Mind, brain and body. Healing trauma: the way forward

Abstract

The paper explores an interdisciplinary whole person approach to healing from trauma that conserves our rich inheritance from Jung but also takes on board insights from research in the areas of attachment, trauma and the neurobiology of emotion. It is now over 20 years since insights from neurobiology began to be used to inform clinical practice. The paper reviews key insights which have emerged, along with the ways they enable therapists to help mind, brain and body to heal and the ways in which they clarify why, in clinical practice, we do what we do. Traditionally the emphasis has been on words, interpretations, and meaning-making. Currently there is greater appreciation of the affective, relational, embodied aspects of therapeutic work and the way in which these relate to traumatic early interactive experience that is held outside of human awareness. The ways in which knowledge of particular systems of connectivity inform understanding of the whole mind-brain-body relationship are examined. The way forward for clinical practice to become more focused in order to help clients to heal in mind and body is reviewed.

At the train station: the self, suspended in collective trauma. Symbolic analysis with victims of childhood trauma caused by state terrorism

“…One part remains linked to the traumatic situation (in Vera’s case, the disappearance of her real parents), while the other part eventually adapts to the new reality like nothing happened. The dissociation between a true self that returns to an inner territory of innocence before the trauma, and a rapidly growing personality component exhibiting traits of exaggerated autonomy is frequently cited by authors when referring to early relational trauma (Fairbairn 1981; Ferenczi 1933; Kalsched 1996, 2003, 2010, 2017; Wilkinson 2017; Winnicott 1960). When early relational trauma is immersed in collective trauma, the dissociation also appears to affect the sense of temporality, resulting in confusion between the impact on a person’s psyche of such an early loss and other people’s experiences of unspoken horrors.…”

“…From post‐Jungian Analytical Psychology, there are currently important contributions regarding early relational trauma, and its relationship with defences (Kalsched 1996, 2003, 2013, 2017; Knox 1999, 2001; West 2016; Wilkinson 2004, 2006, 2010, 2017), however, few developments related to the notion of collective and intergenerational trauma have been found. Although some presentations offering new testimonies on this subject have been made in the last decade (Cape Town 2007 , Vilnius 2009 ), relatively few works have been published regarding the consequences of the many genocides that have occurred across the different continents (Connolly 2011; Gailienė 2019; Kalinowska 2012; Kradin 2012; Singer 2010; Zoja 2009).…”

Negative Capability, Heuristics and Supervision

“…Thus, for example, neuroscientists identified the ‘salient network’, one of three key networks affecting the mind–brain–body system, as responsible for producing the meaning of experience. This network is critical for the functioning of the other two networks and both its hyperarousal and hypoarousal are likely to cause cognitive dysfunctions and adaptation problems (Wilkinson, ).…”

The symbol in the body: the un‐doing of a dissociation through Embodied Active Imagination in Jungian analysis

“…In such cases, when trauma occurs at a very early age, the defences that are constellated are archetypal in nature. This system has been described by Kalsched (1996) as ‘the archetypal self‐care system’ because it has the function of protecting a yet incipient self from one or more traumatic experiences, becoming with time a habitual response (Kalsched 1996; Wilkinson 2010, 2017).…”