Summary of Janina Fisher's Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The child of abuse, in order to survive, must disconnect from what is happening and doubt or disown the bad child to whom it happened as not being them. They must continue to rely on dissociation, denial, and self-hatred for enforcing the disconnection.

#2 When therapists rely on the talking cure to address the strong emotional reactivity of traumatized clients, they inadvertently validate the events experienced by the disowned not me child while simultaneously triggering the trauma-related parts and their implicit memories.

#3 The field of trauma treatment has long believed that the effects of the traumatic past should be addressed, not the events themselves. It took a lot of research to realize that child abuse is an epidemic, not a rare occurrence, and that untreated post-traumatic stress results in tremendous social costs.

#4 The concepts of dissociation and splitting have been observed as complications of trauma, but they have been consistently rejected as not valid or believable within the prevailing diagnostic systems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822510685

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Insights on Janina Fisher's Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The child of abuse, in order to survive, must disconnect from what is happening and doubt or disown the bad child to whom it happened as not being them. They must continue to rely on dissociation, denial, and self-hatred for enforcing the disconnection.

#2

When therapists rely on the talking cure to address the strong emotional reactivity of traumatized clients, they inadvertently validate the events experienced by the disowned not me child while simultaneously triggering the trauma-related parts and their implicit memories.

#3

The field of trauma treatment has long believed that the effects of the traumatic past should be addressed, not the events themselves. It took a lot of research to realize that child abuse is an epidemic, not a rare occurrence, and that untreated post-traumatic stress results in tremendous social costs.

#4

The concepts of dissociation and splitting have been observed as complications of trauma, but they have been consistently rejected as not valid or believable within the prevailing diagnostic systems.

#5

The brain’s innate fault lines are the result of its different regions and differentiated structures. The right brain is dominant for most of childhood, and the corpus callosum, which makes right brain-left brain communication possible, develops slowly over the course of the first eighteen years of life.

#6

The split-brain research of the 1970s demonstrated the degree to which left and right hemispheres of the brain operate independently and quite differently. The right hemisphere does not forget nonverbal aspects of experience, and it does not interpret them.

#7

Van der Hart, Nijenhuis, and Steele explain that children raised in unsafe environments must adapt using a system of selves rather than becoming a fully integrated self.

#8

The term part of the personality is a very controversial one in the mental health world, but it has certain advantages. It is a word that is commonly used to describe normal ambivalence or inner conflicts, and it is easily adopted by clients.

#9

The parts of the personality that are driven by animal defense responses are the emotional parts of the personality. The parts in this view are not repositories of memory, but rather they were a means of surviving the worst of the worst, and they remain poised for the next threat or trauma-related trigger for decades after it is over.

#10

While the going on with normal life part tries to carry on, other parts serving the animal defense functions of fight, flight, freeze, submit, and cling for survival continue to be activated by trauma-related stimuli, resulting in hypervigilance and mistrust, overwhelming emotions, incapacitating depression or anxiety, self-destructive behavior, and fear or hopelessness about the future.

#11

The trauma responses and implicit memories of the animal defense system can flood clients, and they may come for treatment after being hijacked by the trauma. However, certain symptoms can alert us to the presence of underlying structural dissociation.

#12

The client functions well at work when stimulated by positive triggers, but regress at home or in personal relationships because of the trauma triggers associated with those environments. Splitting often manifests in paradoxical behavior: the client fears triggers, but lacks appropriate fears for real threats.

#13

There are many symptoms that can be signs of trauma-related or dissociative activity. These include unusual pain sensitivity, stress-related headaches, eye blinking or drooping, narcoleptic symptoms, and