Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Self-Alienation

This course is approved for 6 hours of continuing education by the Order of Psychologists of Quebec, the Canadian Psychological Association and the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association. 

Alienation from self in the context of abusive or dysfunctional parenting is a survival strategy that maintains children’s attachment to caregivers by disowning themselves as “bad” or “unlovable.”   It is a survival ability only possible because of the innate hypnotic ability of young children to create imaginary worlds and companions in a frightening environment.   The result, however, is a deeply painful failure of self-acceptance maintained by lifelong shame and self-loathing, difficulty self-soothing, and complications in relationships with others. Without internal compassion or a sense of worth, it is difficult to take in the compassion and acceptance of others and impossible to tolerate rejection or criticism. To overcome this alienation from self, the psychotherapy must focus on cultivating clients’ ability to observe painful emotions as communications from their disowned selves and then to provide the ‘missing experiences’ for which their child parts have longed.  When clients connect to their trauma-related, structurally dissociated younger selves and bring them “home,” they spontaneously feel an internal sense of warmth and safety that transforms the implicitly remembered experience of fear and threat.  In this workshop, using strategies inspired by clinical hypnosis, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, and Internal Family Systems, we will explore the therapeutic power of fostering internal states of warm, compassionate attachment to even our most deeply disowned selves.

Objectives

Describe the relationship between early attachment or trauma and alienation from self

Recognize signs of disowned parts and their internal conflicts

Identify parts that sabotage self-compassion or self-acceptance

Describe interventions that create an increased somatic sense of connection or attachment to the body

Capitalize on interpersonal neurobiology to increase the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions

Foster ‘earned secure attachment’ as the outcome of attachment bonding between adult and child selves

About the speaker -  Dr. Janina Fisher

Dr. Janina Fisher, PhD is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Instructor at the Trauma Center, an outpatient clinic and research center founded by Bessel van der Kolk. Known for her expertise as both a therapist and consultant, she is also past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, an EMDR International Association Credit Provider, a faculty member of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former Instructor, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fisher has been an invited speaker at the Cape Cod Institute, Harvard Medical School Conference Series, the EMDR International Association Annual Conference, University of Wisconsin, University of Westminster in London, the Psychotraumatology Institute of Europe, and the Esalen Institute. Dr. Fisher lectures and teaches nationally and internationally on topics related to the integration of research and treatment and how to introduce these newer trauma treatment paradigms in traditional therapeutic approaches.

Objectives

Describe the relationship between early attachment trauma and alienation from self and recognize clinical signs of self-alienation

Teach clients to mindfully notice their distressing emotions and impulses as communications from child ego states

Describe hypnotic and somatic interventions that create an increased somatic sense of connection or attachment to one’s self

Foster ‘earned secure attachment’ as the outcome of attachment bonding between adult and child selves

About this workshop

This workshop was given live, online in February 2021.  The content provided here is a recording of that workshop, offered as a series of brief videos.