Embracing Our Fragmented Selves: A New Approach to Working with Trauma-Related Parts

Understanding the effects of trauma rather than focusing on the events that caused them opens up a new pathway to healing even for survivors who have had many years of therapy. Years of brain scan research has demonstrated that when events are remembered, the prefrontal cortex is inhibited and activity in the brain’s emotional memory areas are increased (Alexandra-Kredlow et al, 2022). The ongoing effects of traumatic experiences can be understood as implicit nonverbal feeling and somatic memories that are experienced as emotional and physical reactions to everyday life.

Why does trauma result in fragmentation? Because traumatic experiences are too overwhelming to be tolerated or processed, especially by a child’s still developing brains. The mental ability of dissociation provides a way to mentally distance from what is happening. The child watches from a depersonalized distance and observes what is happening to that other child. Fragmenting helps us to survive the moment and, in traumatic environments, becomes a chronic response to ongoing danger facing the individual every day.

Rather than pathologizing trauma-related symptoms and the parts that carry them, the Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment approach emphasizes a mindfulness-based acceptance of the implicit memories of parts. Processing events does not treat the implicit memories, but acceptance of the parts’ feelings and reactions can reconsolidate the unfinished implicit past. By helping clients befriend their wounded, vulnerable parts and their darkest, most destructive parts, we can help them find wholeness, self-compassion, and healing.