U.R.G.E.S. Urge Reduction By Growing Ego Strength: Trauma Resolution, Urge and Symptom Reduction Therapy

By Jennifer Barbieri

This book teaches Jennifer Barbieri's system for trauma resolution, urge and symptom reduction therapy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543909463

Book preview

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CHAPTER ONE

URGES Lingo

THE WORD LINGO means a particular vocabulary or jargon of a particular subject or group of people. URGES Lingo is a language that allows the therapist to communicate with a client’s brain or mind during URGES using images that represent different areas of the brain.

THE BRAIN IS AN ARTIST, an actor, a historian. It can call up past information and images or create brand new ones using the mind as a canvas and all the senses for paints. If you sit down and talk to the brain, it can tell you all you want to know about your client.

THE BRAIN CANNOT REALLY TALK (except in the Steve Martin movie, The Man with Two Brains) but the mind can. The words brain and mind are often used interchangeably but really the brain is a physical mass and the mind is the electricity and energy that inhabit the physical brain mass. Thoughts, emotions and the imagination are mind functions; however, without the physical brain, the mind does not exist (not to my knowledge, anyway).

IN URGES LINGO, THE MIND COMMUNICATES information by placing images on the client’s mind-canvas (we can imagine it that way if we like). The client then describes these images to the therapist. By deciphering and interpreting these images, the therapist can determine the client’s readiness for trauma work and help the client process traumatic information in a safe and timely manner.

WHY ASK THE BRAIN? WHY NOT JUST ASK YOUR CLIENT? Don’t rely on your clients to tell you why they are not functioning very well. Sometimes they know, but often they don’t. Their symptoms will seem confusing, sometimes with sudden onset. The brain knows why your client is not functioning optimally, but the information may be inaccessible to your client. They just don’t know why they have symptoms and if they do know, their insight may be limited or the information may be vague. That’s why they are coming to therapy, to resolve their symptoms. You can get collateral information from the brain, where the real expert on the client’s psychosocial history lives.

YOU CAN STRIKE UP A CONVERSATION WITH THE MIND and discuss what happened to your client to cause his or her symptoms. The brain has access to all the information and can use the mind to tell you the story. The brain knows because it was there when the original event occurred. The brain helped the person adapt to the situation. It incorporated the traumatic information into the person’s life. It isolated the information in attempting to protect the person’s mental and emotional health. It stored the information in ways that made sense (at least at the time).

URGES LINGO CAN BE USED to track the client’s progress. You will be amazed at how this technique works. Like taking the client’s psychological temperature, you will be able to see visually when your client is getting better much like, when you were sick, your momma could see your temperature drop on that old stick thermometer when your fever broke.

CLIENTS NATURALLY FILTER, GUARD OR DEFEND information, especially traumatic information. URGES Lingo allows the therapist to take a little peek behind the client’s defensive curtains.

WE COMMUNICATE BACK AND FORTH WITH OUR BRAINS continually. When you see a stick lying in the yard you may jump back as the brain says, Snake! This happens before you have a chance to consciously think about what the object is, a stick or a snake. Only after a few seconds do you answer your brain with, Nah, that’s only a twig!

COMMUNICATING DIRECTLY WITH THE BRAIN is like going to the headwaters of a river, to the source. Small streams trickling and converging together make up roaring rivers that lead to oceans. Your clients may be bobbing far out to sea, dog paddling to keep afloat. Their points of view may be turbulent or murky or distorted by time and distance. A lot of original information has been lost in tide pools or sunk to sandy bottoms. Your clients are struggling in their aquatic turmoil, miles down from the headwaters (original experiences) trying to stay afloat. URGES can take your clients upstream to the origins of their symptoms, to their trauma, where their adaptations began.

SIMILARITIES BEGAN TO EMERGE as I worked with more and more clients in the early days of developing the therapeutic process that would become URGES. Universal patterns developed across gender, race, ethnic backgrounds and trauma histories. Over time, I knew my client’s psychological temperature when his or her mind offered an image of a monster, a baby or a version of him or herself wearing old ragged clothes and in great need of a bath.

I CATEGORIZED THE REPEATED IMAGES. Despite all the millions and gazillions of different images hundreds of minds could make up, the images simply didn’t vary greatly. I could count on my fingers and toes the images my clients reported. I became an imagination detective and sorted out which clients reported particular images. Low self-esteem clients imagined one thing. Narcissistic clients imagined another thing. Some clients showed direct images taken from their trauma and some clients’ minds got fancy and projected abstract images that represented emotions or beliefs.

I BEGAN TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE REPETITIVE NATURE OF MY CLIENT’S IMAGES HAD TO MEAN SOMETHING. There was some common denominator at work, some principle that followed some law. I was in my kitchen doing dishes when I got it. The images could only be representations of some brain or mind function! I skipped around the kitchen and did a little dance with the dishtowel. That had to be it! I had no way to prove my theory. I had no access to Magnetic Resonance Imaging or Computed Tomography. I just had my theory, but it was enough. If primitive peoples could figure out when to plant corn based on the moon signs, I figured I could do trauma work based on the mind signs. I began to view my clients’ images as individual numbers or letters of an alphabet. My speculations expanded. I deciphered the code. I could talk to the brain.

I LEARNED WHAT PART OF THE BRAIN WAS COMMUNICATING. I began to recognize when I was speaking to the frontal lobes (rational, logical, reasonable voice or image). I knew when I was talking to the limbic system (freaked out, scary voice or image). I recognized the temporal and parietal lobes (calm, peaceful voice or image). I could communicate with traumatic memory storage, (danger, tread carefully). I made creative ways to contain traumatic memory while I did trauma work with my clients. This virtually eliminated emotional flooding or abreaction.

BRAIN FORMULAS TOOK SHAPE. Image A plus image B equals result C. This plus this is greater than that. If I combine this image and that image, this will happen. Though I’m no mathematician, the formulas were so basic I could understand the math and do the calculations. By using this emerging communication system and the formulas, I was able to guide clients into brain exercises that helped their brains behave.

SO, LET’S GET MORE SPECIFIC. When a client gives me feedback after his guided imagery session and describes images he had during the experience, many of the images look like people and some of these people look like him. The client will describe himself at different ages, during different life events or as abstract interpretations of how he thinks or feels. The people-images that are different ages of the client are his URGES Ego States. There are also images that do not look like your client and they can be URGES Ego States as well. You will learn how to identify different types of URGES Ego States.

FOR EXAMPLE, DURING GUIDED IMAGERY, I ask the client to imagine himself as an adult. What the client imagines (and describes after the session) tells me about his frontal lobe functioning. I am basically asking the client, How’s your frontal lobe working? And the image projected onto the client’s mind-canvas lets me know if the client operates from an adult perspective and if he has sufficient ego strength to do URGES Trauma Resolution. If the client views himself as his current age (or at least as an adult), I know he has adequate frontal lobe functioning for the URGES work I want to take him through. If, on the other hand, the client imagines himself as a child or teenager, or is not able to imagine himself as an adult, I know his frontal lobe area is not ready for URGES Trauma Resolution work. Now, let’s throw in an image or two, just for practice (Fig. 1.1 and Fig. 1.2 on next page). Although the images I use in this book are cartoonish, most images experienced by the client are usually (not always) more realistic.

[FIGURE 1.1] This client tried to imagine herself as an Actual Adult but visualizes herself much younger, indicating the need to strengthen the frontal lobe brain area.

[FIGURE 1.2] This male Actual Adult Ego State is confident, happy, secure and the same age as the client, showing strong frontal lobe activity.

IMAGINARY ROLE PLAYS using the URGES Ego States is a large part of the URGES process. This technique provides safe and predictable trauma resolution work. As with any play, whether it is Cats, Hamilton or URGES, the script and the ending for every performance are the same, even if individual actors throw in a few original lines from time to time. Certainly each client has unique trauma and unique symptoms. URGES Therapy provides a standard structure to take each client down the most direct and comfortable path to feeling better. You, as the URGES therapist, will direct your clients in their plays.

I LEARNED TO DIRECT CLIENTS’ EGO STATES (which correspond to different brain parts) to help change the way my clients’ brains worked. Yes. You can do that. You, as an URGES therapist, will help retrain a brain that was taught to be dysfunctional. You are the director of your client’s play. Let’s call the play, Getting Better!

•  •  •

My editor and publisher shared a story with me. The grandchildren were listening as their grandfather Robert played the URGES Guided Imagery recording, making some final quality checks. About half way through, one of the little ones piped up excitedly, I want to be the Actual Adult! URGES is very user friendly!

CHAPTER TWO

URGES Lingo and

Pictures to Match

I will now teach you some of the words in the URGES vocabulary and introduce you to some of the visual images you will discover as you practice URGES Therapy with your clients. This will be a brief introduction. You will become ever more familiar with these terms in later chapters.

URGES LINGO CONSISTS OF TERMS I created specifically for use in URGES Therapy. The term ego state is not specific to URGES Lingo and we might loosely define ego states as little people who live inside us, stuck in time due to life experience. However, the ego state characters I use in URGES Therapy have specific names and those names are specific to URGES Lingo. For clarity, words and terms specific to URGES are capitalized throughout this book. We will now jump ahead a bit so that I can introduce you to some URGES Lingo and get you used to looking at the pictures. URGES Therapy is very much about pictures. This list is not comprehensive. We will add more URGES Lingo as we progress.

Terms begin on next page.

ACTION: The point in URGES Therapy when a client gets the opportunity to imagine handling an old situation in a new way (Fig. 2.1). The Action phase involves the client’s symptom or urge. For instance, a food addict may begin URGES Trauma Resolution by imagining a donut and describing her urge to eat the donut. During the Action phase, the client may reject the donut.

[FIGURE 2.1] During the Action step of URGES Trauma Resolution, a client with an eating disorder may imagine rejecting the donut with sprinkles as opposed to eating it.

ACTUAL ADULT EGO STATE: The client at her current age, functioning in an age-appropriate manner (Fig. 2.2). She is in the present time frame or at a time when she was functioning well. The Actual Adult Ego State may also be imagined as how the client wants to be when she has overcome her symptoms.

[FIGURE 2.2] A female client who thinks of herself as an adult may report this Actual Adult Ego State during URGES Therapy.

AGE APPROPRIATE EGO STATE: The term to describe a client’s most functional, Age-Appropriate Ego State when he or she is not yet an adult (Fig. 2.3). I have used URGES Therapy with a few young people and one or two children. A child of 10 cannot have an Actual Adult Ego State. He has an Age Appropriate Ego State to represent himself at his most functional.

[FIGURE 2.3] An URGES Age Appropriate Ego State is shown here. Since this person is not yet an adult, he does not have an Actual Adult Ego State.

BUBBLE OF LIGHT: A visualized containment to store Rescued URGES Ego States during Trauma Resolution work (Fig. 2.4).

[FIGURE 2.4] The URGES Bubble of Light is used for containing Rescued Ego States, which reduces the likelihood of old emotions erupting during URGES Therapy.

CONFRONTATION: The step in the URGES Process when a client confronts people and situations from the past to process thoughts and emotions (Fig. 2.5).

[FIGURE 2.5] In this URGES Confrontation, a step that takes place during URGES Trauma Resolution, a man confronts his parents for past abuse.

DOUBLE EGO SPLIT: The moment of traumatic dissociation (Fig. 2.6). The consciousness may be projected from the body during trauma in the survival defense called dissociation. Even if the consciousness leaves (defensively splits away from or dissociates from the experiences of) the body, the physical body stays present during the trauma. This separation between awareness and physicality forms two distinct ego states. The dissociated consciousness becomes the Symptom Self Ego State and the physical experience becomes the Trauma Arrested Ego State. After trauma, the Symptom Self Ego State lives in the limbic system, the fight-or-flight brain area. The Trauma Arrested Ego State is stored inside the body.

[FIGURE 2.6] In the URGES Double Ego Split, traumatic dissociation produces the Symptom Self Ego State, which projects out of the body, and the Trauma Arrested Ego State, which becomes trapped inside the body in a Trauma Pocket.

FLASHLIGHT: An imaginary flashlight the client carries with her during URGES Guided Imagery to help her see more clearly (Fig. 2.7). The Flashlight helps clients overcome obstacles or move through time and space. The Flashlight has various lenses that can be helpful during trauma resolution work. For instance, the History Lens helps the client move backwards to an earlier time in her life. The Situation Lens can help her see through particular obstructions, such as fog, a color or a condition like confusion.

[FIGURE 2.7] The URGES Flashlight and Lenses are used during URGES Trauma Resolution to help clients see more clearly.

FREEZE! The command given to arrest arousal that occurs as the client describes his symptoms in detail during URGES Trauma Processing (Fig. 2.8). This step allows the client to identify the place in his body where he stores a traumatic memory.

[FIGURE 2.8] As the client imagines and describes the urge to eat a hamburger, his arousal increases. The FREEZE! command allows the Urges therapist to arrest arousal.

GAZE, THE URGES: An attachment technique used in URGES Therapy. The client imagines gazing into his or her own eyes at a younger age (Fig. 2.9).

[FIGURE 2.9] In the URGES Gaze, the Actual Adult Ego State gazes into the eyes of her younger Rescued Ego State to foster self-attachment.

GO NANO: A term used during URGES Therapy to help the client visualize shrinking down and going inside her own body (Fig. 2.10).

[FIGURE 2.10] In the URGES Go Nano technique, a client imagines shrinking down and entering the Trauma Pocket inside her own body.

PACIFIC EGO STATE: A recollection of a time period that was happy, or at least not disturbing or traumatic (Fig. 2.11). The client will recognize this image as me and it can be from any time period or age from the client’s life. This image will have happy or neutral associations for the client and represents happy or non-traumatic memories.

[FIGURE 2.11] The URGES Pacific Ego State represents a happy or neutral memory.

RELAXING PLACE, THE: An imaginary scene the client develops during the URGES Guided Imagery session (Fig. 2.12). This visualization helps the client engage the relaxation response, a condition in which the body moves from being physiologically aroused (increased heart rate and blood pressure, decreased blood flow to the extremities, increased hormones like adrenalin) to a state of physiological relaxation in which heart rate, blood pressure, etc., return to normal.

[FIGURE 2.12] One client’s Relaxing Place might be floating on a cloud, as shown here, while another might imagine a beach, a meadow, etc.

RESCUED EGO STATE: The Rescued Ego State is the ego state that is removed from the Trauma Pocket and taken to the Relaxing Place by the Actual Adult (Fig. 2.13). While this ego state is inside the Trauma Pocket, it is a Trauma Arrested Ego State. Once that ego state is removed from the Trauma Pocket and placed in the Relaxing Place, it becomes a Rescued Ego State.

[FIGURE 2.13] The Trauma Arrested Ego State becomes the Rescued Ego State as soon as the Actual Adult moves it into the Relaxing Place during Trauma Resolution.

SPIRITUAL PRESENCE EGO STATE: An internal feeling or state of peace and calm. The client may report visualizing a religious figure, a dead relative, a tree, a light—anyone or anything that evokes a safe, peaceful feeling for the client (Fig. 2.14). This image represents parietal and temporal lobe areas of the brain.

[FIGURE 2.14] The Spiritual Presence Ego State represents the temporal and parietal brain areas and can look like anyone or anything, from a favorite relative to a candle.

SYMPTOM SELF EGO STATE: How the client thinks or feels about himself as a result of trauma (Fig. 2.15 on next page). The URGES Symptom Self Ego State is an image of how the client adapted after the trauma, the defenses or coping skills developed because of the trauma. It represents the limbic system in the brain, the body’s survival and defense command center. Clients report a wide range of images for this figure and it can look like the client at any age. The Symptom Self Ego State frequently looks like the client experiencing his symptoms but it can also look like an object, a place, a cartoon character, a color, a shape, etc.

[FIGURE 2.15] The Symptom Self Ego State on the left is raging and the one on the right looks like a devil. Each shows something about the client’s limbic system and how that client adapted after trauma.

TRAUMA ARRESTED EGO STATE: An URGES Ego State built around recollection of a time period that involved traumatic events (Fig. 2.16). It represents unprocessed memories of traumatic experiences. The client will report a self-image that can be any age, from nearly current age to very young— child, infant or teenager. The client will often have negative feelings or associations with this image. The figure can look traumatized or unaffected.

[FIGURE 2.16] The Trauma Arrested Ego State will not always have obvious signs of trauma as shown here, but the image shows an age when a