(Faure - "Pavane")
Trauma therapists, both in Britain and North America, have found that drawing a chart of the stages or significant events in an individual's life before the trauma is useful in helping people to reclaim a sense of meaning and purpose. This type of diagramming method has been called the Eriksonian 'Lifeline' exercise and originated thirty-five years ago in the writings of Dr Erik H. Erikson, a professor at Harvard University, and a leading figure in the field of psychoanalysis and human development. Erikson (1963) proposed that there were eight stages in the development of the human personality, and that an individual's movement or progression from one stage to the next could be charted by means of a diagram. He suggested that all development could be considered 'a series of crises', and that the critical steps in development, the turning points, were 'moments of decision between progress and regression'. He believed that individuals could move a bit forward and backward, and could repeat a stage if something happened to block their progress at that time in their lives.
We believe that Erikson's concept of growth over the span of life events implies that the human spirit will rise to new challenges and that traumatic experiences can be overcome. The next exercise is thus offered to help you view your life span as a whole, a total picture. By moving beyond the boundaries or tunnels in your vision that were created by your experience of the trauma, you can begin to recognize your strengths again. You will start to regain your functional life.
One of the aims of this exercise is to remind you that you have coped in the past and you are still coping with a lot now. Gently, cautiously, 'take a look' at the whole of your lifespan, beginning as far back as you can remember, and carrying forward beyond your trauma to the time now. It is important to recognize your achievements, and decide how to transfer them to the present. Try to ensure that you are not clouded in your views by a type of 'negative filter’ (the opposite of 'rose-colored glasses') that becomes a way of looking for the worst in things or picking out all the bad things that have happened in your life and using them as evidence that somehow you 'deserved' the trauma.
Although it may seem that time has been standing still since your trauma, or that you are 'stuck' at this point in time, it is very important to realize that this is an illusion! Time has passed, and you have survived and, somehow, your life has kept moving. Therefore the point of this exercise is to take stock, to look back at the events that have shaped your life significantly, both positive and negative, and to see the patterns that emerged before the trauma took place. Part 1: Getting started on your Climbing Chart
On a large piece of paper (or with several sheets pasted end to end), draw a vertical line from bottom to top. Use this line as the centre. On either side of it - the right side for positive, or growth experiences, and the left side for negative, or 'held back' experiences - plot the events of your life. Start at the bottom, with your earliest recollections, and work your way to the top, where you see yourself now. With each dot or memory that you mark along the way, indicate: What happened? How old were you? How did you feel about it at the time? Any memory or event that was significant to you should be noted, for example, if you had a pet that died, or a favourite pair of red shoes that made you feel special when you were very young, etc. It does not matter if it was significant to (or even noticed by) anyone else.
You should allow yourself at least two hours of private, uninterrupted time to do this exercise. If you have photographs from childhood years or other mementoes, it may be helpful to look through them to help you remember. Do not be too concerned about remembering things in order, or very clearly. There may be long gaps in your chart, where you remember very little at all. While you continue the process of making the chart, however, you will probably find that other bits and pieces of memories will pop back into your mind and you can add new dots to mark these remembered events at any point. Try not to edit or make judgements, just write them down as you remember them. Don't be too negative, or too positive, just report.
If you become overly distressed while doing this exercise, he material aside for awhile, and use your an outlet to write down your feelings. When you are feeling calmer, you can go back to the exercise, or complete it at another time. The intention here is to help you make sense of your life experiences and put things in some sort of order. You will find 'clues’ from your past that will help you to contain your feelings now and strengthen your coping skills.
You will notice that when you start to connect the dots of your memories, the line around the centre begins to form a sort of spiral, like a vine climbing around a stabilizing pole. That is a very good image to keep in mind. Remember, all your life, things have happened to you, both good and bad, and you are still standing!
Traumatic experiences may have blocked you from accessing your inner strength, but it is still there, or you wouldn't have survived. Now, by reading this book and doing these exercises, you are trying to reconnect to your strength again. Don't despair if it seems to be taking a long time. If it was easy, you would have done it already, right at the start. One of the most important things to remember right now is to be patient with yourself!
We suggest that, after completing your chart, you let it 'rest' for awhile. Come back to it another time, when you have a private uninterrupted hour or two to carry on with the interpretation part of the exercise. Cautions:
* If, while you were compiling your chart, you remembered and recorded other traumatic incidents from your past particularly from childhood - such as physical abuse or sexual violation, it may be too difficult or upsetting for you to complete this exercise by yourself.
* Do not put yourself in harm's way if you sense that you are in any danger of hurting yourself or that you could be a danger to others!
* Stop working on this section, reread the reaction management strategies, and find a health professional you can talk to.
* Your first priority is to keep yourself safe!
When you look over your chart, you may be quite surprised to find that your ‘climbing vine’ has so many twists and turns. You have really managed to cope with a lot over the course of your lifetime. Regardless of how bothered you may still be by the memories of the trauma that you experienced, somehow you found the strength to live through it.
Sometimes the methods we use quite appropriate y to help us through very stressful times become habits that are inappropriate or excessive at times of normal, everyday stress. For example, its appropriate to run out of a large burning building, but not appropriate to run out of every large building!
The purpose of this section is to help you to take a look at your life and identify the methods you have used to cope with important events. However, you may or many not want to continue to use the same ways of coping in the future (for example, alcohol may be an old coping strategy that you now use too much, before you have given any other ways of coping a chance). It may become obvious to you that you now have better ways of coping than you did in the past. Part 2: Interpreting your Climbing Chart
A. Ask yourself the following questions, as you look over your 'climbing vine' drawing. As you write down your answers (in your notebook), you will begin to recognize some repeated patterns of coping. You can choose whether you want to continue to behave in the same way.
1. How have i reacted to important events in my life?
2. How did 1 cope with positive events? And with negative events?
(Examples of possible reactions: talking to others; getting angry or violent; tears)
3. Do I give myself credit for my accomplishments? How
often?
4. When I am under stress, do 1 use a 'flight, fight or
freeze’ response? That is, do i either run away, freeze into inactivity or become very aggressive? is this a pattern for the way I cope with everyday events? Is it successful?
5. Which ways of coping have been the most useful and
successful for me in the past? How often do I use those now?
6. Has my coping pattern changed since the trauma? In
what ways?
7. Are there some coping strategies that I know would
be helpful that I haven't tried or don't use anymore?
8. How do I cope with people? a) those who are close to
me? b) those who are strangers? c) those in some official capacity?
9. How do I cope when I am alone? Do I allow myself to
be alone?
10. Do I take better care of others than I do of myself? In
what ways?
Add any additional questions, that you think might be helpful, to the end of this list. B. Look at the answers you have written in your notebook and then see if you can make two lists:
1. Your helpful or positive coping strategies
2. Your unhelpful, outdated or negative coping strategies.
Now use this information to help yourself identify your common patterns of thinking and reacting. When you work through the Climbing Chart Interpretation, follow these guidelines:
* Concentrate on shifting to the positive, and reducing the negative.
* Don't try to predict the future.
* This is an exercise to help connect you to the present by at what has come before.
* Just because things have always been a certain way,
mean they have to stay that way.
* Do not minimize your strengths or achievements, or maximize
your faults or shortcomings!
(Faure - "Pavane")