What Does "processing Trauma" Really Mean?

[Whitneys story]

Outstanding thread! Thanks for sharing. Inspiring and very positive information.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I can't believe how much misinformation and down right lies are being perpetuated about intensive trauma therapy. One by a person who obviously has no firsthand knowledge about it as she admittedly lives in a non-English speaking country (and ITT and it's ONE spin off program are in the states), another by someone who has never been diagnosed and has never been to any kind of therapy, period.

ITT is not some flash-in-the-pan "shortcut" to healing program. It is intense and digs deep into your trauma and the aftermath. By saying that it's an ineffective shortcut that doesn't yield long term results is just spreading smack about which you know nothing. Sorry to be blunt, but I've been through the program and it's helped me. Afaik only one other person here has been through ITT and she says it helped her, too. (I won't name her as she is not active on the forums at the moment.)

ITT made sure that retraumatizaion did NOT happen. Please read my thread on intensive trauma therapy as I spelled it all out there. Is your therapist making you talk about your trauma in the first person? ITT used the third person ie "little me" to prevent the reliving of the trauma.

Bash the ITT program if it makes you feel better. All I can say is that the $10K OOP price tag was well worth it.

 

[Shellbell]

I think different therapies suit different people. Some people don't rate EMDR, lots think it's very effective.

I don't think anyone should bash any therapy, even if they have had it and it didn't help them, because it may help someone else. We all react differently. And people with no experience in the therapy should definitely not bash it, how would they know?

SOL, I'm glad you had a positive experience with ITT.

 

[Abrasky]

I found the last 2 years of processing my trauma (Been doing this for 13 years)has been pretty intense, at times almost not coping. Processing trauma takes the time it takes which is different for everybody, my therapist said.

I don't process my trauma really, like Anthony said processing emotions is what it is about. For me, processing is to get an emotion out of the subconscious and be able to identify it (It isn't a numb emotion anymore), unpolarise it (make it not feeling the extreme ends of the emotion) and feeling the emotion isn't numb anymore and ungrasping all the memories from the emotion which are clutching it. These memories are usually for me bits of forgotton memories about my trauma.(Which went for many years before I got PTSD).

For example, I use to be afraid of catching the bus, and I would have panic attacks. Once I processed the trauma,(can't remember which emotion it was) which was my mother getting verbally and humilatingly attacked after coming home from shopping 5 minutes late with me in the middle. I wasn't afraid of my trigger anymore. I could catch buses. I wasn't afraid of buses. I was afraid of being late.

Processing is really tiring, can involve lots of innappropriate anger and fear emotions coming out as the brain processes the memory. It can be very intense at times and hard to deal with, and put me above my coping levels at times.

After I have processed my triggers and flashbacks that are attached to the emotion go away. SO it is 1% easier after all that processing. Lots of hard work makes it 5% then 10%.It is like toiling to get a tiny amount of gold out of a huge boulder of granite. And one can work away a whole mountain of granite to get a nugget.

It can go on for a long time though, it seems like a bottomless pit. But overall, processing heals. Any amount of healing is great. That's just my view, it is probably different for everyone.

 

[stillscared123]

I think processing the trauma means allowing yourself to feel the pain and fear you experienced during it. We try so hard to avoid that pain in various ways, and it only makes things more difficult. I think processing the trauma is facing it head on, and after you process it you can analyze it and see that you did nothing wrong and the way you felt is a normal response to what you experienced, and that it is ok.

 

[Abstract]

Very interesting information. Thank you! And thank you Maddog for the thread.

 

[Rumors]

I haven't really "processed" much at this point in time. Wondering how in the world people actually sit down and tell someone their story/stories? Some of mine are x-rated, not by choice, but never the less not something that would come easily in conversation. How does that work? Code words? LOL!

 

[maddog]

I think I've evolved in my thinking and understanding even since I first posted this thread, and right now those insights are painful and daunting. It truly isn't the events themselves that are so hard to process and to confront. Yes, talking about trauma is often very difficult and I would never minimise that. But doing so is only the first step towards processing, and as so many of you have so rightly said, it is the emotions and the impact and consequences of the trauma that require processing, and just giving voice to those isn't enough on its own.

I think i've been kidding myself about my progress for a long time through a lack of truly comprehending this...

Now I am 2.5 years into therapy, have talked and talked and talked for what feels like forever, have analysed most of my trauma inside out and back to front in several different contexts... and am as far from having processed it as I was before I started, perhaps even further away. I think harsh unforgiving intellectualisation has actually driven a further wedge between myself and true processing, and it's taken a monumental emotional collapse, near death, hospitalisation, countless home truths and a jolting thud back to reality in the past few weeks to make me realise the truth of all that.

It's hard not to give in to despair... but I have to believe that the most painful revellations promise the most meaningful progress, and somewhere out there I may find the road to true processing. I hope so...
Maddog

 

[stillscared123]

Keep fighting Maddog, don't give up. There is hope. Do you feel guilt or self blame for your trauma? Sometimes that blocks you from further recovery. I know I still blame myself, it makes it harder to let go.

 

[Abstract]

. I think harsh unforgiving intellectualisation has actually driven a further wedge between myself and true processing, and it's taken a monumental emotional collapse, near death, hospitalisation, countless home truths and a jolting thud back to reality in the past few weeks to make me realise the truth of all that.

I am sorry maddog. It is really hard. I realised about a year ago that I had spent years and years and years of therapy and wasted a lot of it because I intellectualised to such an extent and used dissociation on top of that. It is the emotion that is the key thing I suspect. I think of it as being trapped in there and coming out in many other ways but boomeranging around. That it has to come out properly to ever be truly diminished. Which is very counter intuitive when we have spent our whole lives avoiding feeling.

I am sorry you have been so unwell. :hug:

Og and I agree about self blame too. I think it is another way of protecting us from our true emotions in a backtofront way. I have heard we cannot get past it until the relevant feelings are aimed in the right direction rather than at ourselves.

 

[maddog]

Yes, I'm afraid that my battle with self blame is far from won. Again, it's something I can currently only fight against intellectually - the true feelings and emotions lag so far behind that sometimes I don't think they're there at all. If only I wasn't so afraid of the intensity of that emotion...

Maddog

 

[Abstract]

((((Maddog))) if Ok.