conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about PhD, P><B, Psychotherapy with the genre: Medical Books, Medicine?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
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.
  Therapists (and sometimes their clients, too) put enormous pressure on themselves to accomplish therapeutic goals quickly. Often, the sense of urgency is driven by the client's suffering and the empathic wish to relieve it, sometimes by the pressures of limited sessions and/or insurance coverage. Sometimes, we push ourselves because we believe or are led to believe that a particular method "should" work in just a short time, and we question ourselves rather than the method when it does not generate quick results. We also do not take into account the role of structural dissociation: structurally dissociated clients cannot integrate new information or tolerate emotional intensity, and they are also hindered by the internal conflicts between parts. Always in trauma work, the therapist's motto should be, "Slower is faster." Taking the time to build a foundation for each piece of work allows a steady progression toward resolution, rather than a great leap forward followed by two steps back—a pattern to which traumatized clients are all too prone.
  To "process memory" requires preparation: learning to overcome the fear of emotional vulnerability, of the body, and of the parts, reduce sensitivity to traumatic triggering, and inhibit the automatic tendency to "self-defeating stories" or self-blame. While stabilization requires the ability to notice, identify, and differentiate one's parts, the healing of traumatic wounds necessitates an additional step: making an emotional connection to the parts and providing reparative experiences that serve as antidotes to the past.
  Developing compassionate relationships with parts who are hurt, lonely, consumed by rage, frightened, and ashamed is a challenging job, however. Because their emotions are so raw and overwhelming, welcoming them requires tolerating their traumatic activation, learning how to remain unblended despite the distraction of strong physical impulses, and regulating their over- or underwhelming affects. In practical terms, this means that the therapist must help clients maintain their ability to stay curious, despite the intense internal struggles, and cultivate enough compassion to communicate welcome to each part. Therapists will be challenged here by training that prioritizes the felt connection to strong emotions over other types of experience, but it is important to be patient. If the client feels "too much" for the parts, he or she will become flooded with their emotions. To the extent that the normal life self has been able to develop confidence in being able to stay present, has learned to recover from when flooded and "come back," has slowly come to appreciate each part's role in surviving the traumatic past, and has the ability to offer a healing or "loving presence" (Kurtz, 1990) to wounded selves, he or she will be prepared to offer reparative experiences to the parts. "Loving presence" is a state of being: warm, compassionate, curious, looking for what is right instead of what's wrong, unconditionally accepting. Ron Kurtz emphasizes the importance of the therapist cultivating a "loving presence," that is, finding something to "love" in all clients, even those who are stuck, resistant, devaluing, narcissistic, or demanding. In that state of consciousness, time slows down; our bodies relax; there is a feeling of warmth—all is "OK." As important as this concept is in the therapeutic relationship, it is equally important in individuals' relationships to their parts. They must find something to love about each one.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
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.
  Therapists (and sometimes their clients, too) put enormous pressure on themselves to accomplish therapeutic goals quickly. Often, the sense of urgency is driven by the client's suffering and the empathic wish to relieve it, sometimes by the pressures of limited sessions and/or insurance coverage. Sometimes, we push ourselves because we believe or are led to believe that a particular method "should" work in just a short time, and we question ourselves rather than the method when it does not generate quick results. We also do not take into account the role of structural dissociation: structurally dissociated clients cannot integrate new information or tolerate emotional intensity, and they are also hindered by the internal conflicts between parts. Always in trauma work, the therapist's motto should be, "Slower is faster." Taking the time to build a foundation for each piece of work allows a steady progression toward resolution, rather than a great leap forward followed by two steps back—a pattern to which traumatized clients are all too prone.
  To "process memory" requires preparation: learning to overcome the fear of emotional vulnerability, of the body, and of the parts, reduce sensitivity to traumatic triggering, and inhibit the automatic tendency to "self-defeating stories" or self-blame. While stabilization requires the ability to notice, identify, and differentiate one's parts, the healing of traumatic wounds necessitates an additional step: making an emotional connection to the parts and providing reparative experiences that serve as antidotes to the past.
  Developing compassionate relationships with parts who are hurt, lonely, consumed by rage, frightened, and ashamed is a challenging job, however. Because their emotions are so raw and overwhelming, welcoming them requires tolerating their traumatic activation, learning how to remain unblended despite the distraction of strong physical impulses, and regulating their over- or underwhelming affects. In practical terms, this means that the therapist must help clients maintain their ability to stay curious, despite the intense internal struggles, and cultivate enough compassion to communicate welcome to each part. Therapists will be challenged here by training that prioritizes the felt connection to strong emotions over other types of experience, but it is important to be patient. If the client feels "too much" for the parts, he or she will become flooded with their emotions. To the extent that the normal life self has been able to develop confidence in being able to stay present, has learned to recover from when flooded and "come back," has slowly come to appreciate each part's role in surviving the traumatic past, and has the ability to offer a healing or "loving presence" (Kurtz, 1990) to wounded selves, he or she will be prepared to offer reparative experiences to the parts. "Loving presence" is a state of being: warm, compassionate, curious, looking for what is right instead of what's wrong, unconditionally accepting. Ron Kurtz emphasizes the importance of the therapist cultivating a "loving presence," that is, finding something to "love" in all clients, even those who are stuck, resistant, devaluing, narcissistic, or demanding. In that state of consciousness, time slows down; our bodies relax; there is a feeling of warmth—all is "OK." As important as this concept is in the therapeutic relationship, it is equally important in individuals' relationships to their parts.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide two more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: 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: Provide the last paragraph.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: 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.