked with for good. From the 1930s, Jung’s great body of work relating to Archetypes and Shadow Work extended the whole notion of imaginal life deep in the psyche beneath the surface and is a portal to a rich inner world that resides in the unconscious until we bring it to life through therapeutic endeavours.

One aspect of ourselves that is commonly worked with in therapy is the Inner Child and, indeed, there are multiple inner child therapies in their own right. Many schools of therapy work with the concept of the inner child that comes from Jungian psychotherapy and teaches conscious reparenting of what might be considered a lost or abandoned child. Humanistic schools of therapy such as Transactional Analysis and Gestalt Therapy work with the inner child as do some couples or relationship therapies such as Imago Relationship Therapy. To go full circle here, many of the techniques used in these therapies originate in Psychodrama developed by Jacob and Zerka Moreno in the 1920s and 1930s including the famous ‘Empty Chair’ technique, which is usually thought of as Gestalt. So, we can see that many great minds over the years have worked with the notion of sub-personalities to develop a number of theories, therapies, processes and practices that can help us access different aspects of ourselves that reside in the unconscious and the body, which can be made conscious through therapy.

Autodrama is a term that I have come across recently that I am now using to describe what I previously called aspecting work, which I was trained in by Layla Martin of the Tantric Institute of Integrated Sexuality. Also known as monodrama, which was used by Fritz Perls in Gestalt therapy, autodrama is a step away from psychodrama that is conducted in a group setting because it can be used in individual dialogical therapy and the client can embody and dialogue with, not only different aspects of themselves, but also significant others such as parents and partners, as well as emotions and parts of the body or states of being. This makes autodrama a powerful technique for the somatic healing of stress and trauma held in the body because it allows for the embodiment of ourselves in multiple permutations such as: the adult in dialogue with their inner child, partner, ex-partner or parent; the inner child in dialogue with their host adult or parents; the adult in dialogue with their heart or their anger.

The possibilities for autodrama are endless and I’m currently working with a colleague on approaching in-utero trauma through the connection of traumatised adults with their unborn child selves to embody and dialogue traumatic experiences that adults continue to carry around in their systems, which can keep them small and unrealised in the world. These practices are powerful beyond compare and offer rapid healing compared to talking therapy that may never actually get to the crux of a problem not imbued with sufficient language to understand. I keep hearing that therapy is dead or outdated, but I disagree. My experience of this way of working is that talking therapy is a very necessary part of the groundwork that must take place before such powerful practices can be approached. A client needs to have developed considerable trust in the therapist and faith in their methods that usually comes from evidence of change and growth already happening to even contemplate such vulnerability in attempting what is deeply personal and exposing work, which is – quite frankly, ‘out-there’.

I am reminded of clients I saw early on in my career who I believed I could just love back to health, but sometimes love isn’t enough and we need some effective tools. I wish that everyone with trauma had access to these transformative practices and I hope that even reading about them is inspiring as I know that it can sometimes feel like a never-ending battle when trauma runs deep. You are welcome to get in touch if you would like to discuss the ideas in this piece further, especially if you would like to work with me in therapy, or if you want to hear more about the writing and training I am developing in this area.

hello@frayazellawolf.com