Felicia Chiao’s drawing: “The house is well built but the foundation is unstable” is such a brilliant metaphor for the role of attachment and personality in our psychological makeup. It’s the first 2 to 3 years of our lives that lay the foundation of our emotional lives for the rest of our lives. If were …
There are many reasons it’s difficult to leave an abusive relationship. Some of the reasons are of practical nature, fx. Financial or safety worries. Others are of a more psychological nature. One of them is the psychological phenomenon of trauma bonding. Trauma bonding forms in exploitive relationships. It’s best described as: “The sicker the relationship, …
The sicker the relationship, the stronger the bond – trauma bonding and what that means Read More »
This photo, originally from Janina Fisher, PhD, is one that I show quite often to my clients. The response is usually the same, a quiet moment followed by: “Wow…” Most people have never seen their pain and symptoms drawn up like this, haven’t made the connection between the symptoms they’re manifesting and their painful experiences …
Imprints of trauma are more varied than you realise Read More »
Try putting your finger horizontally over the middle, and see how the colours of the blocks change instantly. What before was very distinctively two colours, blend into the very same grey colour. What’s happening here? This is a great example of what is called “top down processing”. Every second of every day, your brain is …
How your brain cooperates with your mind to generate your individual reality Read More »
When you look at a forest, it looks as all the trees are individuals, standing there in the ground all alone. What you might not know, is that underneath the ground, they are all interconnected. Did you know that trees operate through an intricate system called the “wood wide web”, which consists of a symbiosis …
Meditation is for your brain what going out for a run is for your lungs. Here’s a body scan meditation that I recorded some time ago, that I would like to share. Body scan meditations are a good way to connect to your own body. One key aspect of trauma is the disconnection that often …
What forgiveness is not: It’s not the same as forgetting what happened It’s not the same as agreeing with or liking what happened It’s not the same as absolution It’s not denial It does not mean we will never again get angry about what happened It’s not something we can decide to give once and …
In my work I often use the analogy of Danaery’s dragons. If you’ve watched Game of Thrones, you know that as Danaerys’ dragons get bigger, she at one point in time stops being able to control them. She’s afraid of what they might do, and the harm they might cause, so in a desperate attempt …
Do you lock up your trauma like Danaerys locked up her dragons? Read More »
Research shows that both the perpetrator and the victim in domestic abuse situations minimize the impact the abuse will have on their children. People tell themselves that the children don’t realise what’s going on, that they never see anything directly, that they were asleep, that they’re to young to understand what’s going on. Its an …
