How Trauma Splits the Psyche and The Process of Integration

So I've been trying to think of a good way to talk about what trauma is. And when I'm talking about trauma, you know, people immediately think of horrific events, maybe in early childhood. And the truth is that because as children, we're so incredibly fragile, you know, I think even physically we're very, very fragile. Emotionally, we're very fragile. And maybe we're around people and those people have had years to come to terms with their own coping mechanisms and neurotic behavior. And then, you know, the child is put into that environment and the child kind of has to come to terms with the neurotic behavior, the dysfunctional behavior. It's not known to the child and it's not natural. So the child kind of has to adapt to that. But these different experiences, you know, there's there's many different adverse childhood experiences, they range from neglect and abuse all the way to sort of maybe parents, as an example, will be parents who will be overly involved, which can lead to a different type of trauma. And, you know, that word again, trauma, it's not this, it's just not just only these adverse childhood experiences, it's anything. And this is my definition of trauma. Anything that leads to a split in the personality or anything that leads to a split in the psyche. So let's take an example. Let's say, for instance, a child is in an environment in which their parents are both emotionally not attuned to their needs at all, or maybe even they're cold emotionally. And what that child is going to learn in that situation pretty quickly is that my need, my need for connection here is not going to be met. And it's very difficult to not have an emotional need met for a long time. So basically they will become emotionally withdrawn themselves. They won't see any sense in reaching out for connection because they've tried and tried and tried and it hasn't been met. However, the truth for that child is that they do truly want connection. And that is not something that can ever change just because that need hasn't been met. So in order to go along living in this environment with this unmet emotional need that's never going away, the mind fractures into two parts. The hurt part, the part that's been ignored, the part that isn't getting what it needs now becomes a liability from that child's point of view. So that part has to go over here and an alternative part that has to cope with that is now formed over here. And that is the part that is deeply self-reliant. It is maybe, maybe even it becomes manipulative, which it has to, to survive. Maybe it becomes fiercely independent to the extent that any child can. And that's now two parts of the psyche, whereas before there was a unified part. So that's one example. Now we're going to know this is kind of an avoidant attachment style that will take shape later on in this person's life in relationships. But as this person grows up, what they're going to learn is, you know, we're aware of two different parts of the mind here now. Okay. One that is fiercely independent, doesn't trust relationships because it had good reason not to. And the other part that is deeply hurt and still needs that connection desperately wants it. Okay. Now, what do we know about these two parts? Let's simplify this a little bit. Let's make this more practical. These two parts, their counterparts, they intensely dislike each other, if you like. Anytime we experience a trauma and there's this experience of a fraction, a fractionation or a split, the result will be two parts that do not like each other. They're kind of in a constant state of war or conflict with each other. Now, there's really only one way to heal this. And the process itself is called reconciliation. But we're going to come on to that in a bit. But the fact that these two parts hate each other and they're in such conflict with each other, it really is down to the fact that that person, that child who maybe grows up now, is identified with one side over the other. And typically, what's the side that they're going to identify with? They're going to pick the side of, we'll say. Are they going to pick the side of the part that wants connection and feels intensely vulnerable and hurt? Or are they going to pick the side of this sort of savior or protector, which is fiercely independent, but doesn't give them that need for connection? Typically, we identify with the protector part. Okay. Now, that's like almost a universal law in trauma. The protector part, it becomes the part we take the side of. Or we identify with. Now, in this example, what we'll notice is in that period of the child's life, maybe in that difficult childhood, they need to identify more with the savior part, the protector part. But later on in life, they're going to run into relationships. They're going to still be. And here's the thing, even though they've identified with the protector, this part that's now in, you could say it's in the shadow mind, this part is still actively working to get its needs met. It will still seek out unconsciously to get that need for connection, but it's not consciously done. It's done unconsciously. So the person will go towards relationships, but the protector part won't allow them to stay there for very long, as an example. So let's look at maybe another example. Maybe in childhood, the person is shamed by their parents for not being smart enough. Okay, maybe their dad has some kind of insecurity or their mom has an insecurity and they displace that onto the child, they project that onto the child. And the child now gets this thing, this thing that they're not smart enough. So what do they do? Well, okay, that part feels deeply hurt, hasn't experienced some conditional love here at all. So it goes over here. It feels insecure, doesn't know how to deal with it. What's the solution? There's a split that takes place from that trauma. And now this other part forms, which can become a kind of an intellectual or it can become, you could say, even a know it all. It really feels like it has to know and master everything or have an opinion on everything. And these two parts now intensely dislike each other. This part here is really completely ignoring this part that feels vulnerable at all and won't tolerate that vulnerable part. It will never allow this part to say, I don't, for instance, okay, will be identified with this. Another great common example, I've talked about it many times here before, but it's the example again, maybe you've been shamed in childhood for being lazy and very, very difficult. The child feels very, very vulnerable and hurt because of that, powerless even. They develop a strategy and that split comes. And the other side of this, now the protector is going to be the productive guy. Okay. The productive person and productive, lazy, deep hatred between these two. They don't like each other. You know, we're going to identify and want to be with that productive person. And of course, this lazy part is still unconsciously trying to get its own agenda met. So it will find ways to act out that laziness unconsciously, even though consciously this person is now identified as with the productive part. So in that example, this person will constantly be making decisions, constantly making plans. They'll be trying to become more productive, become more productive all the time. All the while in denial about the fact of this insecurity or this very actual real valid part in themselves that wants really essentially rest and relaxation. So any decision they make while identified with one side only will not be a good decision. The whole process of healing in this, no matter what the psychic split or the trauma is that splits the psyche into two, we only get into trouble with it. And it's only maintained as long as we pick sides. So I like the productive guy, hate the lazy guy. I like the smart me. I hate the stupid me. See how we're picking sides. What we have to do is take away or disidentify with either side and start to see both of them as two parts of ourselves that are both quite valid. And once both parts have been heard, what we're trying to do is we're not trying to like give the productive side something one day and then the next day it goes to the lazy side. We're not trying to get them to have an equal share. We're not trying to get this one to compromise to accommodate this one or this one to compromise to accommodate this one. We're trying to get them to both team up and we're trying to get them to cooperate. We're not getting them to sacrifice themselves or compromise. This is not about compromise. This is about cooperation. So practically speaking, if we're trying to integrate this, if we're trying to disidentify from either of these two sides, stop picking sides and see if we can actually just bring peace or reconciliation to these two parts of the one mind. This is all the one individual that has been split into two. If we bring those two parts together, we're going to have an experience much more of authenticity. This is this is actually feels much more like me making decisions now rather than me being in conflict. Remember, that conflict always comes from a trauma or that split comes from a trauma. So on a practical level, one thing we can do is what I ask people to do is try to try to identify what this conflict is. And, you know, you look out into your life and you look at your behavior, you look externally and say, where am I being incongruent here? Where am I telling myself consciously I need to be more productive, for instance? And then I find myself being totally not productive. I know it's unconscious, without permission, it's taken over unconsciously. So there's an example. OK, there must be a conflict here in myself. I'm telling myself I want to be productive, but I'm not. So then I tell them, OK, we have two sides now. We have the productive you and we have the lazy you. OK, I never really like that term lazy because it's automatically picking sides. But what I tell them to do is, OK, give each side here a name. Give them, you know, think about this lazy part of me. And does it have a kind of a look to it? What kind of a name will be appropriate for that guy? And, you know, a person might say, well, this is my inner slob. I've used that term before. This is my inner slob. And I see that guy just sitting back on the couch and he's just eating pizza, watching TV. And so there's the inner slob guy. And then there's this. Who's this productive guy? Well, this productive guy is he's a machine. This this productive guy never stops. He's always on point and he's really, really efficient. So this is the machine versus the the lazy slob, we'll say. And now what we're going to try and do is see. See, automatically we're going to identify with the machine. Now, the problem is, the more we identify with this one, we're actually strengthening this one. That's another rule. One of the rules is they both hate each other. The other rule is the more I identify with one and building up the other one simultaneously, both sides have to equate. It's like a weighing scale that has to be perfectly balanced. You can't really be more with this one because they can't really be split. The shadow persona aspects of our psyche always have to equate. So if I have a big persona, I'm going to have a big shadow. So we we give them little sort of names. We see them as subpersonalities that have their own sort of characteristics. And now when it comes to decision making, say, for instance, I'm going to I'm going to get a piece of paper. I'm going to divide it down the middle because my mind, my psyche is already split. I may as well just acknowledge that. And I'm going to sit right on one side, lazy slob, and the other side is the machine. And I'm going to consult them both. I'm not going to pick favorites. And I'm going to ask them both what they would like to do for the day or the week. And, you know, the machine guy is going to be like, we need to do this. We need to do that. We take care of this. You don't have time to be lazy. It's going to want to do a million things. And the lazy part, then we're going to give it an equal share here. I'm tired. I don't want to do any of this stuff. It and you may notice that they actually start fighting. It may say that machine guy over there, that machine guy is a bully and he never lets me relax. But if he continues to ignore me, I'm going to I'm going to show him a thing or two. And, you know, the machine guy is going to look back over and say, this guy is pathetic. This guy is not going to help you. I'm the only guy that's here to help you. If you keep listening to him, he's going to drag us both down. Are we seeing the conflict? Right. This is why we don't experience peace of mind. This is why our mind is so full of conflicted thoughts all the time. So what we're trying to do is to allow this sort of dual conversation to go on within us and eventually get to the point where they can both. OK, look, if I refuse, if I listen to both of these sides with openness, without picking a favorite, I'm going to sort of sit back and wait until they can both come together and reconcile. And really, that really comes through validation of both sides. A big mistake that we'll make here is is to throw the machine guy under the bus. That's a big mistake people make, too. OK, the machine has been the protector for us in this. So we validate the machine. We validate that hyperproductive drive that's there. Yes, it's coming out of trauma. It's a it's a result so that we don't feel shamed anymore. But it has protected us. At least it's held out the promise of protecting us. So we validate that and then we validate the other aspect, the part that feels overwhelmed or it feels like it can't go on or just wants to rest and relax. And the more you validate both of them and they both feel heard to be more willing then to cooperate and you'll come up with some sort of a more balanced plan to move forward that would make a lot more sense and it's going to be a lot more doable. And there'll be no unconscious undermining of that plan because the lazy side of it has signed off on. So. If you're experiencing, if you're listening to me speak now and you have any resistance to what I've just said there, realize something. You're probably identified strongly with the productive part of your psyche. OK, the productive part has no time for laziness. It has zero tolerance for the lazy slob guy. OK, relaxation. And unfortunately, that is not going to work because unconsciously the other aspect will undermine it. So this whole process, you can call it reconciliation. You could call it just taking back allegiance to one side or the other. And over time, what we'll find is our mind becomes less fragmented. We're going to be less and less conflicted within ourselves. And no matter what the original trauma was, whether it be due to shaming about being lazy, whether it be about just being abandoned and not feeling safe in life. That's another great example right there. What happens when that happens? Well, one part of us is going to feel terrified and not safe. And we can't go on with that in an environment, in a dangerous environment. So another part becomes it becomes a protector and it may become very, very hostile or aggressive externally. So these two parts later in life, then when we do get to realize that this is unsustainable, this aggressive part that I've identified with is taking over my life and it's beginning to get me into a lot of trouble. Right. Secretly, I'm feeling very insecure and afraid all the time. We're going to have to reconcile those two parts. We will be deeply identified with that protector. OK, it becomes our identity. We become this sort of intimidating person. So that's another example. There's many, many different ways in which we we fracture ourselves. We've been fractured, to be honest, because it's never the child's fault. But this whole process of reconciliation is something that requires, it requires stillness and it requires an honest examination of how my behavior seems to be contradicting what I am consciously stating I want in life. So in that example of the person who's been aggressive, they may even tell themselves regularly, OK, at this point now, I have to stop with this aggression. I have to really start now. To put that away. But that aggressive part, if that's been put into the shadow part now, that will come out. So that's because I'm now hating that part of myself and I've started to identify with the other part of me. So this is the type of work that you'll find in inner child work. A lot of this stuff comes out. We're not even aware of it. But I tell people, if you want to know who you are, if you want to know what your personality is, typically when you're starting off that journey, you're going to look inside yourself and you know you're going to find you're not going to find your personality. You're going to find an aspect of your personality, one part of your personality that you're deeply identified with. OK, so the job is to identify and go, what's the opposite of this part of myself? Now we're getting somewhere. What part of myself have I denied that has led to me formulating and identifying with this one part of who I am, of my personality? So this is called shadow work. Family systems therapy also has elements of this. Looks at the different ways that people fraction often and take on roles given the circumstances that they find themselves in or the adversity that they find themselves in. And the thing about this type of work is that it is incredibly transformative and it is the quickest way to end inner conflict. It's very compassionate work. And I have found that it's probably 10 times more powerful than than any sort of behavioral modification you can try to do or, you know, even something like gratitude listing or anything on the positive side of things, which I believe in and I think it has a time and a place. This is much more transformative than that. And it's a deeper level of work to do. So really, what you're looking for is where am I conflicted? Where am I at war with myself internally? And I mean, the book I wrote on procrastination, for instance, really went off this entire model. It was just entirely about that whole conflict that comes around identifying so heavily with the productive person. OK, well, what's over here that I've been ignoring? Oh, shame. Really deep shame and insecurity and low self-esteem. Maybe it came from trauma. Maybe I need to reconcile these two parts of myself and watch what happens. You know, it's very difficult to be in touch with your power, the power of your own personality if you're split in half. It's almost impossible. So, guys, I'm going to leave it there for now. But if you have any comments on that or you want to contact me, you can do do so below or through my website. And I hope that was food for thought. And I'll see you again soon. Take care.