What is Operation Helmet?

Founded in 2003 by Dr. Robert H. Meaders whose grandson is an active duty Marine in Iraq, Operation Helmet is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing safer helmet pad upgrade kits to the troops in Iraq & Afghanistan. To date, more than 6,000 kits have been shipped to the troops in the field.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kathleen

Neglect Trauma
by Linda Marks

The culture we live in is full of extreme contradictions & paradoxes. While there are more & more possibilities for gaining access to information & resources all over the world, we're growing more & more isolated from each other physically & emotionally.

"Connection" has become what your modem can offer thru the world of the internet & e-mail. Relating face to face is becoming more archaic as busy people just don't have time to be together regularly or frequently. The tasks of daily life - doing - have taken precedence over being in most of our lives.

While some of us are lonely & depression has become a more familiar topic in the mainstream media, it's sometimes scary how well we have learned to "do it alone" in life. The modern lifestyle seems to be inculturating loss or at least delegation of primary relationships away from their biological or familial roots from the beginning to the end of life.

A dad of a 3 year old I met this morning at Drumlin Farm made a chilling comment to me. "What has our world come to," he asked, "when the two tasks we used to take most for granted as the main purpose & function of the family - childcare & eldercare - have been taken over by industry so fully that both childcare & eldercare industries are burgeoning?"

He knew the chilling feeling well. His 3 year old had been in daycare from her earliest days & his newborn daughter, just 2 weeks old, has another month before daycare will be her 5 day a week destination.

While perhaps we have more structures & options to provide for our material needs, our emotional, spiritual & relational needs have become secondary. Trauma, isolation, numbness & despair have become commonplace in modern life. Somewhere along the way human beings as a species have lost touch with both the needs & the importance of the soul.

"The Guided Self Healing" work influenced by Judith Swack & developed by Andy Hahn & Terrence Real's insightful book, I Don't Want To Talk About It, offer powerful windows into the root cause of our common experience of trauma, isolation, numbness & despair.

The Nature of Trauma

The body does not distinguish between psychological & physical trauma. Ramsay Coolidge, a Guided Self-Healing practitioner & teacher notes,

"Both become an energetic wound that sets a template that then becomes the basis of responding to future experiences, even after the original event is forgotten."

Trauma is a layered energetic pattern consisting of emotions - shock/fear, anger/rage, sadness, hurt/pain; mental beliefs - who is at fault, trust, power & powerlessness, safety & responsibility & physical experience - boundary violations & pain.

"Birth trauma reveals to us the newborn is far more than a conscious mind & body. The newborn makes crucial decisions & chooses values to live from for its life. The infant is open to all of life & accepts all experiences as a way of organizing beliefs & values about how the world works."

Ramsay told a story of a client she worked with whose dad didn't attend her birth. To compound this, the doctor who attended her birth was late for some event he wanted to get to, so as soon as she was born, he took off.

As an infant, she took in & imprinted that experience as part of her multi-level beliefs about life. Her experience formed the belief, "Men don't want to be around me & don't show up for me." Deeply held beliefs like this color our experience in life. It's no surprise that this woman had difficulty in relationships with men.

"The choice point only lasts a moment," Ramsay explains, "but freezes there & forms the underlying beliefs about how the world works.

You're like a deer in front of headlights, caught & frozen in time. Imagine jamming the reception on a radio & the annoying static that follows. From this traumatized place, reception of the subtle messages of your deep intuitive knowing is dose to impossible."

Scientist & clinician Judith Swack has noted the experience of "neglect trauma." While most traumas have recognized events, neglect trauma is the result of a non-event event.

Neglect trauma typically occurs during infancy, from conception to 18 to 22 month of age. It occurs when the infant or baby is totally dependent on the caretakers for food, shelter, love, nurturance & safety.

i.e., Ramsay cites ideas from standard pediatric practice during the 1900's thru the 1940's to let a child cry it out so they wouldn't be spoiled.

It was also advised to adhere to a regular feeding schedule not determined by the child. These practices neglected the baby's real needs. "Finally in 1946, Dr. Spock reversed the pediatrician -recommended trends that neglected babies, wherein a baby's cry for help (love, food, safety or nurturance) would be met w/the absence of parental response.

This inflicts incredible pain, bringing on increased, crying & screaming which is further ignored & leaves the baby in more pain. After a long period of screaming, the baby becomes quiet & docile.

Active Trauma & Passive Trauma

Swack's concept of neglect trauma parallels Terrence Real's concept of passive trauma. Real differentiates active trauma - usually boundary violation of some kind, a clearly toxic interaction & passive trauma - a form of emotional or physical neglect.

In his book I Don't Want to Talk About It, Real notes,

"Rather than a violent presence, passive trauma may be defined as a violent lack - the absence of nurture & responsibilities normally expected of a caregiver, the absence of connection."

He takes this further.

"In the instance of active trauma, a boy might come home with a badly scraped knee & torn, bloody pants only to have his father scream at him for ruining his clothes. In an instance of passive trauma, a boy would show up with a badly scraped knee & the father would promise to be there in a moment only to stay on a business call for another 10 minutes while the boy waits beside him, bleeding."

Real cites that most domestic violence experts estimate passive trauma occurs at least twice as frequently as active abuse. Richard Gelle a pioneer in violence research, estimates that 1 in 11 children - 4 to 5 million each year - suffers from some form of extreme neglect.

Perpetrating Masculinity

Terrence Real entitles a chapter of his book "Perpetrating Masculinity." The words are chilling & real. He notes that little boys & girls start off with similar psychological profiles.

They're equally emotional, expressive & dependent, equally desirous of physical affection.

"At the youngest ages, both boys & girls are more like a stereotypical girl. If any differences exist, little boys are, in fact slightly more sensitive & expressive than little girls. They cry more easily when frustrated, appear more upset when a caregiver leaves the room. Until the age of 4 or 5, both boys & girls rest comfortably in what one researcher has called 'the expressive-affiliate mode.' Studies indicate that girls are permitted to remain in that mode while boys are subtly - or forcibly -  pushed out of it."

Real makes a powerful point:

"If traditional socialization takes aim at girls' voices, it takes aim at boys' hearts."

In many homes, violent fathers pass on active trauma to their sons as if toughness were a gift, a necessary initiation. Yet Real notes, the key component of a boy's healthy relationship to his father is  affection, not "masculinity."

"The boys who fare poorly in their psychological adjustment are not those without fathers, but those with abusive or neglectful fathers."

There's pressure on mothers to let go of their sons too early before the son is ready. Psychologist William Pollock defines the 'mother wound,' not as "the wound of the stereotypical mother who won't let go, but the wound of the mother who, in compliance to society's fear & rules, lets go too early."

Real makes the important points,

"the true meaning of psychological separation is maturity & we humans stand a better chance of maturing if we don't disconnect from one another...What maturity truly requires is the replacement of childish forms of closeness w/more adult forms of closeness, not dislocation. There are virtually no images in this culture representing close, mature ties between men & their mothers. Maturity & connection are set up as choices that exclude one another."

Boys live under a social mandate that instructs them to turn away not just from the mother, but also from intimacy itself & from cultivating or even grasping the values & skills that sustain deep emotional connection. A boy's rejection to the feminine in him leads to rejection of expressivity & rejection of vulnerability.

Unfortunately, once a person is traumatized in this way, it impacts his behavior towards himself & towards other people - men & women, children & adult. The desensitization that comes with  traumatizing boys in their passage toward manhood leads to insensitivity & neglect or traumatization of all those who become close to or dependent on such men.

"Recovery is linked to opposing the force of disconnection & reentering the world of relationship. A man can't recover from either overt or covert depression & remain emotionally numb at the same time. He can't be related & walled off simultaneously; he can't be intimate with others before establishing intimate terms with his own heart."

Healing Pathways

Trauma creates a dissociated trance state for the trauma survivor. The trance state becomes the lens thru which the trauma survivor responds to & experiences life. Ramsay notes,

"the true root cause of a trauma must be found to clear it. Otherwise, the patterns or symptoms resulting from the trauma occur repeatedly like a bad grade B movie. Unless the root cause of this pattern is found, one is merely working on the ripples of the trauma & not the location where the stone landed & no lasting relief is achieved,"

notes Ramsay. Conventional therapy may work towards the goal of finding the root cause, but the model is extremely limited "due to engaging only the conscious mind & memory." The root cause can be accessed thru the body at a soul level.

Body-centered & energetic therapies are essential for gaining access to & working w/the root cause of trauma. In the case of neglect trauma, body-centered psychospiritual therapy can also provide the missing experience of what the neglected child or adult really needs.

Present day body symptoms - a pressure in the chest, a sense of numbness or feeling nothing - in Ramsay Coolidge's words, "are connected & are the fuel of the time machine that take us back to the root cause."

Trauma survivors often experience a variety of physical & psychological symptoms that have roots in their traumatic experience.

Terrence Real tells the story of a client he calls David whose father was violent & abusive with him as a boy. David suffered from both physical & psychological difficulties whose roots could be traced to the trauma & abuse.

"In an attempt to escape his own depression, David let himself sink into behaviors - like irritability, dominance, drinking & emotional unavailability - that pushed away the very people whom he most loved & needed. He couldn't sleep without sleeping pills. He was bothered more & more by stomachs & backaches which his internist chalked up to stress."

Terrence describes some critical moments in David's healing process where he reconnects w/the experience of the scared, angry young boy who was emotionally & physically abused by his father.

"Deep inside his bullying & drinking, lay that little boy. The depressed part of David, the unacknowledged child, waited in darkness, resentfully, for its moment in the light, wreaking havoc on anyone near. When David courageously allowed the pain he had carried within him for decades to break thru to the surface, his vulnerability drew the people he loved back toward him."

While Real doesn't discuss this, I wouldn't be surprised if David's emotional & physical health also greatly improved as he accessed, released & healed some of the roots of his pain.

It's sad & sometimes overwhelming to see the impact of neglect trauma on us both individually & culturally.

Yet, the evolution & growing availability of body-centered & energetic approaches to healing offers hope both for those of us living today & for the next generation. I sincerely hope that more & more of us find the healing tools that both release us from decades of buried pain & allow us to be more loving & compassionate to our children, friends & co-habitants of this planet Earth.

Linda Marks, MSM, has practiced heart-centered, psychospiritual body-centered psychotherapy for 16 years. She's founder of the Institute for Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy in Newton & author of LIVING WITH VISION: RECLAIMING THE POWER OF THE HEART (Knowledge Systems, 1988).  She has taught & spoken nationally & internationally & has been a leader in the emerging field of somatic psychology. She lives in Newton, MA w/her 4 year old son, Alexander.  Linda's new book EMBODYING THE SOUL: DANCING INTO LIFE is due for release in the spring of 2001. You can contact her at (617)965-7846 or LSMHEART@aol.com