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Blog post – 6th August 2021
Childhood Developmental Trauma and how to heal yourself
By Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling, and Trauma Survivor
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Introduction
Trauma is all around us. Many humans are seriously damaged by their families of origin, and by their cruel cultures.
It is no accident that I got into developing various approaches to trauma therapy. No surprise that I became a psychotherapist, and worked hard to help many individuals to recover from the pain, confusion and loneliness of Childhood Developmental Trauma (or Complex-PTSD).
I got into this line of work because – without knowing it at the time – I am actually a Childhood Developmental Trauma survivor.
And I am making great progress – slowly – with my new book on Childhood Developmental Trauma, which is titled: Transforming Traumatic Dragons: How to recover from a history of trauma – using a whole body-brain-mind approach. Revised, expanded and updated: August 2021.
That book is now very close to being completed. I have finished the writing and editing. At the moment I am proofreading the text – and I am on page 159 out of 421, which is approximately a third of the way through – (or 37%).
When I have finished, it will be proofed by Renata Taylor-Byrne, my co-author. And then it will be published and made available via Amazon outlets.
Of course, I did publish an earlier, less developed book on this topic, which had two of the three processes that I present in the current book – but the current book is vastly superior, because of the addition of the ‘interoceptive Windows model’, which integrates writing therapy and body work, with breath work, and EMDR. (Plus additional insights into trauma and diet; trauma and exercise; trauma and sleep; how precisely to do that [writing therapy combined with body work] process; and so on).
This book should be a great help to many individuals who have the determination to do at least some of their own therapy at home; perhaps combined with some face to face counselling and therapy with a trauma therapist, because the interpersonal, right-brain to right-brain aspect of trauma recovery is so very important.
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My own trauma journey
Of course, long before I got down to writing about the trauma problems of other people, I had to work on my own childhood trauma damage. One of the ways that I did that was to write my own autobiographical stories about my origins and my ‘relationships’.
One of the main ways I did this work was to create an ‘alter ego’ – who I named ‘Daniel O’Beeve’. I then (in my mind) put Daniel into those situations through which I have lived, and which I could dredge up from my memory banks; and I observed how he got on – from the ‘outside’ – (objectification!). I then retrieved a lot of my old traumatic nightmares, and rewrote them in a literary style. And then I created a set of ‘alien psychologists’ who could observe Daniel’s journey, through a “wormhole in space-time”, and to make comments about how to understand what is going on in his life (using psychological concepts), in a way which Daniel and I could never have commented! (Clearly this has to be called “a fictionalized autobiographical story”; and none of the characters in this story should be confused with any real individual, living or dead!)
I published all of that work in a book called Metal Dog – Long Road Home. And this is the Amazon books description of that book:
Book description
Daniel O’Beeve was a victim of childhood developmental trauma, before anybody had even thought to conceive of such a concept. He was a victim of abuse and neglect long before anybody gave a damn about the emotional welfare of children.
Daniel’s parents were both born into highly dysfunctional families; poor rural families that lived from hand to mouth; families who had been trained by the priests to “beat the fear of God” into their children.
Daniel’s parents did not love each other. They had an arranged marriage, and never learned to even like each other.
When Daniel was just eighteen months old, his father lost his farm and had to move to Dublin city, to eke out an existence as a gardener. Daniel was born into this mess. Unloved and unloving; beaten and emotionally abused; he grew up with very low emotional intelligence; no capacity to make contact with another human being; and a fear of everything that moved suddenly or rapidly.
He was then thrown into a city school at the age of four years, into a playground in which he was the only “culchie” (or hill billy) – in a sea of “city slickers” (called “Jackeens” by Daniel’s parents) – and this was against a backdrop of dreadful (‘racist’) antipathy between the Dublin and rural cultures in general.
In ten years of public schooling, Daniel did not make a single friend.
With no map of healthy human love, or workable human relations, he entered the world of work at the age of fourteen, like a drunk thrown out of a pub, late at night, in total darkness, mind reeling, and feelings jangled; and from this point forward he has to try to make sense of life; to make sense of relationships with girls; and to make some kind of life for himself.
For more, please go to Metal Dog – Long Road Home. Where I reveal some of the ways in which my childhood trauma affected my difficulties with trying to “get off” with a girl or woman, in a way that might possibly work. For more, please go to Metal Dog – Long Road Home.
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Back to Jim
As it happened, I (Jim) did manage to find my way out of the darkness and confusion; out of the autism and dissociation; out of the fear and loneliness. I did my therapy, and I got my reward!
Now I write books for others on the subject of how to overcome childhood developmental trauma.
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The new book on Childhood Developmental Trauma should be available at Amazon outlets in the next month or so, (because I keep getting distracted onto urgent survival projects).
Best wishes,
Jim
Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services
The Institute for Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy
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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
ABC Bookstore Online UK 