Amazing Gains in Trauma Treatment

a study finally reaching the mainstream (trigger warnings for discussion of CSA)

Travel is training for the unexpected. I’m writing to you on the Amtrak from Lexington, Virginia. (Why this post is late.) I looked forward to this trip, to exercise my ability to face the unexpected with equanimity. I’ve been working for years on healing from trauma and many autoimmune diseases. And I’m doing well, but the physical sensation of traveling backwards, heading sideways (east) to D.C. and then north to NYC/home, the blur of trees and the shaking train queases me out.

I don't have the energy to write this. After days at a busy and inspiring symposium, I need alone time. I need all this sensory stimulation to end. I’m exhausted and jangly. The trees and now fields fly past. My Aura mask is warm and fogging my glasses. The tray table is too high to type on, and my lap is too low. 

My Parts are saying, tell them you'll post tomorrow. (I made an executive decision to do this.) I want to listen to and respect my parts. My Parts like to be seen and heard, acknowledged and considered. It's become a kind of condition for my new healed life. And now I’ve discovered a study which isn’t new but Richard Schwartz has been talking about as part of the classes I’ve been taking with him and the IFS Institute. Parts work (Internal Family Systems) has been proven medically efficacious!

“A Randomized Controlled Trial of an Internal Family Systems based Intervention on Outcomes in Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Proof of Concept Study” shows that IFS reduces pain, inflammation and depression in people with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA, an autoimmune disease) without side effects! What this means to me is that our bodies and our psychology is one - there is indeed a body-mind connection, and not only is that connection strong, it is biological. Medical healing doesn’t happen without psychological healing.

I certainly have been disappointed with psychology and medicine in the past; No doctor or therapist has ever mentioned Autism or ADHD to me. Instead I’ve been misdiagnosed, mis-medicated, denigrated, belittled and led into mind-mazes that did absolutely nothing to help me. As a person with multiple autoimmune diseases, this study feels huge to me. And IFS is very different from any kind of therapy I've tried, so much so I’ve been inspired to learn how to offer it to others.

The study looked at women with RA in Southie (Boston). Mostly working class Catholic women with large families who were all people pleasers. If you have an autoimmune disease (list here) you are most probably a people pleaser, a person who has a hard time saying no, someone with permeable boundaries. Someone who doesn’t want to let others down, ever.

This is a dangerous thing to say. Sounds like I am blaming myself for my 5 autoimmune diseases which I do believe I have suffered because I was indeed conditioned to be a people pleaser. I’ve had a hard time setting boundaries. So my Body (as a Part) set them for me. This is not something I consciously control. So if you think I’m blaming you for your own autoimmune issues, that is not what I’m trying to say. Let’s not blame ourselves for our conditioning. People with female parts are raised in this culture to be more pleasing toward others.

Those of us who were abused as children, especially sexually, were not given the chance to develop strong boundaries. I was never allowed to say no. This is not my fault. Fawning and masking as survival strategies were a way of life for me. I wasn’t even aware of them as such for decades.

This set me up for autoimmune issues. By the time I was 12 I had several. They proliferated as my Body desperately tried to get my attention. And being too sick to manage was the only way I could safely say no. In fact, now that I think of it, I missed most of kindergarten with fevers, strep and ear infections, and being sick kept my abuser out of my bed. So my Protector Parts were hard at work trying to save me from abuse!

Witnessing my Parts saved me. Helping them understand that I’m safe now is a huge part of healing. That’s why I’m always talking about creating a lived sense of safety in the body. Not only for those of us who are survivors of violent trauma, but also for those of us who have lived through attachment trauma and things that happened before we had language or the ability to make regular memories. IFS heals this!

As a survivor of CSA, is it any wonder that my Body refuses and reacts badly to all but 40 approved things I put inside of it? I have created a better relationship with my Body by proving to it, time and again, that I will indeed set strong boundaries and keep strange things out.

Yes, it's that literal. Yes, I talk with my Parts. And it's working. And I've healed so much and continue healing. I'm loving myself and trusting myself more as I work to create a lived sense of safety. What is your Body asking for? 

I'm offering a new Brave Group Coaching 6 week class starting Saturday, April 6th, 4-530pm ET via Zoom. More Info Here

Saturday, March 31st, 12-2pm ET via Zoom, get a taste of my coaching work and my approach to IFS with a workshop: Befriending Your Resistance. IFS Coaching happens between you and your Parts. I’ll lead a group into their own internal family system, but that doesn’t mean the work is shared. Each person does their own work internally to create more trust and ease in their system. Safety is paramount.

all artwork by Scott Sherman found on insta at ScottShermanStudio

Writing Prompt:

I'm getting excited about END OF PLAY which starts April 1st. Anyone can participate for free with the Dramatists Guild even if you're not a member! I hope you'll join me! That’s why I'm offering a Befriending your Resistance class on Saturday March 31st from 12 - 2pm ET via Zoom to address all the parts of us that hold us back: our Inner Critics, Judges, Doubts and Fears (your parts may vary). For $35 you will learn how to update your parts and leave with a better understanding of how your parts work and what they are trying to do. You'll leave with ways to continue the conversation, get to know them better, and develop a more trusting relationship. Reply to me below to reserve your spot!

To that end, this prompt is taken directly from (and inspired by) a conversation Tony Kushner had with Ton Kuhn on youtube here. Kushner said, "What happens if you're living in an era when you're told that selfishness is a great act of love? Isolation and individualism is the way you take care of other people? Conspicuous consumption is how you make the world better? How do you reconcile your actual life with that?" 

There are 2 ways you could go with this quote as a prompt. And maybe a thousand other ways, up to you. The first way is to take on the prompt as a kind of mission. What does happen to a character or a group of characters or a family living in an age of selfishness as love? How do isolation and individualism help us care for one another? Can we improve the world via conspicuous consumption? Write these questions as plays or stories, inventing characters to carry the struggles inherent.

OR you could ask your own questions from your own worldview that involve what you see as particularly difficult. The hard questions you are faced with, things you have had to deal with... 

Using something you are particularly connected to helps, but I’m not suggesting you write autobiographically or lay your personal life bare for the world. I am not interested in the Actual as much as I am the Truth which can be discovered through metaphor and creative inquiry.

If, for example, you are suffering from a broken medical system, how does that become a story (for stage or page)? How do you invent the characters who are not you? How do you lose yourself and enter the fictional world of what if? I do this with a lot of generative divergent free-writing aka automatic writing. I do this to surprise myself and find out what I don't know that I know. 

I do short bursts of these free-writes with questions I invent like Kushner did here. Make a list of 20 Questions! Pick the one that shimmers with the most energy, or as my friend Deb Margolin said at the symposium I attended with her this past week, "pick the one that, when you tap it, a door opens." 

Let me know where it takes you! 

Brave Space Schedule:

For the week of 3/25 - 3/29/24
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability
Thursday at 12pm ET
Friday at 11am ET and Brave Sharing Salon at 2pm ET

Workshop Tuesdays - after regular Brave Space we share up to 1 page for quick feedback til 2pm ET

Brave Space Friday is earlier this week to accommodate the dog. The Sharing Salon will start at 2pm ET - share up to 10 minutes (1500 words) of work. Let me know you're coming! You can also come to listen, and be part of the feeding back! 

For the week of 4/1 - 4/6/24 (END OF PLAY BEGINS! Register HERE)
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshp & accountability
Thursday at 12pm ET
Thursday at 7pm ET for End of Play added for All Humans. Women and nb folx can attend any of the other Brave Space sessions whenever... 
Friday at 12pm ET
Saturday at 12pm ET Magical Dialogue for the Dramatists Guild Institute (for All Humans signed up for END OF PLAY) Register HERE
Saturday at 4pm Brave Coaching

For the week of 4/8 - 4/12/24:
Monday at 12pm ET
Tuesday at 12pm ET w/wkshop & accountability
Thursday at 12pm ET
Thursday at 7pm ET for END OF PLAY for All Humans
Friday at 12pm ET

Announcements:

If you’re in NYC, go see American Rot at LaMAMA Etc. tickets here

Online via Zoom:

Athena Project call for plays written by artists of underrepresented genders. Emily Perez is the Literary Manager for Athena Project currently accepting submissions for our Read & Rant program for June 2024. Each month, they host a conversation via Zoom that is attended by theater-lovers from all over the country to discuss scripts we read ahead of time. Think "book club" for plays! They feature one to two scripts that have not yet been produced each session and invite the playwright to join our conversation. Guided by a professional dramaturg, they invite attendees to share constructive comments, thoughts, and affirmations in order to aid in the development process of the piece. You can find out more about our past sessions here. Submissions will be accepted from now through March 31. The link for playwrights to submit their work is here: https://athenaprojectarts.org/submit-2/

Saturday March 30th 12-2pm ET Befriend Your Resistance - respond to me directly to sign up!

End of Play begins! More here

Magical Dialogue 12-2pm ET April 6 Register HERE

Brave Group Coaching April - May 4-530pm More info here

If you’re doing End of Play, please join me in April for 4 Brave Space sessions specially designed for you!

Alice Birch has written a fab new adaptation of The House of Bernarda Alba streaming from the National Theatre’s in London.

Also in April Q.M. Zang offers a new creative memoir pop up workshop The Persistent Hum of the Past.

Join me! Onward,

Emma

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