Posted by Daisym on January 7, 2010, at 0:40:39
In reply to framework for trauma / grief?, posted by floatingbridge on January 5, 2010, at 16:58:14
I think these are very separate questions that perhaps intersect at the point of one answering the other.
Existential struggles happen often when we witness what appears to be senseless suffering. For myself, when people tell me, "everything happens for a reason" I want to demand they find the reason in csa. I usually hold my tongue, because what I know to be true is that people sometimes need to hold this belief in order to cope. I find my faith to be incredibly important as a coping mechanism - though I rage at God at times too. I don't think anyone can really adequately explain why bad things happen. Have you read "God's Shrink"? It is a piece of fiction that tries to answer this question.
As far as a container goes, I think you have to practice with different things to figure out what works for you. Faith - God - can be a container of sorts. You can put your trust in God and not feel quite so alone with your grief, if this works for you. If you don't believe, you can construct other ways of holding or managing your grief. Writing/Journal is one of the major ways I cope. I put my grief on paper, which holds it. Other people have talked about an imaginary box, which locks, or a drawer. It helps to have concrete representations as well. I suggest actually buying a container for yourself and writing things down and locking them away. It might seem silly, but these kinds of symbolic acts do work.
The other major container, for me, is my therapist. We work hard to stay connected between sessions so that I feel held. We work with many of the self-psychology concepts and as we actively dismantled many of my defenses, he alloweded me "borrow" his core self as a way of shoring up mine. The container does spring leaks sometimes, but talking about what is going to work and having a plan in place, really does help.
poster:Daisym
thread:932594
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20091212/msgs/932776.html