Treating the Scars of Abandonment: How to Work with the Enduring Impact
with Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Janina Fisher, PhD; Karlen Lyons-Ruth, PhD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; Martin Teicher, MD, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Usha Tummala-Narra, PhD; Eboni Webb, PsyD; Martin Bohus, PhD; Megan Schmidt, PsyD; Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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I’m an experienced Trauma and AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist , but I’m always interested in how to learn more and develop new approaches. One of my new take-aways from this talk was from Dr. Bohus regarding his research study comparing CSA survivors with PTSD with those that didn’t exhibit these symptoms. The difference for the non-PTSD survivors was that :
A) they told someone
B) they were believed and were supported.
I’d love to get a citation of that study if you could send it to me. Thanks for offering this webinar for free.
Best,
Sari Cooper
New research on borderline personality was intriguing for me , wooow. I willl use this session today to inform my work with young mothers in war situation struggling with parenting . its so helpful
I hear a core message communicated by all presenters being listening intently, carefully, and sensitively is key to meet the client where he/she is at and identify correctly their pace and threshold for tolerance.
Thank you for this amazing teachings. I will use the work with imagination to connect with how old is the part of the clients who where abandoned. Also I felt that the voice of the doctor Janina Fischer was very powerful to connect with compassion with that part.
I found this session extremely helpful and full of beautifully crafted advice. I was very moved. Thank you. Freyja Theaker – Psychotherapist Portugal.
Thank you for this precious information that brings hope
Thank you for making this informative session available.
Although I am officially retired, it’s not unusual for me to find myself in situations where my assistance is called for. What was underlined for me today was the crucial importance of a deep, calm listening with compassion, modeled by you and each of your presenters. It was good that you included the rider that this needs to be extended to ones self.
It’s a bit too easy to slip into anger regarding the harms that might not have occurred if only…. there are infinite ways to fill in the blanks. If only I had known this sooner! What is wonderful is gaining insight and validation. I have a solid appreciation for all of the progress being made in this field, especially in the direction away from blaming the victim of circumstances and ditching the one size fits all approach.
Peace
Magdelanye
You’ve said exactly what I have felt during this session.
The abandonment session was wide ranging and built on the prior neglect session. Thank you!
As a layperson with a decades long pursuit of personal growth I appreciate what’s being said and the principles involved. As I listened to the first and second sessions I recognize behaviors in others I’m connected to or were with, and in my own journey. Some of those connections are with persons I’m very close to on a friendship or partnership level. I can put names on various behaviors talked about as I hear the podcast. And I’m optimistic these new understandings will come in real time as I interact with them, leading to modulating my behavior as well.
But understanding raises some dilemmas. First, I don’t want to be be in a therapy role during the interaction but on the other hand can’t help but use my understanding in ways that change my support and interaction as a friend or partner – when, where & how to conduct & maintain my appropriate role???
Second, in my experience trauma of one or more kinds is widespread and people often have multiple issues associated with it or not, or arising from it. I’ve had traumas, my mother and father have had it in ways covered in the first two sessions, and every woman I’ve been close to has had it. But while we talk about, say, neglect, I’ve seen it mixed with so many other issues that it’s hard to unpack them all and understand what’s a cause and effect, what’s separate and what’s related – and anyway does it matter in my role. There’s the dynamic of ‘is it me, them or us?’ There’s commonly a mix of multiple forms of neglect, abandonment, every kind of abuse, molestation, PTSD, etc etc lurking in the background, subtly or overtly pulling behavioral strings, including from my own prior experiences. It’s ironic that the more I learn the more there’s room for doubts or possibilities in many interactions. And the more distant I become with people in the social and business circles who haven’t invested in their personal evolutions.
I can relate to your comments. in situations with close friends, I refer them to these or other series offered by NICABM. This is if they have asked for assistance for themselves or their adolescent or adult children. From my counseling experience, I recognize when the teen or adult child cannot get help if the parents have not dealt with their own abandonment issues. This is a better approach than “confronting” directly, and helps me feel I have done something without ignoring their problems. I learned this the hard way! Best regards in possibly encouraging your friends to seek therapeutic support.
Maybe some of the NICABM support staff can recommend ways to help your pt and her daughter. The situation is somewhat common.
What are the strategies for a mother to deal with a grown up daughter with BPD.The mother who is a pt on mine, regrets not being very available at that time, bez of a full time job, conflicts with her husband living together for the first time ( they had reconciled after years of separation. Divorced when daughter was age 6. Affected her severely), stress from recent purchase of new house , herself being emotionally abandoned by her own mother,not knowing any other way of raising a child & having to be a caretaker fr her younger sibs, with a v controlling father. Her daughter does not know the details. But has been having episodic rage with mostly silent treatment for years & requesting ‘boundaries’ not wanting to communicate with her mother despite several attempts ,except occasionally which usually ends up with daughter bringing up the past perceived issues, by bringing up a totally unrelated topic & fly into a rage.,. Daughter, in her 30’s now is in therapy , but does not share any info abt whether it’s been helpful. How shd I help my pt make amends & reconcile when there is so much resistance , blame, rage? Mother feels helpless & worries abt her daughter living an isolated life with no support system. Thx Any comments would b greatly appreciated.
Maybe some of the NICABM support staff can recommend ways to help your pt and her daughter. The situation is somewhat common.
Wonderful as usual – placement of borderline into trauma framework makes so much sense – thank you!
Thank you for a really thought provoking session. It has helped me to focus ideas I already had but now understand more fully. This will help me with a long term client. I will use my notes and writing them up by looking at the last few sessions I have had with the client. I will try to imagine the sessions in the context of my notes almost like holding up a film negative to the light. I can imagine a way forward is within reach. In an elegant parallel, the client often reports that they have knowledge just outside the grasp of consciousness. Maybe this work will help them to connect up those hard to reach parts.
Thank you for an enjoyable and uplifting presentation.
Dear Ruth, thank you for this amazing program.
I do trauma group classes and very much appreciate your efforts in making a better world for all. Learned new developments on trauma today, and I’m very grateful.
thank you so much, it was really interesting to hear about traumatic invalidation and also the different tools you recommend, some of which I use myself already. I really liked hearing about the tools to help make a client feel safe and building that trust. I have done mediation recordings for my clients, but never appreciated how this could help build a sense of safety around overcoming abandonment. thank you for shedding light on this.
I am so grateful to be here. As a minister and spiritual counselor this is so incredibly valuable. 1st and foremost it helps me to know when I need to suggest to someone I’m seeing, they need to go to someone else with more skills than me so I am collecting names, LOL. I will be sending a donation in even though I cannot afford even the half for the program. Grateful!
Thank you for this free session. It was very helpful to get ideas on how to help trauma patients, especially BPD.
How can the framework of trauma-informed therapy (specifically as related to traumatic invalidation) be used as a treatment modality for folks on the lite end of autism spectrum (and who have a hx of sensory aversion)? Thank you.
Take-aways: There is more to the patient than their trauma.
“Subtle affective abandonement.” BPD is likely trauma-related.
Clear and compassionate boundaries by therapist.
Patient’s experience may be that it’s not safe to be close, but neither is it safe to be away (from caregiver). Fear of not being protected, and/or feeling unloved. -Invalidation (Even if subtle)-
Helping the patient/child/child part feel special, validated.
Attach vs. Flee/Fight.
Behavior vs. What’s driving the behavior.
Combination therapy comprised of trauma therapy (EMDR, perhaps) and DBT. Therapeutic relationship needs to be a frame that is absolutely predictable.
Helping client/patient form and internal representation of the people closest to them.
Vulnerability can feel threatening if there is a hx of traumatic invalidation.
“Deep Brain Reorienting” to process the shock response to abandonment (neutralizing initial shock).
Loved today’s session on abandonment trauma so much! Such rich content, especially the concept of traumatic invalidation, and the gentle development of self-compassion which reminds me so much of Heinz Kohut’s work on self psychology. I wish with all my heart I’d had access to courses like yours at the beginning of my career working at the interface of counselling and lifelong learning/teaching adults. I’m semi-retired now and have a calling to support friends and family experiencing or re-engaging with trauma. I also have a huge interest in childhood trauma as a precursor to development of dementia later in life. So these sessions are still extremely valuable to me. Thank you so much.
I am SO GLAD I did everything in my power to see this final showing of this module. I’ll try to keep it short by saying that: recently someone I have been working said that “I need you,” because I was going to flight from the project I met them through, feeling threatened from a recent couple of emails. Which reading that the first time made me teary eyed, and each reading after illiciting the same feeling, because no one had ever made such a statement before in my life. But also my mother has told me stories of actively neglecting and abandoning my needs as a baby. So I’ve lived all my life terrified of being abandoned but also longing for being just important enough not to be. And feeling like a broken or overly sensitive person. But this series of modules is going to help me know where and how to fully shed my past, my family, and all my regrets involving them without hanging on a thread “just in case things change for the better.” My mom is abusive, and part of that abuse is controlling the idea of me through her narrative to the restbof the family.
Thank you very much. I was wondering about ideas to work with people who, because of their fear of abandonment, they “abandon” first. Especially when they perceive a treat (real or not) of being abandoned (eg. They break up a romantic relationship, end friendships, etc). Any idea?
I am likewise interested in this. Great question.
That’s a really interesting question, Katherine. This has happened quite a lot with clients and students I’ve tried to support in counselling and teaching. Those points about showing compassion and empathy being too hyper-arousing of attachment hunger and separation anxiety felt very apposite to these experiences. I’ve often felt my compassion and empathy was too strong and put clients off, but I hadn’t worked out why until I listened to this session.
This kind of response to a perceived future threat or risk also arises in business, strategic games and economics. We see a potential risk, make decisions about it, move to avoid/minimize/mitigate it, often most effectively ahead of it’s actuality. The ability to do this well is highly valued and rewarded at the C suite level, and in entrepreneurs. Is it any wonder then that we might also do the same at the personal level??? Or that it might be counterproductive when misapplied???
Abandonment and BPD have been interlaced throughout my work with clients in the prison system and child welfare. This information confirms some aspects already being used. BPD is a fairly new occurrence in my line of work and has been a steep learning curve while I work individually with those who experience that level of existence. I am highly aware that perhaps having this program at my fingertips when needed more often will be a positive tool for future needs. Thank you for the the information and gentle way of teaching through this webinar!
Dear NICABM-people, you are my heroes!
I am so grateful to be able to participate at no cost. I would have loved to sign up for your Gold package but sadly I can’t. Your broadcasts are easy enough to grasp, even for a non English speaker. I cannot begin to tell you how thrilled I am that trauma-awareness is finely being incoporated in the study of mental healt issues. I dearly hope your insights floud the world of mental health professionals with the power of a tsunami. Your insights are so liberating! I read “The body keeps the score” by Bessel Van der Kolk, “Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors” by Janina Fisher and “The myth of normal” by Gabor Maté. They all were an extremely liberating revelation to me.
Over the years (I am 65 now) I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and C-PTSD. I grew up in a disfunctional family.
I had the DBT experience, which was of great help, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something crucial was missing. What I missed most during the whole process was the validation of the source of my behaviour/illness. The lack of validation made the DBT experience rather painful and frustrating. However, the DBT background is of tremendous help when processing difficult emotions during EMDR therapy. This therapy abruptly brought to light a life-threatening early infant trauma (around 12 months old). I didn’t expect this at all.
I am a volunteer at the supportgroup Ups & Downs in Belgium (Flanders) for some years now. Ups & Downs is a support group for people with Bipolar Disorder or Depression. I hear a lot of life stories from our participants that really make me think that Bipolar Disorder might very well be a Trauma related illness as well. I cannot help but noticing the similarities between endless swinging between depression and hypomania/mania and an endless swinging between hypo- and hyperarousal.
I am doing the best I can to inform our participants about regulating emotions, the importance of self-compassion, the workings of the polyvagal nerves and the impact of trauma on mental health and how trauma therapy could help some of them to take on the origin of their suffering. I inform them about other therapy possibilities rather than exclusively relying on medication to reach some kind of emotional/mental balance.
Thank you so much for being there! You are lifesavers.
I am watching the coral reef rescue in many countries. They take some dead coral genes from the sea, reactivate them by waking their survival response, kweek them in laboratories, and then they put them back in the ocean in the hope they will generate a new coral reef. But the ocean is polluted. That is how i felt after all the years of therapy and self development, coming back to a culture where there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. My instinct led me to nature, and that is where i found myself, my partner, peace and immeasurable beauty. When we heal our traumas and those of our clients, can we support a culture that is healthy?
If i spend one day alone, i feel depressed. In pain. Is that healthy? Fortunately i almost never sit alone, without making someone happy. And what about all our clients? Can we help them into a society and a culture where there is daily nourishment for them?
And that means that they are able to contribute
My “clients” are my children (adopted from foster care). I am reminded to process with them their very early experiences and be sure to validate the feelings that might have been experienced. And it also has clarified to me how my one daughter’s hypoarousal can be understood as a survival strategy. This increases my compassion (and patience!)
I so appreciate that you open up your webinars to nonclinicians. This is such great training and insights into all our Interactions in the world.
I was a foster parent for 20+ years and maintain close relationships with several of my kiddos , who of course aren’t kiddos anymore, but struggle in the world. For some they have few positive relationships in their life so I am still an anchor for them. I try to help and support the best I can so this information is so insightful for me.
Thank you Sooooo much.
Ps. Can you recommend any therapists in the Broomfield/Boulder or Aurora, CO that take Medicaid?
Lynnwh@ gmail.com
A very good reframing of clients with BPD for me as I do catch myself sometimes secretly annoyed when they resist or circle back again and again to abandonment thoughts/fears. It definitely triggers the compassion in me when viewing their fears as a trauma response.
I enjoyed all of this. It reminds me that when I do a “trauma history” with a new client I can remember that for each client who sits with me is a unique story…just theirs..I can move away from the DSM and employ a greater sensitivity with new ways to understand and be “with”. In many years of practice I have not ever recorded my voice although some clients will keep my voicemails, This is different though. Ways to introduce self compassion helpful! Honestly I have fallen flat on this many times even with the right tone…words matter! Thank you.
I enjoyed the discussion of attachment injuries, types of responses, and creating a deeper understanding of the impact of childhood trauma. I have been a therapist for 30yrs so a lot was not new but what was new for me is helpful. The creation of safety, opening internalized person, and self compassion model can always be added to and enhanced. I would say that the lack of crying in infant would be part of the freeze response. Is that true?
Or learned behaviour/experience that no one is coming?
I think they were framing it as hypoaroysal but I would also see it as a case of learned helplessness causing flat affect.
It might be viewed through the frame of Collapse and Submit. Dr Lanius taught on that in a module on Emerging Defenses. She distinguished Freeze with hyperalertness for a chance to escape and Collapse with release of endogenous opioid dinorphins to anesthesize pain. She said some people even have out-of-body experiences.
Hello,
Thank you very much for treating the subject of abandonment. It is very important to understand how a trauma arises and what the effect may be. I was impressed by all of the material presented and because I am trained as sociologist I was particularly interested to hear about the effects of ‘social trauma’ as well as the concepts of ‘personal validation’ and ‘invalidation’. I wonder whether whether personal validation could explain partly the phenomenon of endurance when one is living in extremely hard conditions…
Thank you again, I received a lot to think about,
Vasiliki Kantzara
Professor at Panteion University – Athens, Greece
Help patients understand that self-compassion isn’t giving up; that the feeling of hurt & sadness will be released and they will emerge calmer. That they can achieve hope and innocence again. That feeling the hurt does not mean they will experience the trauma in new situations.
Thank you all for what you do!! This was amazing.
Taking away the aspect of us therapists being triggers to out patients suffering from BLD or PTSD and how to get them interested instead in taking care of that traumatized child.
U.M
This was a great seminar, I hadn’t heard the term “Traumatic Invalidation’ before and it is so important and devastating for so many of my clients as part of their lived experience as children who went on to develop severe eating disorders. I also liked the shift in perception of BPD to a trauma-based reality and the compassion that comes from that shift.
Thank you for this valuable information. As a layperson watching the program, I have learned so much about myself and my family, about why we behave the way we do. It gives me a better understanding of how to interact with them. I cannot be their therapist, but it makes me more compassionate about how we were all affected by abandonment in our family. You truly are making a difference with your work, perhaps more than you can imagine!
I love everything I am learning with your program! Thank you so much!
I am also curious to know why you do not talk about Emotional Freedom Technique? Dr Bessel van der Kolk talks about this in his book. There are so many studies about its effectiveness. I am simply curious about its absence in your modules.
Thank you so much. I am a psychotherapist and I have a bpd diagnosis. Written three books about my recovery and still recovering due to this stupid label,
this series is excellent. It has expanded and deepened and my understanding of BDP, neglect and abandonment and treatment approaches thank you
Though English is not my 1rst language, I want to thank you for the professional webinar you gave tonight. Realizing that we can help the client internalize a sense of attachment by recording my voice, or the voice of their loved ones, is superb.
I did like the exercise with the cord between psic and client, sort of the umbilical cord right?
THKS again,
M.O.
Thank you for this great content! I loved the compassionate discussion about traumatic invalidation and BPD’s relation to both trauma and abandonment responses. I’m also curious if neurofeedback is part of this discussion at some point. There is a whole chapter devoted to its efficacy in The Body Keeps the Score and there have been thousands of research papers published about it. I wish I had learned about it sooner for my clients with dysregulated nervous systems and especially those with developmental trauma. Maybe that is part of the bonus sessions? Or perhaps it could be part of future presentations? Thank you so much again for all of the work that goes into these wonderful presentations!
Would the underdeveloped skill of “internalizing the other” account for a teenager (who has been neglected and abandoned) being “addicted” to their phone and needing to stay in constant contact with friends? I found this idea of internalizing others impactful.
There is a moment when something changes perception. The concept of Deep brain reorienting and shock did this, Thank you – will no doubt shortly be incorporating…
A very enlightening session, especially informative was the description of clients who have experienced traumatic invalidation. I’m thinking this is more prevalent that it is recognized and having tools to address it can be life changing. Thank you deeply.
I really enjoyed the hyper vs hypo arousal along with everything else. It really gave me insight on how to work with a specific client I have which is invaluable.
I really love these trainings. Thank you so much for offering them at no charge. Because I work in Community Behavioral Health, I just don’t have the disposable income to make large purchases like you offer. I’m soaking up everything you’re putting out. I’ve shared your web site with others. I hope i’m bringing in business for you. The researchers who are contributing to your trainings are absolutely marvelous. I’m learning a lot. Thank you again.
How to protect the vulnerable inner child from the dangerous inner parent ?
Good question! I refer to the exelent book ‘The Loving Parent Guidebook: The Solution is to Become Your Own Loving Parent’ this issue is dealt exesivly. According to thus guide, the first step is to nurture your inner loving parent. While doing so, get to recognise your Critical Inner Parent. This recognition weakens the grasp of the CIP. THe more the inner loving parent grows, the more it can balance the CIP. It is a long process, inwhich the Loving parent takes more and more control of the steering wheel of life instead of the CIP.
For me it is about the little-lonely-frightened inner-trauma-child:
Bringing her out into the world of self awareness and self compassion through the process illuminated by Janina Fisher. Giving her life and contour.
Making her feel seen, listened to, understood.
Giving her a reason to be and to heal. Giving her the inner knowing that she matters, she is safe and well taken care of – by other parts in herself and by other people, including her therapist.
This goes hand-in-hand with the process of internalizing the other, or forming the inner capacity to make room into one’s consciousness and hold on to the undercurrent connections in absentia, thus following the life representations and flow of beingness and, as a consequence, beingness in togetherness, inclusivity.
In this way the process comes full circle, rewiring the brain to move away from the trauma response of aloneness and feeling excluded from love, feeling abandoned.
Janina Fisher’s comment “We are capable of imagining, creating images and can evoke/feel feelings of what we would have liked to happen”gives hope and utility for change. I hope in my lifetime BPD will be moved out of, completely dislocated from the fatalism of “personality” disorders and the presumed lifetime of suffering embedded in one’s “personality”.
I believe I heard a talk by Bessel Van der Kolk or one of his colleagues in which he commented that Borderline Personality Disordered has been removed from DSM. it is now classified with the classifications under early childhood trauma.
Very helpful to have the hypo arousal explained because I have recently come across this and was confused because the obvious BPD traits had been deeply hidden and surprised me as they emerged from such a different presentation. I have given mindfulness recordings in the past when I had to go away for a long time but never thought of doing it strategically for BPD clients. Will do now, thank you.
Compassion and survival are incompatible. I have been using work with the parts as Janine Fischer describes it, except that I was introduced to it via The Richards Trauma Process (TRTP). It was validating to recognise her experience of naming compassion too early and having to approach this sideways! When a client says they feel they do not exist I will now be able to bring in the psycho-education around traumatic invalidation. And I will use the very helpful question; ‘was either of your parents ever frightened?’ with my clients from now on. . So rich. thank you.
I finally was able to understand what my daughter is probably experiencing when she had PTSD and link up everything from just one webinar. It was most enlightening. Thank you very much 🙏🏻
“Traumatic Invalidation” and the role reversal of babies care-taking in an attempt to connect are 2 concepts that I see in my work with transracially adopted clients, I just never had such a clear concept or language for them, so thank you very much for this presentation.
I will also keep in mind the concept of: threat of abandonment versus threat of physical/pain/abuse motivates different responses.
Thank you so much for this session. Very useful in so many ways. In particular I will be mindful of naming the effect of ‘trauma invalidation’ in my clients with BPD and helping them to facilitate internal representations of those close to them.