~~~
Blog Post 2 – 25th February 2021
How to process traumatic experiences from your past
Author: Jim Byrne
Copyright (c) 2021
~~~
Hi,
Traumatic experiences are those which cannot easily be processed by the person to whom they occur. Most people are probably somewhat traumatized (or greatly traumatized) by their childhood experiences. One estimate – by Dr Felitti, in Dr van der Kolk’s book (The Body Keeps the Score) suggests that about 87% of Americans are somewhat traumatized by their Adverse Childhood Experiences!
In E-CENT counselling, we teach our clients to (slowly and gradually!) face up to their traumatic memories, which they have often been running away from; sometimes for decades. Because it is only by facing up to the traumatic experiences from our past – (slowly and gradually) – that we can reframe them, complete them, and allow them to shrink and fade:
“Shadows of the past sometimes contaminate the present and narrow down the future for all of us”, writes Muriel Shiffman. “The purpose of my self-therapy technique is to confront the past and put it in its place. Only then are we released to live the present more fully and grow into a richer future, able to use more of our true potential.” Because she was depressed, Muriel Shiffman “…began to use myself as a guinea pig in a fumbling attempt at self-therapy. … (Over time) I stumbled on the key to self-therapy: I learned to feel painful emotions I had been avoiding all my life. I explored attitudes and relationships that forced me to feel rage and grief and anxiety, and I did a great deal of crying. For two long years I unearthed a hidden part of my life, and suffered and then it suddenly dawned on me that my old, recurrent depression was gone. Somewhere along the way I had lost it, and it has never come back”.
Muriel Shiffman, Self-Therapy: Techniques for personal growth.
~~~
I have used writing therapy to heal my own childhood traumas, which has taken a number of years (on and off). I first wrote some articles and papers, and then combined them into a fictionalized autobiographical story – (Metal Dog – Long Road Home***) – plus a book about HOW TO complete your own traumatic experiences***, and one which describes the first two stories that I used therapeutically to heal my own heart and mind.
If you want to explore the skills of Writing Therapy, you could also look at my book: How to Write a New Life for Yourself.***
~~~
I hope you find this information helpful.
Best wishes,
Jim
Dr Jim Byrne
Doctor of Counselling,
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services
Email: Dr Jim.***
Or Telephone: 01422 843 629 (from inside the UK)
Or 44 1422 843 629 (from outside the UK)
I believe that each of us is a silent witness of our early childhood experiences. We do not know what happened to us unless and until somebody helps us to make a story or stories out of our raw experiences.
I met Carla in Bangladesh, and she was intensely curious about my life, and especially my childhood. I told her some bits and pieces from the very edges of my conscious awareness, and she was appalled at how painful my childhood had been – how physically and emotionally I’d been abused. I was amazed at the emotions that came up them: the painful memories that welled back. What I had taken to be ‘normal life’ turned out to be quite brutally unusual – or at least not how children should be raised, by parents who love their children, and want them to be happy.
Over time, two major stories emerged: My Story of Origins (as a country boy in a city school, who failed to make a single friend in ten years of schooling). And My Story of Relationship (especially my insecure attachment to my cruel mother). Both of these stories now appear in a forthcoming book, which you can read about here: 
Over a period of more than 22 years of professional practice, Dr Jim Byrne has developed and refined a DIY (self-help) approach to resolving your own childhood trauma. This book will help you to understand what childhood developmental trauma is; how it relates to insecure attachment and dysfunction of the right brain; and how to work on childhood trauma using a whole body, brain, mind approach. This book outlines three major therapeutic processes, at three graded levels of emotional disturbance (from mild to intense), which you can progressively (and slowly and gradually) work through, in the form of journal writing, and related processes of body-awareness, body activity, sleep, diet and exercise solutions, and deep relaxation.
That’s all for today.
It has often been said that it’s easier to “talk the talk” than it is to “walk the walk”. This American expression refers to the frequent gulf between our words and our actions.
Learning to walk this talk is a function of Anger Management Training; and our book on that subject is a good resource for calming yourself, reducing resentment, and learning how to forgive others, instead of becoming excessively angry with them.
I like to think of myself as a calm, reasonable and rational individual with high emotional intelligence. I think I am gentle and kind, and well able to manage my emotions to keep them within reasonable bounds; not too high, and not too low.
The next thing that happened was that I felt very shocked that I used the ‘C’ word. I was shocked that I was so angry. (I am an anger management specialist! [Or that is one of my specialisms]). (Postscript: Upon reading this back, I notice that I did not judge the woman to be culpable, even though she was in the leading position! Interesting!)
I have tended to damn anyone who breaks the rules, in relation to keeping their distance from me and/or my wife; and that makes me angry at them. And resentful: which is like taking poison, and waiting for them to die! This harms my body and lowers my mood for a protracted period of time. Meanwhile, the person at whom I am angry may be having a ball, oblivious to the effect they have had on me. So the ultimate harm is all done to me, by me.
So: “In life, there are certain things I can control, and certain things that are beyond my control”. And a good way to get upset and stay upset is to try to control the uncontrollable! (Of course, if something [which is important to me] is potentially controllable, I should try, within reason, to control it!)
That aggressive behaviour on my part was uncharacteristic, but then I am very new to being involved in a death-inducing viral pandemic. (And I am over the age of 70 years, and I’ve been sent a powerful ‘nocebo’ [or negative self-fulfilling prophesy] by the state to the effect that my age puts me, automatically at risk! Although I think the strength of my immune system is just as important as my age, nocebos, sent by authoritative voices, have powerful influences, outside of conscious awareness!) I spent years teaching myself the idea, from Epicurus, that I should “get accustomed to the idea that my death means nothing to me”, for all good and evil consist in sensations, and death is only the deprivation of sensations. Therefore, it makes no sense for any person to fear their own death, for when death arrives, they will have (simultaneously) departed. And if they are here (and aware of being here) then death has not arrived.
If your situation is such that you do not want to take the time to read a book or two to support you through the Covid-19 crisis, you can always consult me – Dr Jim Byrne – or Renata Taylor-Byrne – via the telephone, for help, support Psychological First Aid, counselling, coaching or deep psychotherapy:
Best wishes, and take good care of yourself (and others).
I love books; and I’ve enjoyed scouring bookshops for new ideas since I was about 14 years old. It is perhaps one of the greatest deprivations of the Covid-19 lockdown that I cannot get to walk around the philosophy, psychology, health and self-help sections of Waterstones, in Leeds or Manchester; or the Bookcase in Hebden Bridge; or W.H. Smith’s in Halifax; or the Bookcase store in Piece Hall.
But, actually, it was the original version I had in my hands; the one with the bnlue cover, and the coloured illustrations – and my eyes were drawn to three illustrations, on pages vi and vii of the Foreword.
Cutting through the Worry Knot!
Jim
One of the books that I have tried to promote for a number of years is ‘The Spirit Level’, by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson. (See the Guardian article by Dawn Foster: 
Our only novel is 
In this book, Dr Jim Byrne, the creator of Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT) has utilized his own system of narrative therapy to revise his original, non-conscious ‘personal mythology’, or ‘story of self’. – According to the author, humans live inside of stories, and their lives are dominated and directed by those stories, or personal mythologies. It is impossible to ‘forget’ those mythologies, those scripts for a life pattern in the present and future. It is impossible to simply step out of them. The only hope for humans who have been distorted by their childhood and early life experiences is to dig up their personal narratives, to examine and digest them, to revise them, and to create a new, consciously chosen personal mythology which can support a happy and successful future for them. In this book, Dr Byrne demonstrates how to do that digging and digesting and rewriting tasks, by showing us how he healed his own traumatized body-mind, and his broken heart.
E-CENT Publications does not currently have any books on minority issues. The main books that seem to attract female buyers are:
ABC Bookstore Online UK 