I’ve been knee-deep, healing my next layer of trauma, which is a deep one, and studying various sources of information. These are my favourite resources currently for healing trauma.

Neuroaffective touch

Aline LaPierre is a wonderful woman who understands trauma from a natal, infancy, and child level. Her demeanour is one of the most grounded I’ve come across. Her energy is authentic and of integrity. For someone like myself who has serious relational issues from abuse, listening to someone like this restores your nervous system to one of safety, trust, and being seen.

From her website:

NeuroAffective Touch^® is a professional somatic training that introduces psychotherapists and bodyworkers to the use of touch as a vital bridge to body-mind integration. By highlighting the primary role of the body and emphasizing its equal importance to the mind, NeuroAffective Touch^® (NATouch™) addresses emotional, relational, and developmental deficits that cannot be reached by verbal means alone.
A polyvagal-informed psychobiological approach, NeuroAffective Touch^® integrates the key elements of somatic psychotherapy, attachment and developmental theory, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and affective and interpersonal neurobiology.

https://neuroaffectivetouch.com/

Our skin is our biggest organ, and touch is our most significant sensory device. Children rely on it as a communicator, trust, and protection from their caregivers. Being “touch-starved” is an actual condition that leads to many diseases and even death.

But touch can be dangerous if it is from someone who harms us. It becomes a complex trauma that is hard to unwind. I find using Neuroaffective Touch strategies on myself helpful for bridging the gap between needing touch and fearing other people. I also incorporate Mother Nature and my pets into my practice. Mother Nature has become the safe mother I never had.

Aline has courses on Embodied Philosophy about Neuroaffective Touch. Check them out here:

Constitutional Homeopathy

This medicine is complex, which is why I believe it works with complex trauma. Homeopathy is the resource that shifts my blocks into transformation when everything else isn’t working, and I need something at a deep, energetic level to speak to my body. Finding the right remedy takes trial and error, but great changes occur when you do. The key is finding an experienced homeopath who understands the complexities of trauma.

What is constitutional homeopathy?

This practice involves in depth work with a classical homeopath to determine overall deficiencies and excess qualities in a persons mental, emotional, physical, and energetic state. Constitutional homeopathy works with minimal dosing and intensity to produce a stimulation of the life force to treat the distress in the individual.

Unlike allopathic treatment where symptoms are looked at in singular and multiple doses are used in broad prescriptions for everyone, constitutional homeopathy looks at the entire individual and makes minimal prescriptions based on their energetic capacity to make a change. Less is more, change is optimized rather than feared, and success is determined by individual needs rather than generalized ideals.

I have found constitutional homeopathy to be helpful when other tools are not working. It works at our base level, energy and frequencies that make us, and shifts blockages that otherwise are resistant to change. The quality of the therapist and the right remedy are essential for effectiveness.

I will be honest and say that this is not easy work. It will bring up aggravations and traumas you have suppressed but with the right dosing and therapist, these can be managed well.

I am listing it here for those that are looking for something new to try. This facebook group discusses it in detail and has qualified practitioners.

Homeopathy is for Everybody

After multiple rounds, my homeopath found the proper remedy for me. The results have been great. I can step aside from my flare-ups and see them as the energy forced upon me that is not mine instead of identifying with it. These flare-ups are internalized abuse from my perpetrators.

As you may know, when life is well, you can see your trauma logically as a burden placed on you rather than it being you. But when triggers occur, it is easy to get lost in them and identify yourself as your trigger. This has been a significant roadblock in my healing journey. My current remedy is helping me step out of that and into my true self, which is now allowing me to work with my abusive parts more effectively than before.

Check out the Facebook group to learn more about constitutional homeopathy.

nicabm – Dissociation

I am taking a course from The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioural Medicine on identifying and treating dissociation.

I have structural dissociation and possibly dissociative identity disorder from repeated abuse as a child and in adult partnerships. Chronic abuse fragments the psyche into multiple parts, and even those parts can fragment more to protect the nervous system.

Dissociation is our mind’s way of removing us from harm when we cannot physically remove ourselves from it. Restoring wholeness requires integrating the fragmented parts and trusting ourselves to be in our body and present environment again.

This course is excellent at breaking down dissociation. My recommendation while watching this is to remind yourself that you are not the problem. Sometimes, trauma therapy gets into victim blaming because they focus so much on the problem you are having and forget to mention that you don’t have relational problems; you are reacting normally to people who are not safe. Keep this in mind when you hear them talk about problem behaviours. The course is still great at teaching what to look for and how to gently approach it to undo it.

The theory of Structural Dissociation works off of the assumption that no one is born with an integrated personality.

Instead, infants operate based off of a loose collection of different ego states that handle their different needs- feeding, attachment to a caregiver, exploring the world around them. Over time, these ego states naturally integrate into one coherent and cohesive personality, usually by the ages of 6 or 9.

However, childhood trauma disrupts this process. Different ego states are left unable to merge with each other due to conflicting needs, traumatic memories, or learned action paths or responses to trauma. One coherent sense of self cannot form when the primary caregivers of the child are inconsistent, loving one moment and abusive the next, preventing healthy attachment from occurring and instead facilitating disorganized attachment

Structural Dissociation

My dissociation is lessening because of three new patterns in my life:

• These resources I’m sharing in this blog
• Time apart from my abuser
• Time spent in a childhood location I was happy to be in

Dissociation leaves when it feels safe and secure enough to leave. It does not need to be forced to go. It is a protection pattern that will decrease as your stable self returns. It occurs in layers with time and patience. I must say the feeling is incredible. I can hear the calm hum of my life force and the clear mind instead of the constant war and turmoil. It’s not ideal yet but a new path has been created.

Here is the link to the course:

Check out my resources

My personal support program, my book, my worksheets

My Support Group