What is trauma? Marta Thorsheim interviewed by goop.com
Read the interview in English on goop.com: What It Means to Have a Trauma of Identity
What is trauma?
A psychological trauma, or psychotrauma, is the sum of the impacts from an event that a person does not have the psychological capacity to handle.
Stress reactions are Regularly a useful warning system, but during a trauma situation they may need to be blocked to avoid further provoking an attacker. It's like having one foot on the accelerator and one on the brake. The immediate solution to such a dilemma is to abandon body and mind as a whole. Therefore, the main effect of trauma is disconnection from ourselves, which can inhibit our ability to handle stressful situations in a good way.
As adults, we have many triggers that stem from early trauma. These triggers can be an opportunity to understand that we are suffering from trauma. However, this requires that the person feels safe enough to look into the trauma, as well as having someone to guide them with compassion, which can help release the pain behind the trauma - layer by layer.
Why does identity play such a big role in your work?
A healthy identity is the sum of all my conscious and unconscious life experiences, including my wonderful days and my traumatic days. I do not deny any part of myself. A healthy identity means that we are integrated with our senses, our feelings, our thoughts, our memories, our self, our willpower, and our behavior. It also means that I do not lose myself in relationships with others. You do not sacrifice any part of your identity for anyone else.
When we are children, a great many of our experiences help shape who we are. In extreme situations – and also in those that are not so extreme, because small children are very vulnerable – we often have to give up parts of our identity in order to survive. Whether it is violence or rejection from an attachment figure early in development, we begin to surrender parts of our identity just to endure. This can lead us to identity trauma: we start to overidentify with others, and in this way our identity can become blended with that of, for example, our mother. We end up in a state of survival identity.
Identity-oriented psychotrauma therapy (IoPT) is the method we use to restore a healthy identity. The goal is to help individuals become aware of their trauma history, recognize their survival strategies, and integrate their split, traumatized parts with their healthy identity. This work is done through processes that last about an hour.
Can you walk us through what happens in these processes, step by step?
IoPT sessions most often take place in a group, and consist of the client (who owns the process), resonance givers, and a therapist. The client is the person at the center of the process and is responsible for formulating an intention. This formulation can be prepared in advance or on the spot, and it can be a word, a sentence, a drawing, or a combination. A sentence typically begins with "I". Examples of intentions include "I want a good partnership", "I want to explore my fear", "Why am I depressed?", or "How did I experience my birth?". It can be whatever you wish to explore that day. The maximum number of words or characters is six. The process owner writes each element or word of their intention on a board and then on post-it notes.
The process owner then takes the post-it notes and decides who to choose to resonate with each individual word. For example, they walk up to a person in the room and ask, "Will you resonate with 'I' for me?" The person asked can say yes or no, it is entirely up to them. Once all elements of the intention have a resonance giver, the process owner steps back and asks the resonance givers to begin the non-verbal phase. The resonance givers then stand up without saying anything. They simply try to be intuitively aware of what comes up. After a few minutes, the process owner asks the resonance givers one by one, and they share the information and feelings that have been awakened. The therapist does their part by clarifying and supporting the process owner while uncovering the realities that emerge from their biography. In most cases, these are traumas from childhood, and even from the time in the womb. As a therapist, I do my best to create the safe space that supports this type of vulnerability.
Some people find it difficult to take part in a group setting and therefore request a one-on-one session, which is done in the same way as the group process. However, this time the person stands on markers on the floor and experiences firsthand what comes up. These are also very effective processes for working through a person's history of trauma.
What is happening? How is it possible that people are able to act as resonance givers for others, complete strangers?
IoPT processes are based on the premise that everything we have experienced is stored in our memory. To use the iceberg metaphor, explicit memories are the experiences we can consciously see and remember, but below the water level lies our implicit memory. These are memories we had to suppress and dissociate from when the trauma occurred, because it was too much to handle and therefore unbearable.
When we formulate an intention, it is a way of diving into our implicit memory. Every word in the sentence contains information from our implicit memory. We describe it as going through our entire biography, step by step, intention by intention. Through this process, we get the chance to update the system that is our psyche. In an IoPT process, the energy and information presented by the resonance giver can make survival strategies conscious for the client and bring forth feelings from trauma that have been suppressed all their lives. The therapist supports the client in remembering and helps restore contact with their healthy self and healthy will. The goal is to process now what happened back then – things that could not be handled when the person was a small child. Because now that the person is here today, they have people around them who can offer full support, allowing them to begin trusting and feeling safe within themselves.
I know that mirror neurons are involved here, but I do not fully know how this works; no one knows yet. The only thing I know is that it works. I also do not think it would add anything for the process owner if he or she knew exactly how this happens. I think that the part which creates resonance is the same innate sense that is active when you, as a parent of a newborn child, can sense what it needs. We, as humans, rise to the occasion when required. Franz Ruppert, the founder of IoPT, says that we have an ability to form relationships, and that this ability works in the same way as our other senses, such as seeing or hearing, but on a subconscious and instinctive level. This ability is very precise. When the client has made up their mind and says: "I want to go through this process, here is my intention", something is set in motion. When people are given the opportunity to express and show themselves exactly as they are, including their traumatized past, and be met with love and compassion, that in itself has a major effect.
Are clients usually aware of what their traumas are?
It varies a lot from person to person. Some people know, and they include it in their intention. More often, they do not know the exact details of their trauma, but they know there is something.
The founder of IoPT, Professor Franz Ruppert, says that "Everything we need to process trauma is stored in the body and emerges in therapy when we need it."
What happens when it's over?
This is only the beginning of an integration process, and naturally, it takes time. Many people find that a symptom disappears, or they feel freer to do things they couldn't do before. Others notice that their relationship with a partner or children is no longer as difficult as it used to be. They feel more grounded within themselves and more independent. If, with the help of IoPT, you come to understand the perpetrator-victim dynamic you are usually caught in, and have now found a viable way out, it is one of the best things that can happen in your life.
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BIOGRAPHY:
Marta Thorsheim is a therapist and founder of the Institute for Trauma Work in Norway. After earning an MBA, she began studying psychotherapy in the 1990s, where she focused on identity trauma. She is co-author of Professor Franz Ruppert's books early trauma and My Body, My Trauma, My Self. Thorsheim integrates trauma and attachment theory with clinical work and has spent the last 25 years working with clients and participants in group workshops in Europe, Asia and Australia. You can sign up for her first US group workshop here: https://www.instituteforidentitydevelopment.com/calendar/category/special-events/
