Hi @peps
@Christine30 @Jynx
There is a lot of growing evidence that childhood trauma plays a big part in mental health problems. That doesn't mean that you were necessarily physically or sexually abused etc as a child although these things can and do happen and inevitably create significant problems later in life.
The trouble seems to not be the traumatic event itself but how we interpret it. Young pre-verbal children can easily misinterpret quite innocent things.
As a hypothetical example, consider a child who is only a few weeks old. The mother leaves the child in a perfectly safe situation for a few minutes while she goes to the bathroom. The child however may experience this as abandonment and become terrified. Abandonment to a young child is life threatening.
The next problem is that many of us never learned how to manage or release the residual emotions associated with these traumatic events or perhaps our natural tendency to do so was trained out of us. In an ideal world we learn these life skills from our parents but if the parents don’t have them to start with, these problems tend to get passed on from generation to generation.
The trauma so generated just stays in our body and can accumulate throughout our lifetime. Almost everybody has this to some degree. When some event occurs to trigger this unresolved emotion it can explode like a bomb.
For anyone interested in knowing more about trauma and the important role it plays in mental health I would recommend Dr Gabour Mate's book "The Myth Of Normal". I found the book fairly heavy going in places but packed full of useful information. It was a well worthwhile read.
The Myth Of Normal
It confirmed and expended on what my own therapist had taught me and I have been practising in my trauma related therapy.
Mate also has a number of YouTube videos and interviews
Here is a short one of about 7 minutes that will give you a taste of what trauma related therapy is about.
The video describes a technique called the RAIN technique that seems to have been around for a while.
It seems to me to be a life skill worth learning for anybody dealing with unresolved trauma related emotions. It is somewhat similar to one my own psychologist taught me several months ago. It is.
Recognise
Allow
Investigate
Nurture
Mate, explains the RAIN technique and how it is used to deal with anger but it can be employed with any emotion.
here is the You Tube Link
Dr. Gabor Maté on How to Process Anger and Rage
or Google "You Tube Dr. Gabor Maté on How to Process Anger and Rage | The Tim Ferriss Show"
Regards
Willy
