Karen Woodall – Psychotherapist, Writer, Researcher, Trainer

Transgenerational Trauma, Alienation of Children and Unresolved Losses in the Family System

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karenwoodall

I wrote about trans-generational haunting in 2013  and it is this element of the work that I do, which remains the most compelling in terms of understanding how the relational trauma of divorce and separation, can let loose the ghosts which are encrypted in the family narrative.

In some cases, where a child is using the defence of psychological splitting there is a particular atmosphere which is readily recognised by experienced practitioners.  Whilst all cases of alienation in a child are marked by the child’s use of defensive splitting, some cases are marked by other additional features.  The markers of trans-generational trauma are those which set these cases apart from the others.

These features are those which I wrote about in the article entitled ‘growing up in a world without windows and a house without doors’  and they exemplify the atmosphere of a case of trans-generational transmission of unresolved trauma.

Whilst much of the literature on trans-generational trauma transmission is from the perspective of societal traumas such as genocide, some of the more complex psychoanalytical work is focused upon the ways in which the experience of trauma in everyday life is passed through the family line like an encrypted secret. It was when I first understood how trans-generational haunting takes place, that I realised that this is what I was sensing in the atmosphere of the case of trans-generational trauma repetition.

The atmosphere of a case of induced psychological splitting in a child which is trans-generational in nature is like no other.  From the outset, the things said by the children in such a case are different to other cases.  What is starkly apparent, is the way in which the children’s narratives mirror that of the life stories of the parents, grandparents and sometimes great grandparents. It is as if the whole family lives in a world which is created by the aftermath of trauma and it’s unspeakable impact and in fact that is exactly what they do.  

A case of trans-generational trauma transmission, requires that anyone who is involved with the family on an intimate level, must conform to the internalised, often highly secretive narrative of the family.  To be unable or unwilling to do so, demands that the person be excluded, silenced, shunned and shamed. For practitioners, recognising the atmosphere of this particular family dynamic, means knowing when to tread carefully and go slowly in terms of intervention.

This is because within the internalised walls of these families, within the inter-psychic subjective life of the family lies a secret. This secret is so secret that it is either unknown by the family members, was  known but is split off into the unconscious or is known and deliberately kept hidden.  Depending upon whose secret it is and how far back in the generational line the secret goes, inter-psychic relationships will be adapted to keep this secret.

When children are born into such families they attach to their care givers and inter-psychically absorb the reality that there is an encrypted secret (Salberg 2017).  The secret which is never spoken about with words, is part of the unconscious life of the growing child who will, in some situations, seek to manifest an opportunity to resolve the unresolved by recreating a scenario which is similar to the original wound.  This understanding, of how a child of a parent suffering trauma, seeks to attach to every aspect of the intra-psychic experience of that caregiver, even the negative, explains how that child replicates that traumatic experience in the here and now.

It is within the atmosphere of such families that access to the unspoken and encrypted knowledge is achieved.

Bako and Zana (2020) tell us that

The instigators of the trans-generational atmosphere are the traumatised first generation, and the following generations are then drawn into the atmosphere, so the atmosphere is actually a shared intrasubjective field expanded to several generations. (Page 30)

This is the atmosphere which is readily apparent in cases where fixed and fused dyadic relationships between parent and child are present and where historical patterns of loss and trauma become apparent on investigation.  This is the space in which the things are not said and not given symbolic representation, where the world is divided into two parts in which the trauma is frozen alongside a life which is going on in the here and now.

Entering into such spaces causes anxiety which can become unbearable for the sufferer, who will experience the threat of the loss of the intra-subjective ‘we’ which is a clinical marker for this type of case.  When this fused relational space is broken open, the projection onto the practitioner, of the split off and denied danger is a defence which is designed to prevent the loss of the part of the self which is projected onto the child (Bako and Zana 2020).

It thus follows that this work is far beyond that of a contact dispute and is far beyond that of high conflict. This is the area of work which involves psychologically unwell people, where encapsulated delusional disorder is prevelant.

A case of alienation of a child can, in this context, be thought of as a defence against the disintegration of the intra-subjective life of the family.  The parent who has been cast out/or who has left the family but who has refused to go away without a relationship with the child, is felt to be an interloper or intruder into the internal world of the family.

In reality, when working with these families, the parent who is being rejected will often be shown to have been experiencing either rejection or inability to fit in with the family narrative for a time prior to the rejection by the child. If we think about the birth of a child in a family affected by trans-generational transmission of trauma, as being a risk factor for the family secret to be revealed, it is easy to see why many parents are evicted from the family when they will not allow baby to be brought up in the way which is necessary to keep the family internally regulated.

The atmosphere of alienation is suffocating, it is foggy and it is quite often bewildering in the way that the spoken narrative is broken and not linear.  The past is not another country in these families, it is happening right now, alongside the here and now and it is manifested in ways which can only be interpreted because they cannot be easily understood cognitively.

When we enter into these spaces it should be cautiously and at first reverently, because here is where a traumatic secret resides. Whilst the purpose of our work is to take the child in the here and now to a safer place, we should recognise that in doing so, someone has been badly harmed and needs help within these walls.

It may be that this tearing of the shroud which holds the secret in place will bring enough change to the family dynamic to trigger an opportunity for healing. Or it may not. This cannot be our motivating factor however because in this work it is the child in the here and now who needs our help.

Trans-generational trauma transmission is far away from contact and conflict.  It affects a group of families suffering the overall experience of alienation and it is has an atmosphere unlike the others.  It also requires a particular treatment route which meets the needs of the family as a whole, whilst protecting the child in the here and now.

If you are living this, you will know it.

If you are working with families affected by alienation you need to know it.

References

Abraham, N., Torok, M. and Rand, N., 1994. The Shell And The Kernel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Faimberg, H., 2005. The Telescoping Of Generations. London: Routledge.

Grand, S. and Salberg, J., 2017. Trans-Generational Trauma And The Other. London Routledge.

Bakó, T. and Zana, K., 2020. Transgenerational Trauma And Therapy. London and New York: Routledge.

Listening and Learning Circle – 25th April 2023

This circle is all about transgenerational trauma transmission and the way in which alienation of children, which is a relational trauma in the here and now, can be the result of an unresolved trauma in the family of the parent to whom the child is aligned. This trauma, which has a particular pattern of behaviours, is often protected by the inward looking and isolating nature of the family in which it is located. Understanding how transgenerational trauma is transmitted is key to understanding this problem and if you are a parent in the rejected position, recognising this enables you to act in ways which frees the child rather than tightening the double bind the child is in. Where transgenerational trauma patterns are in play, children are seen to be in fixed and fused dyadic relationship with a parent to whom they are tightly aligned, they are also likely to be highly defensive of a parent, playing the role of carer/confidante and champion/advocate all at the same time. In such circumstances the child is disavowing their own needs for a healthy childhood in order to protect a parent who is suffering from intra-psychic conflicts. These conflicts may themselves have been inherited from the original sufferer. Enabling the child to live a life which is free of this need to protect, advocate for and support a parent who is transferring trauma responses, is about recognising that unresolved trauma, when visited upon a child, causes attachment maladaptations which deny the child the right to live their own life which is free of this influence.

How to use therapeutic parenting as a basis for understanding, communicating that understanding and building the child’s capacity to develop the self despite the overshadowing of unresolved trauma, is the basis for this circle.

Participants can purchase one ticket and share the link with two friends and/or family members. The purpose of this is to encourage the building of knowledge within your own support circle so that you are not having to cope alone.

6-8pm UK time – 25th April 2023

Tickets can be purchased here

14 responses to “Transgenerational Trauma, Alienation of Children and Unresolved Losses in the Family System”

  1. Bob Rijs

    Pavlov’s Law vs Pavlov Effect

    Pavlov’s Law:
    When a child approaches a Narcissistic parent, the parent becomes distressed and will react impulsively (on automatic pilot).

    Pavlov Effect:
    Child will dissociate when the parent is near and/or approaches, the brain is already prepared for what is to come. Alexithymia developed over time in those situations.

    [1] Alexithymia, disgust of affect;
    [2] Dissociation (build-up) allostatic load;
    [3] Reactive (allostatic overload/discharge) Aggression)

    Pavlov Effect:
    When the child is an adult and has children of his/her own, he/she will probably react impulsively from a state of dissociation when a child seeks an approach.

    Pavlov Effect:
    When you have a relationship with a narcissist as a partner, all stress emotions are smoothed out by dissociation [alexithymia also develops in those situations], but those stress emotions are not processed and stored as psycho-traumatic injury. The difference is that the allostatic load is linked to the dysfunctional coping mechanisms that will cause the allostatic load to build up very quickly in a conversation.

    The Construct of Alexithymia: Associations With Defense Mechanisms
    Edward Helmes, Pamela D. McNeill, Ronald R. Holden, Chris Jackson
    JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Vol. 64(3), 318–331 (2008) DOI: 10.1002/jclp.20461

    Alexithymia is a dimensional personality construct that encompasses a cluster of cognitive and affective characteristics relating to difficulty identifying and describing feelings, limited imaginal capacity, and having an externally oriented thinking style. Attempts to explain the etiology of high levels of alexithymia have resulted in disagreements regarding the relationship between alexithymia and psychological defense mechanisms. Much of the previous research suggests strong associations between alexithymia and immature or maladaptive defense styles. To examine these relationships using correlations, multiple regression and factor analytic techniques, three nonclinical populations in Australia and Canada were studied with a view to evaluating the association of defense mechanisms and response styles with alexithymia. Our results support the association of alexithymia with emotional inhibition, but extend those associations to immature defense styles and aspects of social desirability. & 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 64: 318–331, 2008.

    Things shift over time,

    When the Love Hormone Leads to Violence: Oxytocin Increases Intimate Partner Violence Inclinations among High Trait Aggressive People

    Clues from prior research suggest that oxytocin increases prosocial behavior, but this effect is reversed among people with aggressive tendencies or in situations involving defensive aggression.

    The present study investigated whether oxytocin plays a role in the propensity for interpersonal violence that high-trait aggressive individuals display. Specifically, we theorized that if oxytocin promotes relationship maintenance behaviors, especially in the face of threat, oxytocin would increase intimate partner violence inclinations among individuals predisposed toward physical aggression.

    https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/19002/DeWall_OxytocinAgg.pdf?sequence=1

    The Role of Oxytocin in Antisocial Personality Disorders:
    A Systematic Review of the Literature

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00076/full

    RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PARENTAL REARING, ALEXITHYMIA, AND SENSATION SEEKING IN WOMEN

    https://altorendimiento.com/relationship-between-parental-rearing-alexithymia-and-sensation-seeking-in-women/

    Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation, Classic Edition
    Mary D. Salter Ainsworth, Mary C. Blehar, Everett Waters, and Sally N. Wall (2015)

    Scale 4: Acceptance vs. Rejection of the Infant’s Needs

    Some outwardly accepting mothers are more rejecting than those, described above, who can give brief, healthy, situation-specific vent to annoyance. The pseudo-accepting mothers comply with the infant’s demands, but in a way which is in itself inappropriate. They comply masochistically, and in a pseudo-patient, long-suffering way, and usually underneath this type of compliance lies much-repressed aggression — which is usually deep-seated and of long-standing, and which has little to do with the infant except as his behavior may serve to activate this repressed aggression and threaten the defenses against it. Such a mother cannot give healthy vent to the anger occasioned by the infant’s behavior. She smothers it, and tries to be patient. Her very defenses against expressing her anger make it impossible for her to be truly responsive to the infant, and hence he tends to find her compliance unsatisfying. Both this and the often inappropriate outbursts of irritation which inevitably break through the defenses add up to rejection.

    I have read something about the Dual-hormone Model / Theorie.

    It seems that a sadistic personality fuses a reward hormone with the stress hormone.

    Childhood Adversities as Risk Factors for Alexithymia and Other Aspects of Affect Dysregulation in Adulthood

    Click to access Childhood-Adversities-as-Risk-Factors-for-Alexithymia-and-Other-Aspects-of-Affect-Dysregulation-in-Adulthood.pdf

    Alexithymia, Ego-Resilience, and Child Stress During the COVID-19 Pandemic

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360223284_Alexithymia_Ego-Resilience_and_Child_Stress_During_the_COVID-19_Pandemic

    This book is recommended: Child Abuse and Neglect Attachment, Development and Intervention by David Howe (2005) http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/23787/1/2.pdf

    Defensive Processes, Attachment and Maltreatment [page 46]

    Introduction

    Children whose carers are the cause of their fearful states, and children who do not have access to a sensitively attuned carer at times of distress, are left acutely and chronically dysregulated. In these situations, the brain feels overwhelmed. It therefore copes defensively. But there are psychological (and developmental) consequences when defensive strategies are over-used.

    In their attempt to reduce anxiety, defenses distort reality and lay down partial, incomplete memories and dysfunctional behavioral sequences which become reactivated whenever similar situations are met. ‘The neural connections that result in defenses shape our lives by selecting what we approach and avoid, where our attention is drawn, and the assumptions we use to organize our experiences’ (Cozolino 2002: 32).

    As we have seen, the defining characteristic of a disorganized attachment is the inability to find a behavioral strategy that leads to a place of safety and feelings of emotional calm. Because the attachment figure is the cause of the distress, approaching him or her only makes matters worse. The attachment system remains activated, and in this situation where both approach and avoidance responses increase fear, levels of arousal can rise to the point where the child feels overwhelmed.

    The whole experience of being cared for by an attachment figure who repeatedly frightens the child because of what he or she does (abuse), what he or she will not do (rejection and abandonment), or what he or she cannot do (neglect), adds up in Schore’s words to an experience of ‘relational trauma’. Such attachment traumas make individuals fear closeness to others; even activation of the attachment system itself engenders feelings of fear.

    Thus, as Allen (2001: 22) points out, ‘attachment trauma damages the safety-regulating system and undermines the traumatized person’s capacity to use relationships to establish feeling of security’.

    Maltreating carers do not help their children recognize, understand or regulate their emotions. They fail on three counts.

    • They fail to provide the child with any information about what is happening to them emotionally.

    • There is no attempt to help children make sense of what is happening to them at the cognitive and behavioral level.

    • And there is certainly no inclination or capacity to help children feel safe and soothed, regulated and contained. They fail to terminate children’s activated attachment system, leaving them in a highly aroused and distressed condition.

    So overwhelming and frightening is the experience of relational trauma, young minds have to employ a variety of defensive strategies to try to keep out of consciousness the painful thought that the attachment figure does not care, does not protect, but hurts and frightens.

    The type of psychological defense used depends on the particular character of the caregiving. For example, the psychological problem posed by parents who deactivate their caregiving whenever their children appear needy or vulnerable is very different from that presented by carers who sexually and violently abuse their children.

    However, these psychological defenses tend to be fragile and can easily break down under the stress of actual or perceived neglect, verbal abuse, rejection and aggression by the attachment figure. In other words, any significant arousal of the attachment system becomes associated with, and seems to be a precursor of, fear, intimations of danger, and the collapse into a disorganized state.

    In time, any activation of the attachment system can lead to a breach of the psychological defense, leaving the child being overwhelmed by feelings of alarm and panic, rage and anger, despair and helplessness. Maltreated children therefore tend to be in one or other of two mental states:

    • a controlling, defensive mode (compulsive compliance, compulsive caregiving, compulsive self-reliance) with the outline of a fragile, organized but very insecure attachment strategy, or under stress

    • an out-of-control, helpless/hostile mode in which organized attachment behavior completely breaks down.

    Unless disorganized and controlling children enjoy relationships later on in life that help them develop a more trusting, reflective and less defended state of mind, they are likely to carry these mental states (controlling/out of control) with respect to attachment into all future relationships.

    In particular, these two states are likely to be most easily roused and activated when the adult is in relationship with a sexual partner, a young care-seeking child, or indeed a childcare professional whose very involvement might imply attachment-related issues of control, vulnerability, criticism, failure, anxiety, power, fear and danger.

    Our present interest lies in what happens to young developing minds when they find themselves in relationship with primary selective attachment figures whose mental states with respect to attachment shift between defense on the one hand, and fearful, chaotic disorganization on the other. It is in these parent–child relationships we find minds that maltreat, and minds that are maltreated.

    [Defensive Processes, Attachment and Maltreatment 47]

    More subtly, each defensive strategy and the direction of its breakdown lead to different types and combinations of maltreatment, ranging from physical abuse to depressed neglect.

    Associated Features of the Alexithymia Construct

    In considering the various ways in which alexithymia may present in individuals, a range of characteristics has been identified. Highly alexithymic people have an empty emotional life and a limited sense of their own needs (Kraemer & Loader, 1995). They generally respond unemotionally and calmly to emotional experiences and psychologically serious events (McDougall, 1985), and they often use a wall of language to put a screen between themselves and others rather than to communicate their ideas and emotional experiences (McDougall, 1985).

    Although those who are highly alexithymic are unable to identify and communicate specific feelings, they know when they do not feel good (Ogrodniczuk, 2007); however, with their thinking focused on facts, details, and events that are external to the self, there is minimal inner reflection. Consequently, there is an inability to link emotional experiences to any associated thoughts and feeling sensations, or to utilise this process as a source of information to guide decisions and modulate mood states (Taylor & Bagby, 2000). In accordance with the proposal by Damasio (1999), this seems to suggest that emotional awareness in high alexithymia is fixed at the level of the broad background emotions (for example, a calm versus tense state), with the lack of cognitive processing prohibiting higher order specificity of feelings, inner reflection, and affect regulation.

    It is a misconception that highly alexithymic individuals are completely unable to express feeling states. Rather, it is more accurate to regard these people as having emotions that are “poorly differentiated and not well represented mentally” (Taylor & Bagby, 2000, pp. 42-43). Those with high levels of alexithymia may communicate emotive words such as ‘sad’, ‘angry’, or ‘frightened’, exhibit emotional outbursts of rage, crying, and/or slamming of doors (Krystal, 1979; Nemiah et al., 1976; Thompson, 1988), and experience dysphoria and emotional turmoil (Taylor et al., 1992). However, the sudden outbursts can stop as abruptly as they start, and there will be an inability to elaborate and reflect on the associated feelings, or identify the source of the feeling state (Taylor & Bagby, 2000).

    Paradoxically, although highly alexithymic individuals lack the cognitive, expressive, and reflective skills associated with emotion states (Krystal, 1988), as with people who are colour-blind, they may have learned from others that they have the deficits (Lane et al., 1996). The validity of the measures is supported by findings of significant correlations between the TAS-20 and its three factor scales of difficulty identifying feelings, difficulty describing feelings, and externally oriented thinking and non-self-report measures of alexithymia (Porcelli & Mihura, 2010), and an observer-rated measure (Bagby, Taylor et al., 1994).

    Recommended Citation
    McNeill, P. D. (2015). Duet for life: Is alexithymia a key note in couples’ empathy, emotional connection, relationship dissatisfaction, and therapy outcomes?. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1670
    https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2671&context=theses

    Stress and The General Adaptation Syndrome

    Alexithymia and Emotional Inhibition

    Another construct that has been viewed as conceptually similar to alexithymia is that of emotional inhibition, and indeed, the two constructs do have similarities. Based on the General Adaptation Syndrome established by Hans Selye (Selye, 1976), Pennebaker and Beall (1986) developed the theory of behavioral inhibition and psychosomatic disease.
    Their theory suggests that inhibiting the expression of distressing emotions is an active process that involves not thinking about the associated emotion, and requires an increase in both psychological and physiological effort and energy (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986; Pennebaker, Hughes, & O’Heeron, 1987). Over time, the continual physiological effort required with inhibition places cumulative stress and wear and tear on the body, and it is this process that adversely affects physiological functioning and potentially leads to the development of psychosomatic disorders (Pennebaker & Beall, 1986; Selye, 1976).

    Investigation of alexithymia and inhibition of emotional expression has found low to moderate positive correlations between the two constructs, indicating that they are related yet separate (Davies, Stankov, & Roberts, 1998; King et al., 1992). Therefore, although inhibition and alexithymia may seem similar, their conceptual nature differs in that inhibition may be viewed as an unwillingness to express emotion (Horowitz, Markman, Stinson, Fridhandler, & Ghannam, 1990), whereas alexithymia can be viewed as an inability or difficulty that is associated with [emphasis added] expressing emotion (Taylor, 1997a).

    Recommended Citation
    McNeill, P. D. (2015). Duet for life: Is alexithymia a key note in couples’ empathy, emotional connection, relationship dissatisfaction, and therapy outcomes?. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1670
    https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2671&context=theses

    PARENTAL ATTITUDES AND SUSCEPTIBILITY TO IMPULSIVE
    AGGRESSION. THE MEDIATION ROLE OF ALEXITHYMIA

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338833687_Parental_attitudes_and_susceptibility_to_impulsive_aggression_The_mediation_role_of_alexithymia

    Stored experience of trauma

    As early as 1936, the endocrinologist Hans Selye put rats in various physical and psychological situations and investigated how they were absorbed. The rats see a strong reaction from the body, namely enlarged adrenal glands, atrophy of the thymus, and stomach ulcers.

    The adrenal glands produce biological hormones; the thymus is, among other things, the nursery of T-lymphocytes. Selye referred to this reaction as the “general adaptation syndrome” (general adaptation syndrome). This response was not specific to one agent but occurred after many different stimuli. Selye described the phases of this syndrome.[3]

    In my article: A different view on the Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) [4] I already wrote: “Because Bastiaans are missing in the current literature, I still want to refer to the four phases of Selyes General Adaption Syndrome (GAS) (Bastiaans, 1986)[5] which he describes. The physiologist Selye described the typical stress reactions in 1936.

    [1] Bastiaans indicates that during the shock phase in extreme situations, there is a shutdown of consciousness. Depersonalization, self-estrangement and a kind of I-paralysis can ensue. In addition, if consciousness has not yet been completely turned off, an extreme powerlessness takes over, leaving part of the rest of their lives fixed in the powerlessness experience.
    We can also state here that the central mechanism in complex post-traumatic disorders is dissociation. This mechanism originated as a defense strategy against overwhelming experiences (Herman, 1992)[6].

    At that moment, the cognitive ego consciousness (the consciousness we normally work with) can no longer handle the situation in carrying capacity and there is a regression, believed, believed, to our internal basic ego self that is connected to collective energy (Rump, 2014 )[7].

    [2] Second, he calls the alarm phase or counter-shock phase a state of inner alarm with all the manifestations of “excitement”. This goes hand in hand with various symptoms such as extreme nervousness, anxiety, insomnia, restlessness, and everything associated with hyperaesthetic syndrome, hypersensitivity to sensory and moving stimuli. The built-in alarm equipment is activated. Normally fear, pain, guilt, and shame are warning signals to activate the organism to find a solution. If a person no longer picks up on these signals, only the threat is experienced and he can remain fixed in the experience of these feelings and the associated behavior patterns for the rest of his life. Then that person remains, anxiously aching, sick, or permanently ashamed. So here we see health problems that are not described in PTSD, but which do recur in complex PTSD.

    [3] The third phase is the adaptation phase in which humans and organisms try to find a solution. The basic principles here are “fight” or “flight”. This depends on whether the person has a stronger neurotic or psychotic organization (Rump, 2003)[8]. In “fight” anger and aggression dominate. With “flight” a withdrawal arises, such as chronic depression, apathy, and emotional poverty. In this third phase, fatigue starts to play a role and the nightmares arise.

    [4] The fourth phase is the exhaustion phase where resistance can no longer be offered.

    We can connect this to the four groups of symptoms that the Dutch Association for Psychiatry mentions in the overview of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – diagnosis.

    Dr. Harry A.J. Rump MEd

    11-10-2017

    Rump, H.A.J. (2017). Opgeslagen beleving van trauma. Nijmegen: Jungiaans instituut.

    Click to access Opgeslagen-beleving-van-trauma1.pdf

    INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF ALEXITHYMIA AS A PREDICTOR OF CHILD POSTTRAUMTATIC STRESS OUTCOMES DURING COVID-19

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365438798_Intergenerational_Transmission_of_Alexithymia_as_a_Predictor_of_Child_Posttraumatic_Stress_Outcomes_During_COVID-19

    TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES OF NORMAL DEVELOPMENT: An Intersubjective, Object Relations Listening Perspective on Self, Attachment, Trauma, and Reality by Carl H. Shubs, Ph.D. (2020)

    https://www.routledge.com/Traumatic-Experiences-of-Normal-Development-An-Intersubjective-Object/Shubs/p/book/9780367429188

    Dear Karen,

    This may be for good use

    I can give you access to a Few Journals I’ve Collected

    I will send you a link to your mailbox

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    1. karenwoodall

      Thanks Bob, I will look out for it. K

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  2. Patty

    Hi Karen, the link to purchase this listening circle is not working.

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    1. karenwoodall

      I will check it and get it fixed Patty, thanks for letting me know. K

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  3. Dara Knerr

    Thank you for addressing root cause of the issue. When these roots are exposed and brought into the light – with inclusive care – and especially for the most wounded – I believe there is much greater potential for real healing for the entire family, most importantly for the children. I believe our Intention for family healing at this inclusive Trans- Generational level dynamically supports the children’s highest potential for healing and ENDING abuse cycles. At this level I believe this becomes a Collective issue. What does it take to move out of isolation, and the silent Fog surrounding ‘the secret’? Multiple people holding really safe space is very powerful. Sacred safe space – where no one is denigraded, and othering is not allowed and wounds are actively attended to, with great care. As much of the family, and surrounding community, as possible becomes Involved.

    How can the most wounded be invited into the needed healing process?
    How does it become safe to include ‘the secret’?

    How to safely generate collective seeing and participation? Storytelling? Someone else’s experience inspires the longing for health to move into possibility? ie “look at them, how messed up things were, and how real healing was finally generated, look what they did it wasn’t easy but look what they have now ” Just a thought.
    Thank you so much for your dedication and your writing.

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  4. Jessica Waters

    This blog is an absolute gamechanger. It is amazing to know that you and your colleagues at the FSC understand and care enough to offer so much support and information to help children in this state. It gives me hope and validation to read these posts. I am truly grateful for it and you.

    I am hoping that you have time for another HEALTHY MIRROR course in the very near future, as I think I just barely missed the last one. I have listened to your podcasts and take notes from each blog as you post them so that I may read them to my husband while he is driving.

    You are a wonderful writer, by the way: informative, articulate, compelling. I read a lot of books.

    Anyway, my question is this:

    When a parent with Borderline Personality Disorder (supposedly from parental alienation in their own childhood) severely alienates her children’s other parent– is that “transgenerational trauma”? Especially if one of the parents of the BPD parent were traumatized in the same way in their own childhood?

    I want to make sure I understand. Thanks!

    J. W. in USA

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    1. karenwoodall

      Hi JW, I am about to write a blog post for you and for Dara and everyone else who is interested in how this trauma replicates itself, it will be up on the blog tomorrow. I am so glad that what I write helps and is readable, I enjoy writing about this although it is a very difficult subject – writing helps me to process my thinking about it. Sending my best Karen

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  5. J. W. in USA

    I didn’t know the last comment would show my full name. We are in litigation right now, for child custody, and I’d hate for my husband’s ex to see it right now.

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    1. karenwoodall

      don’t worry, it doesn’t show your full details. K

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  6. Bob Rijs

    Psychoanalysis of the Psychoses

    Current Developments in Theory and Practice

    Edited by Riccardo Lombardi, Luigi Rinaldi and Sarantis Thanopulos

    (The International Psychoanalytical Association Psychoanalytic Ideas and Applications Series)

    According to Rosenfeld, psychoanalytic therapy passes through a narcissistic object relationship, that is, the connection with the object characterized by in differentiation and confusion, invested in an omnipotent manner. If the analyst wants access to the psychic world of the patient, the analytic relationship must deal with this state dominated by projective identification – which is mainly understood as a defense against an extreme anxiety of separation. The analytic task is hindered by the fact that the destructive narcissistic aspects are perceived as more attractive than libidinal ones because they strengthen the sense of omnipotence.

    The idealization of the ‘bad’ parts of the self entails an organized attack against the constructive aspects of the personality. This psychopathological organization denies feelings of dependence in relation to the separated object, primarily the analyst, and leads to significant emotional impoverishment. Rosenfeld’s interpretation of projective identification places the accent on primitive states of symbiosis with the mother where communication occurs through an osmotic modality, such that the patient’s anxiety states can transform themselves into bodily states of the analyst.

    The patient’s suffering can manifest itself also in the body of the analyst through sleepiness or somatic malaise, inhibiting the latter’s capacity for concentration and thought.

    Infantile psychotic withdrawal

    A further knowledge source of mine for the psychotic process is as supervisor of analytic therapies with severely ill children, my involvement an individual and group basis stretching over fifteen years. This constant contact with cases of severely ill children has further opened my mind with regard to adult psychotic patient treatment, given that the child analyst must always stay in touch with archaic and primitive functions of the mind; moreover, the psychopathological constructions leading to breakdowns, at times irreversible in adulthood, are already present in severely ill children. Our mind lives and develops if it draws food from human relationships, if it grows amid affects and emotions, and if it is nourished by values and ideals. Environmental circumstances or early emotional communication distortions within the family create a backward motion in the psychotic patient. Whereas the normal child progressively widens her horizons and knowledge, the child who is destined to become psychotic takes the reverse path: she closes herself off in a psychic withdrawal, in a world made up of gratifying sensory fantasies that detach her from real life.

    She uses the mind not so much to understand herself and her surrounding reality, but to produce pleasant perceptions and stimulations. Dissociation from psychic reality, or, in other words, the foundation for future delusion development, takes shape in the psychic withdrawal, which gets its start in childhood. Some children clearly manifest this, accurately describing their state of withdrawal into fantasy during their sessions.

    Melanie Klein’s enlightening words on this subject are as follows:

    Then there is the child who lives in phantasy, and we can see how in their play such children must shut out reality completely and can only maintain their phantasies by excluding it altogether. These children find any frustration very intolerable because it reminds them of reality; and they are quite unable to concentrate on any occupation connected with reality.
    (Klein, 1930, p. 253)

    Winnicott echoed this when he described a patient who, from the age of two, had drawn a clear line of separation between fantasies and relations with real objects. Winnicott portrayed her as a girl who, while playing other people’s games, was constantly engaged in fantasying. Her attraction to the world of fantasy had prevented her from becoming a whole person and drained her life of meaning: ‘Gradually she became one of the many who do not feel that they exist in their own right as whole human beings. [. . .] while she was at school and later at work, there was another life going on in terms of the part that was dissociated. [The main part of her] was living in what became an organized sequence of fantasying’
    (Winnicott, 1971, p. 29).

    Children who are predisposed to developing psychosis are often ignored by parents who do not distinguish between a normal attraction towards the world of games, and the construction of a fantasy world that is dissociated from reality. This mental state is often taken for their child’s calm, serene attitude. Profound distortion of psychic reality that takes shape in infantile withdrawal favours distance being created between these children and their peers (they often do not know how to play sharing games); it stops them learning from experience and from their relations with adults, and generates dependence on an omnipotent system made up of false constructions.

    During the analysis of adult psychotic patients, we can reconstruct the childhood withdrawal condition and understand how the child’s dissociation from reality was ignored or even involuntarily encouraged by the parents. Once the withdrawal forms, the illusory, omnipotent grandiosity the child gains from it keeps him there. He becomes unable to integrate into his school and peer community, and has trouble learning, because he now lives mostly in a world of dissociated fantasies.

    Pathological organizations

    Pathological organizations are defensive structures fuelled ultimately by the individual’s primitive aggression that deploy omnipotent thought purporting to prevent the ego from succumbing to anxieties (felt as dread) and from the notion that the individual will disintegrate and die. Their ‘instruction’ to the ego is to avoid any emotional pain associated with object need. They use emotional coercion, as though such pains are fatal.

    Change or growth is viewed as catastrophic, so thinking about internal and external reality becomes extremely difficult. Pathological organizations are not coterminous with superego activity: their presence involves invasiveness; neither guidance nor benign control of the ego is provided, but rather absolute tyranny over it on pain of death (Williams, 2010). This hold over the ego is maintained to the degree that the ego remains identified with the ideas, images and part-object representations used by the pathological organization.

    Pathological organizations are considered to arise in response to traumatically disrupted dependency states in childhood in order to provide a delusional belief in a state of psychic equilibrium, one that is inherently precarious as it is derived from dissociation from experiences of human need. Dictats from the organization supplant ego functioning in order to supply pathological forms of containment acting in loco parentis. Attempts by the ego of the individual to develop in healthy ways are viewed as portents of ruin – repetitions of the prior traumatic experiences – and are prevented at all cost.

    Dr Sam Vaknin – Why Sould I Heal Change

    https://youtu.be/cMFXUZpMya0?t=1923

    The degree of narcissistic disturbance in the individual has a crucial bearing, in my experience, on the intensity and function of the sadism employed by the pathological organization to restrict or immobilize the ego. The extent of the ego’s submission to a dominant, narcissistic, psychotic part-object affects the severity and outcome of pathological organization activity. If a patient is narcissistic and disconnected from normal dependency states and associated anxieties, and idealizes and identifies with a narcissistic part-object, pressure to identify with the pathological organization’s commands is greater, attacks on links to objects are more ruthlessly destroyed and the destruction of non-psychotic thinking is longer lasting.

    Control over the subject by the organization is maintained by threats of annihilation or else perverse seductions by the narcissistic part-object upon which the patient has become dependent (cf. Williams, 2004, 2010). The threats are premised on the need to avoid an even greater threat – repetition of traumatic loss of a needed object. Narcissistic patients in the grip of such a pathological organization may be experienced as cold, psychopathic or cynical and held in thrall. The pathological organization activity that controls such individuals occurs ‘outside’ normal parameters of paranoid-schizoid/depressive position thinking or normal lines of development. These patients experience psychotic anxieties and can exhibit paranoid thinking, but the pathological organization activity needs to be distinguished from paranoia in terms of its origin, although the two conditions can interact.

    Where the presence of severe narcissism is less evident, for example, in certain borderline or depressed patients, and the relationship between the subject and internal part-objects appears to be more openly conflicted (giving rise, for example, to more strident expressions of object hatred and sadomasochism) the role and function of sadism directed towards the ego may be seen to take on a more openly declamatory, seductive, mocking form of bullying and enticement, as opposed to the chilling threats of annihilation emanating from its more severely narcissistic version. The aim appears to be the same – to control the ego – but in more borderline and depressive conditions the ego can appear to be at the mercy of an attacking part-object figure whilst, tantalisingly, being permitted more latitude compared with the absoluteness of incorporative identification in severe narcissism. Patients located at or near the narcissistic end of the pathological spectrum find analytic treatment extremely difficult to bear, whereas patients located towards a declamatory, openly conflicted sadomasochism find analysis difficult to bear but can show greater tolerance of transference pressures and affect storms. Generalization isn’t advisable as the picture is mixed, sadism being apparent in both situations: what is described here reflects tendencies rather than strict classifications.

    The psychoanalyst and psychosis: The bull in a China shop

    Stefano Calamandrei

    Psychotic mental functioning

    Sassolas (2011) summarises the distinctive psychology of the psychotic mind, identifying how the massive intervention of the main defense mechanisms, setting aside individual differences, tend to flatten out the mental world, making everyone who is blocked by these defences seem alike and impoverished. The psychological characteristics, the defence mechanisms of this mind which appears “alien” to us, are characterised above all by an intense “denial” of the existence of their own internal world.

    These patients wish to wipe out all their mental contents, anything that is happening inside them, whether it is the event which has just occurred or, most often, its emotional and mental repercussions. The patients tend to defend themselves by not acknowledging the elements of their own feelings, and they are not aware that they deceive others and themselves. This does not mean they are telling a lie, simply that they are committed to denying that they have had any sensation. We can consider this mechanism as a form of control which has the purpose of avoiding any possible emotional perturbation, since this would not be bearable.

    Another intensely used mechanism is “projection” of their own psychological contents outside themselves, resulting in a more or less complete externalisation of their own feelings, a thorough expulsion of their mental life. This mechanism is not exactly a true projection of a certain emotional content nor a projective identification, but a substantial outward projection of their internal world: rather than try to acknowledge their own feelings, assuming they have been obliged to perceive them, they are compelled to attribute them to the external world. However, I do not believe we should think of this as a structured move by an Ego using such a mechanism in a capable and organised manner, but should rather bear in mind that it is the action of a mind not yet well integrated – in Winnicott’s sense, still dispersed into the environment – which is making use of this primitive mode to an extreme extent. As a consequence, the stimuli which may arouse emotions are rationalised and personified, as in paranoia, systematically organised so as to be controlled: but when this happens, another mode is also used at the same time, one which tries by means of a metaphor to give meaning, to comprehend what is happening.

    Another very important defensive mode is that of resorting to “acting out”, using actions by which an emotional perturbation can be avoided: in other words, instead of feeling a sensation, a psychotic performs an action, an act, a personified projection with which he tries to get rid of that “something” which might be experienced. When we are relating to such patients, it may happen that, stimulated by our presence, they behave in a way that has the sole purpose of regaining their distance from us, such as a fugue or a bizarre action. Sassolas maintains that the incomprehensibility of such behaviours or such thinking – that is to say, psychotic bizarreness – arises when the act of expulsion is added to denial. In this way, the conditions are created which cause the therapist to run into great difficulties of comprehension. It must be considered that, in relational situations, which are often of high emotional intensity for those who, like psychotics, are psychologically fragile, it is a common characteristic of these patients to be frightened by what is happening to them since they realise that they are not in control of such powerful defence mechanisms. Indeed, when these defensive modes are put into action, they function intensely and automatically, and create more emotional difficulties than they solve. The patient has the wholly reasonable sensation that she is not the protagonist of her own psychic life. When we are faced with such people, in our empathic listening and our transference rather than in our countertransference, they seem to be empty, impoverished, with no past, no history or identity, seeming instead to be much like one another. It would be easy to fall into the error of thinking that they really are empty, a sensation which causes us suffering.

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  7. Helene Troy

    So much harm you have caused with your ‘parental alienation’ nonsense. Everything abused by especially violent dads, to victim-blame the mother, who has been doing everything she can to protect the child from the dad’s abuse.
    But that’s exactly what the creator of this fake phenomenon, Richard Gardner, intended: give the dad’s a stick to hit the mother’s with.
    Reports filed by women on abuse against themselves and/or their child) are already rarely believed of taken seriously in this vile patriarchal world.
    You just like to throw oil on the fire, without taking responsibility for the abuse by the abusers.
    No, ‘parental alienation’ is not at all as common as you all like to make people believe. Domestic violence however is extremely common. And the prime reason why a parent can and should not see their child anymore.
    But well, the ‘parental alienation’ scheme surely makes a good business model, huh??

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    1. karenwoodall

      Nothing for you here Helene, I have let your comment through only because your nonsense deserves to be shown for what it is – just nonsense designed to prevent abusive mothers and fathers from being exposed- I won’t publish anymore, this is a safe place for mothers and fathers whose children have been manipulated against them.

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    2. Bob Rijs

      OMG another who thinks that everything and everyone should adapt to their inner conflicts, who thinks that they alone have the right to determine how things should go and at the same time hates that they are the subject of conversation, who thinks that who is not personally responsible for the influence it has on other people, someone who is disgusted by sensitivity, someone who finds any kind of affection or healthy attachment a problem because of the disgusting feeling that it experiences and detachment finds the appropriate solution, someone who cannot bear the authentic feelings and emotions of others, someone who is unable to place themselves in the position of a child that they experience, someone who considers everything and everyone as subservient and no longer has a function to serve as a slave must make the decision to fulfill all wishes without participation because in early childhood it has never been given the space to develop its own identity and depends on rigid survival mechanisms what the glue is what fragments the layer of negative self-image must hold together and forms the backbone of the character because when that falls away the entire personality structure collapses which manifests itself as a nuclear meltdown, someone posing as a woman by mimicking the qualities and traits of an authentic person to stay under the radar , because he is afraid that everyone will get to know the true nature of the beast, because that is what you have shown here, disgusting figure that you are.

      Klaus Schwab has a crush on these figures because first he exploits them completely on their shortcomings and then they become the target of his campaign because we are too many people and people with neurotological deformities from early childhood are first put on a pedestal to kick it off completely and then there will be no one to catch them because the compartmentalization process has already started and that’s beginning if you look back in the history of his country, smartass!

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  8. Bob Rijs

    When authentic feelings and emotions are not tolerated (attachment, desires, needs, feelings; fear; sadness; anger; irritation; frustration; joy; pleasure, etc.) a partner and/or child is punished for showing authentic feelings and emotions.

    What few people think about:

    When a child tells enthusiastically how much fun he had and is punished for it, this is a conditioning process.

    Only what the brain experiences, because first dopamine is produced, but at those moments when a child shows joy, it is punished and adrenaline and cortisol are produced.

    So in each of those kinds of experiences, dopamine and then adrenaline & cortisol, dopamine and then adrenaline & cortisol, dopamine and then adrenaline & cortisol, dopamine and then adrenaline & cortisol, dopamine and then adrenaline & cortisol, etc.

    So when a child produces dopamine, a fearful feeling comes at the same time, which predominates at that moment, even if the parent is not present!

    The brain is programmed with the result that a child and/or parent is afraid to have fun, express joy, or be happy!

    Even this (Level 7: High adaptive defenses) partner/parent if they just let these situations happen to them will dissociate over time until that dissociation becomes structural.

    Level 7: High adaptive defenses
    High adaptive defenses are the individual’s most adaptive ways of handling stressors and are often considered synonymous with positive coping. Internal or external stressors are fully perceived without distortion and the need to adapt to them is fully appropriated to oneself. The individual attempts to maximize the positive expression and gratification of his or her own motives, acknowledging limitations of the self and recurring to external sources of help when available.

    Citation:
    Di Giuseppe M and Perry JC (2021) The Hierarchy of Defense Mechanisms: Assessing Defensive Functioning With the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales Q-Sort.
    Front. Psychol. 12:718440. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.718440

    Aversion to happiness

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aversion_to_happiness

    Fear of happiness among college students: The role of gender, childhood psychological trauma, and dissociation

    https://journals.lww.com/indianjpsychiatry/_layouts/15/oaks.journals/downloadpdf.aspx?an=01363795-201961040-00011

    Alexithymia, negative moods, and fears of positive emotions
    Michael Lyvers • Natasha Ryan • Fred Arne Thorberg

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357859792_Alexithymia_negative_moods_and_fears_of_positive_emotions

    Fear and fragility of happiness as mediators of the relationship between insecure attachment and subjective well-being

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321085604_Fear_and_fragility_of_happiness_as_mediators_of_the_relationship_between_insecure_attachment_and_subjective_well-being

    Fears of compassion and happiness in relation to alexithymia, mindfulness, and self-criticism

    Click to access Alexithymia-paper.x.pdf

    Fears of happiness and compassion in relationship with depression, alexithymia, and attachment security in a depressed sample

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24283291/

    Fears of Negative Emotions in Relation to Fears of Happiness, Compassion, Alexithymia and Psychopathology in a Depressed Population: A Preliminary Study

    Click to access fears-of-negative-emotions-in-relation-to-fears-of-happiness-compassion-alexithymia-and-psychopathology-in-a-depressed-population-a-preliminary-study-2167-1044-S2-004.pdf

    Dear Karen,

    I have some papers that may come for good use

    I will send you a link to your mailbox

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