Working with Punitive Introjects, Ego States and Dissociative Parts in Trauma
Presenter(s)
Kathy Steele
This workshop will offer a practical, integrative approach to understanding and working with a wide range of inner criticism, punishment, and harshness in the chronically traumatized individual. Everyone experiences an inner critic, based on negative messages from authority figures and from ourselves in reaction to feeling inadequate in some way. In complex trauma this natural phenomenon can become more intense, overwhelming, and sometimes more dissociated.
We will explore how these inner aspects develop, and understand their several functions of protection, avoidance, and attempts to cope with everyday life. Participants will have an opportunity to explore their own inner critic and befriend it as a step toward helping clients learn to deal with their own. Our ability to reflect on our own tendencies toward self-criticism and punishment will support our capacity to work with these experiences in our clients. The roles of chronic shame and reenactments of trauma will be emphasized in maintaining inner critical parts.
Participants will learn specific approaches to work with ego states and dissociative parts that have these punitive functions, employing compassion and curiosity. We will explore a continuum of inner critics, ranging from natural introjects, ego states, to more separate dissociative parts, and from mild inner critics to more sadistic and destructive ones.