#339 – Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English

Defining trauma—a loaded word [3:00]

Talk a little bit about this loaded word of “trauma”

• When Peter was first introduced to this idea of trauma, he didn’t know what that meant
• Today it’s become such a catchy buzzword, that everybody is traumatized by something

How do you describe trauma as a trauma therapist and as someone who’s been doing trauma therapy for many years? 

• The big traumas (“big T”) are being in war: Vietnam, 9/11 attack, etc.

Within the spirit of the work, really embracing a definition: moments of perceived helplessness, that’s what’s going to activate the limbic system 

⇒ Who is to say what one limbic system evaluates as helplessness versus another?

• That’s when we get into this discovery most people have made of, “Wow, I think I did experience trauma.”
• Jeff works with clients individually and in groups
• He thinks we often make things too complex
• A lot of what he does is try to depolarize for folks
  • Getting into these situations to where we live in this world of “get-over-it, it doesn’t matter”
  • Versus, like Peter mentioned, perhaps we stay stuck in it

⇒ Moments of perceived helplessness activate the limbic system

Wounding events ‒ one of those would be a tragic event 

• Life seems to be going one way before this thing happens, and then this thing happens, and life changes and everything is different on the other side of that “big T” event
• Versus someone who maybe you could describe it as “a thousand paper cuts” [“little t” events]
  • Someone growing up, going through childhood, daily being limbically activated, but moments of perceived helplessness
  • That stuck for Jeff, and it stuck for a lot of clients

The therapeutic process at The Bridge to Recovery: confronting discomfort, embracing vulnerability, and reframing one’s story [5:45]

• Peter met Jeff at a place called The Bridge to Recovery in December of 2017 (7 years ago)
  • Peter wrote about it somewhat reluctantly in Outlive, but without that chapter, the book was incomplete 

How a place like The Bridge to Recovery comes to exist, and how therapists like Jeff come to work at places like that 

• It might be shocking to some, how much group therapy is done at a place like that
• When Peter looks back through his journal, it’s amazing how complex it was for him to be able to open up in front of a group
  • He spent the first few days saying virtually nothing, largely because of that discomfort
• In his book, Peter described The Bridge as this wonderful, horrible place in the woods of Bowling Green, Kentucky

Some folks call it residential treatment; some people call it trauma camp 

• Other names Peter wrote down: Camp Misery, The Sadness Factory, and The Tree of Pain
  • Jeff couldn’t argue with any of those

Jeff describes it as residential treatment for disconnection 

• Most folks think disconnection sounds vague
• When many think of residential treatment, they tend to jump to substance abuse (where people go to get sober)

Jeff explains, “Disconnection is just the concept that’s used at The Bridge, and one way of disconnecting is substance abuse, but also screens, sex, relationships, ego, anger. So you just take away the substance, take away the word alcohol, and plug in whatever word you want to.” 

The group process 

• You might have a group of 8 folks, and there might be 3 folks who identify as substance abusers and 2 as workaholics

“You may disconnect differently than I do, Peter, but the commonality is that, especially when life throws us a curveball, this disconnected version of me seems to come out, jump in my driver’s seat, if you will.”‒ Jeff English

• There’s a big part of Jeff that doesn’t want to give away the secrets ‒ let the magic happen
• But you can know everything that’s going to happen, and then you start going through the process, and discomfort is what it’s all about
  • That’s when stuff comes up
  • That’s the whole idea
• Monday is admissions day, and counselors would usually meet the groups by Tuesday

Countless times Jeff has tried to help talk folks off the ledge of leaving  

• In summary, their reasons are an increase in anxiety (the details differ)
  • They may say, “I came to The Bridge and my anxiety was at a 7. Right now I think it’s a 9. I need to get the heck out of here. This place ain’t for me.”
  • This is the evidence that The Bridge is exactly the right place for them 
• Peter remembers that first day (Monday) is a very unpleasant day

Explain the objectives of phase 1: The telling of one’s life story 

• Getting your history straight
• Many folks have done it before, but here it’s through the lens of what the counselors introduce as “the trauma tree”
  • It’s the “what happened to me” story
  • So many of us for years (sometimes decades) have been telling the story of what’s wrong with me
• From the very beginning, the shift, the hope is to move a little bit closer to what happened to me
  • Not within the spirit of an excuse, but an explanation
  • It makes sense that I do this thing that I do now
• The group process brings up the stuff Jeff calls “the guards”
  • Parts therapist will call them protective parts (this isn’t new)
  • It’s “ego states” (new terminology)

⇒ Guard refers to the protective side of a person that comes up when they get vulnerable 

When does someone get vulnerable? 

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