conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a story about PhD, P><B, Psychotherapy with the genre: Medical Books, Medicine?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this story could be 'Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first two paragraphs for this story.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors
  As clients learn to speak the language of parts, increase their ability to unblend, and cultivate a dual awareness relationship characterized by curiosity rather than aversion, there is often a spontaneous settling of the nervous system, calming trauma-related parts. The habit of mindful noticing creates a little space between the young child and a wise adult who finds it much easier to be curious now that he or she is less overwhelmed. Cause-and-effect relationships become clearer. The client feels less "crazy" when "over-reactions" are reframed as normal reactions of traumatized children. Now, the client can observe the influence of the parts on their actions and reactions and practice being aware of impulses to blend and make a conscious choice: "If I blend with the despair of the depressed part, it will upset the little parts and trigger the suicidal part—maybe I don't want to 'give in' to the feeling of hopelessness after all." With a conscious, voluntary separation from trauma-related parts and a more regulated nervous system, clients begin to develop less aversion and more compassion for them—or at least perspective toward them. Particularly with clients with chronic high-risk symptoms, self-destructive behavior, substance-abuse, and/or eating disorders, stabilization is almost entirely dependent upon acquiring the ability to differentiate the aims and goals of a normal life versus those of a desperate flight or fight part more afraid of trauma-related vulnerability than of death. Traditional treatments for these issues typically focus on cessation of unsafe behavior, thereby alienating and polarizing the fight and flight parts and often jeopardizing stabilization. Similarly, shame, exhaustion, and self-doubt are most often treated as indications of chronic depression or low self-esteem, rather than understood as communications from parts who bear the burden of submission and humiliation. Worse yet, when client symptoms are chronic or treatment-resistant, they are often labeled as "personality disordered," confirming already held beliefs in their defectiveness and not belonging. But stabilization of even the most dysregulated, dissociated clients can gradually be achieved with repeated practice of the following simple steps described in more detail in Chapters 4 and :
  These simple initial tasks are the foundation upon which any deeper work must be built, and it is well worth the therapist taking the extra time to stabilize these abilities until the client can use them independently outside of therapy, not just with the therapist present. It is not helpful to clients to move ahead to "the deeper work," only to discover in hindsight that the client was more dysregulated and more blended with his or her parts than the therapist realized and now is overwhelmed by emotions or traumatic memories.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: MASON: "I feel sad for him—he never had a safe place or a safe person in his world." [Mason is beginning to mirror both the boy's anxiety and his own empathy.]
  ME: "Yes, he never, ever had a safe place or a safe person... and when you feel the sadness for him, what impulse do you have? To come closer to him? To just let him know you're there?"
  MASON: "I just want to pick him up and hold him—but I can sense that he doesn't trust me." [His mirroring gets more attuned, communicating both his wish to hold and comfort and his sensitivity to the boy's fears of being too close.]
  ME: "How could he trust any grownup? He never met an adult like you... Maybe just let him know you're there and you want to help..."
  MASON: "Yes, he's saying that he has to pay attention to bad things like germs—he has to be watchful—he can't relax."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the first sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: " [Mason is beginning to mirror both the boy's anxiety and his own empathy.]
  ME: "Yes, he never, ever had a safe place or a safe person... and when you feel the sadness for him, what impulse do you have? To come closer to him? To just let him know you're there?"
  MASON: "I just want to pick him up and hold him—but I can sense that he doesn't trust me." [His mirroring gets more attuned, communicating both his wish to hold and comfort and his sensitivity to the boy's fears of being too close.]
  ME: "How could he trust any grownup? He never met an adult like you... Maybe just let him know you're there and you want to help..."
  MASON: "Yes, he's saying that he has to pay attention to bad things like germs—he has to be watchful—he can't relax."
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Once you have an image or sense of parts gathered in the circle, invite them to tell you what they are worried about—is there anything they want you to know about their worries?
  Try to be a good listener: try to really "get" what they're telling you about themselves. Take their fears and feelings seriously. If they express feelings of abandonment or hurt that you haven't been there, try to "own" it if you recognize some truth to their perception. Try to take responsibility: "I should have been there—I can see why that was hard for you.
  Then, once you have that next layer of worry, ask: "And if that were to come true, what would you be worried about?" (The questions should be as concrete as possible and tied to the expressed fear of the part, even if the fear doesn't make sense.) Usually, the answer is "safety," which then requires another question: "How would he or she be unsafe if this happened?" 
  It usually takes 2 to 4 questions along these lines to get to the core fear, usually a fear connected to the trauma in some way: "I'll be alone," "I would be trapped," "It would be too much—I would just shatter."
  The key is communicating a real commitment to the parts that, from now on, you will listen to them, take their fears seriously, connect to them with compassion, and try to provide the protection and support they have been waiting for.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Add another sentence about equal, turned, "turned, expressed, traumatized.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Once you have an image or sense of parts gathered in the circle, invite them to tell you what they are worried about—is there anything they want you to know about their worries?
  Try to be a good listener: try to really "get" what they're telling you about themselves. Take their fears and feelings seriously. If they express feelings of abandonment or hurt that you haven't been there, try to "own" it if you recognize some truth to their perception. Try to take responsibility: "I should have been there—I can see why that was hard for you. " Be an "equal opportunity" welcomer: even if you are "turned off" by a particular part's shame, vulnerability, or anger, try to accept all feelings and beliefs expressed by the parts as a natural and normal emotion any traumatized child might be likely to have. 
  Then, once you have that next layer of worry, ask: "And if that were to come true, what would you be worried about?" (The questions should be as concrete as possible and tied to the expressed fear of the part, even if the fear doesn't make sense. ) Usually, the answer is "safety," which then requires another question: "How would he or she be unsafe if this happened?" 
  It usually takes 2 to 4 questions along these lines to get to the core fear, usually a fear connected to the trauma in some way: "I'll be alone," "I would be trapped," "It would be too much—I would just shatter. "
  The key is communicating a real commitment to the parts that, from now on, you will listen to them, take their fears seriously, connect to them with compassion, and try to provide the protection and support they have been waiting for.