Selections from "Coping With Trauma"

The following are quotations from Coping With Trauma: A Guide to Self-Understanding by Jon G. Allen. For simplicity, his source references have not been reproduced.

While these passages were written in the context of helping a person cope with trauma (child abuse, molestation, rape, war, and so forth), they also provide insight for the person whose trauma has been unwanted feelings of SSA.

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I think the "secure base" is the single most useful concept in understanding trauma. Bowlby explains, "A central feature of my concept of parenting [is] the provision by both parents of a secure base from which a child or an adolescent can make sorties into the outside world and to which he can return knowing for sure that he will be welcomed when he gets there, nourished physically and emotionally, comforted if distressed, reassured if frightened." The importance of having a secure base cannot be overstated. As Bowlby says, our survival as a species has depended on it....

The secure base is a launching pad for independence. In addition to serving the biological function of ensuring safety from harm, it serves a psychological function: The secure base provides a feeling of security. the secure base is a home base from which the youngster feels confident to explore the world. Attachment and exploration are in dynamic balance. Ideally, life is a series of "excursions" from the secure base. Having a secure base, the youngster feels free to explore, always with a sense that security and safety are close at hand. When the child feels frightened or threatened, the attachment needs are activiated, and the youngster returns to the secure base. When trauma impinges on this sense of security, exploration, initiative, and autonomy are undermined. Traumatized youngsters may be unable to avail themselves of the rich environment needed to foster healthy development.
(Pages 37-38)

If you have been traumatized, you know what it's like to be without a secure base. There are patterns of attachment that fall short of the biological idea of safe proximity. We have learned a lot from research on these different patterns. Bowlby's collaborator Mary Ainsworth developed an ingenious method to study attachment patterns in infants. Because she wanted to observe attachment behavior in action, Ainsworth created the "Strange Situation" to study infants' and mothers' reactions to separation and reunion. The basic scenario is this: The infant and mother are brought into an unfamiliar but comfortable room filled with toys. A stranger enters, and the mother subsequently departs, leaving the infant in the room with the stranger. Then the mother comes back into the room, pausing to allow the infant a chance to respond to her return. After a while, the stranger leaves the room. Then the mother leaves the infant all alone in the room. The mother then returns a second time and picks the infant up.
(Page 38)

Secure attachment is the antidote for trauma. Secure attachment characterizes the majority of infants studied in the Strange Situation. Securely attached infants are highly sensitive to the mother's presence and keenly aware of her leaving the room. Depending on their temperament, securely attached infants may be more or less distressed when left alone with a stranger. They may protest or try to follow their mother. Regardless of their level of distress, they rely on their relationship with their mother for comfort. They rapidly seek proximity when she returns; they may make eye contact or approach and greet her. They are easily reassured. There is a smooth alternation between exploration and proximity seeking. When threatened or distressed, securely attached infants seek proximity and find comfort; when security is reestablished, they return quickly and confidently to playing and exploring their environment.
(Page 39)

...Attachment also goes through major changes over the life span. As securely attached youngsters grow older, they are able to tolerate longer separations over greater distances from their mother or primary caregiver. Their sense of security no longer rests on proximity or the physical presence of a caregiver. Rather, they develop a sense of trust and confidence in the reliability and endurance of attachments.

In addition, attachment with a primary caregiver gradually evolves into a wider range of attachments. In the nuclear family, an attachment to the father develops alongside the attachment to the mother. Patterns of attachment to the mother and the father are independent; the quality of the attachment to the father may be the same as that with the mother, or it may be different. Of course, the pattern of attachment to the father that evolves will depend on the father's behavior.

The infant's range of attachments is contingent on the composition of the household and the caregiving arrangements. Generally, attachements cover an ever-widening sphere, developing with nonparental caregivers, siblings, and peers. Given the variations in contemporary family composition and caregiving, it is fortunate that attachment behavior is so flexible.

The finding that the infant's pattern of attachment depends on the behavior of the caregiver is extremely important. For example, the infant who has an insecure attachment to the mother may nevertheless form a secure attachment to the father. Or the reverse may be the case. Keep in mind that the infant is biologically disposed to form a secure attachment....Even in the presence of pervasive family violence or abusive experience, the infant and youngster will often form relatively secure attachments outside the family, for example, with peers, teachers, coaches, grandparents, neighbors, or clergy. It is rare for a person to arrive at adulthood without some capacity to form a positive, close, and secure attachment.
(Pages 43-44)

So just as trauma disrupts the secure base and basic trust, it also disrupts physiological regulation. There is often a kind of "double whammy" here: The traumatic experience generates hyperarousal (fear, panic, pain), and the individual is often abandoned or neglected after being injured and aroused. There is arousal beyond normal bounds, and there is a lack of soothing or comforting. This uncontrollable arousal is especially problematic when the primary caregiver is abusive or when the trauma is hidden and kept secret, precluding restorative comforting.
(Page 47)

Having a safe place is necessary to feel secure, but it is not enough. Only through secure attachments with others can we gradually internalize a sense of safety and learn to regulate arousal. If workable attachment patterns were not developed in childhood, they need to be developed in adulthood. Of course, individuals who have been hampered in forming attachments need more than just the mere availability of a good "attachment figure," such as an understanding friend or a reliable therapist. They must overcome distrust, avoidance, resistance, and ambivalence. Much of the work of coping with trauma entails understanding and surmounting these obstacles in order to restore secure attachments. This process can be a tall order, especially if the foundations of attachment were distorted in childhood. Even when the trauma occurs in adulthood, secure attachments may not be easy to reestablish. Traumatic experience in adulthood (assault, rape, spouse abuse) can profoundly undermine the foundations laid in childhood.
(Page 48)

How are new models learned? They are learned from and with other people. they are taught, not didactically as in a classroom, but through relating and interacting. For good or for ill, others tend to shape us into the molds of their models. Abusive models are taught in relationships and interactions. So are nurturing models. Models of others as reliable and trustworthy are obviously learned only over a long period of time. One must find good teachers -- persons who are kind, trustworthy, and reliable. Abusive relationships set up a vicious cycle: The more you are mistreated, the more you feel devalued and the more mistreatment you tolerate and feel you deserve. Healthy relationships turn the tide, creating a benign cycle: The more you are treated with kindness and respect, the more you feel confident and worthy, and the more you will assert your needs and be treated accordingly.

Nothing is foolproof, and this scenario is not flawless. No one is a perfect judge of character; we are all susceptible to being deceived. Self-protection is possible to a degree, but anyone can be overpowered. Rescue is not possible; helpful relationships are. Rescue is an ideal; all helpful relationships are flawed, limited, and disapointing to a degree. Conflicts wax and wane; closeness and distance ebb and flow. This is why Winnicott proposed the concept of the "good enough" mother. We need good-enough friends, good-enough mates, and good-enough therapists.
(Pages 164-165)

In thinking about a healthy balance between self-development and relationships with others, the concept of self-dependence is useful. Since its inception, American society has placed great value on "independence." But aspiring to independence can be problematic, particularly for individuals who have been traumatized. Independence comes to connote "not needing anyone" and, as such, becomes confused with isolation. Attachment needs are lifelong, and isloation is not viable. Psychoanalyst Joseph Lichtenberg defines self-dependence in a way that balances autonomy and attachment. To be self-dependent requires that you be able to have a sense of continuity in your relationships. You must be able to remember and imagine your relationships with those to whom you are securely attached. Once you develop this capacity, you do not need to be in the continuous presence of the other person to feel secure. In Lichtenberg's words, "To be self-dependent is not to be independent, without reliance on the attachment. Rather, to be self-dependent is to be able to rely on the self to evoke the other in a period of absence, to bridge the gap until reunion or restoration of the attachment." The actual reunion then serves to renew, refuel, and maintain the sense of secure attachment while fostering autonomy and self-development.
(Pages 165-166)