The Impact of Trauma on the Subconscious

Many people don't realize it but a traumatic event can have a life long impact even if we are not consciously aware of it. To help understand how trauma affects our subconscious and what type of help is available for someone that has experienced trauma, I have interviewed psychotherapist Rhonda Moore.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

"I am a Licensed Professional Counselor in Private Practice in Houston, TX. I specialize in Trauma Recovery and have developed a process that helps a person transform their automatic responses by working deep within the subconscious. I developed my system over the past 20+ years working with survivors of abuse and assault, incarcerated persons, and now with my clients in my practice."

What is trauma?

"Psychological trauma refers to emotionally painful, distressful, or shocking experiences that result in lasting mental and physical effects. Psychological trauma is individually constructed and is influenced by the age, circumstances, and sensitivity of the individual at the time of the experience. What is traumatic for one individual may not be traumatic for another."

Can you give us some examples?

"In my system, I refer to traumatic events. A traumatic event may be a single incident such as an accident or an assault, or it may be a series of incidents that happen over a span of months or even years such as sexual abuse or engagement in war. More examples would include the sudden and unexpected death of a loved one, surviving a natural disaster, witnessing a tragic accident, or seeing a pet injured or killed. Because of the way our mind works, psychological trauma can manifest under a variety of circumstances. I had a client who complained of an unexplainable fear of death spanning her entire memory. We eventually uncovered her fear of cartoon characters, which led us to her extreme dislike of what is held to be a beloved movie about an extraterrestrial character. Her first viewing of this movie was when she was 2 years old. For her 2 year self, this was a real experience and was both frightening and devastating because the character not only died but also inexplicably came back to life."

That is very interesting. Can you tell us more about the mind and how trauma affects our subconscious?

"This gets a little tricky. The term "subconscious" is variably used and rejected as a term in psychology. However, I have defined the word in my system to denote our automatic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that happen without our attending to them in our conscious awareness. Look at walking for instance. I get up and walk from place to place without thinking about balance, movement, or any of the mechanics of walking. There was a time when I was first learning to walk that I attended to walking with great effort and in earnest. What happened? I became experienced at walking, so experienced in fact that it became automatic for me and I no longer need to attend to walking.

All of our experiences become part of our mind, both in our awareness and in a deeper place within our mind, which I refer to as the subconscious. When we experience traumatic events, those events become part of our mind. It is inevitable. Children may repress memories of abuse to survive, but the events are still held below their awareness and leak out in their automatic responses to their surroundings and their current experiences.

I teach my clients that our mind is made up of two components for the use of my system, our conscious awareness and our subconscious. Our conscious awareness is unable to multi-task and can attend to only one thing at a time. Let's look at texting and driving for example. In the case of texting and driving, one of the activities must become part of our subconscious mind, i.e. automatic responses. Usually this is driving. Have you ever had the experience of arriving at your destination and not remembering the drive there, even though you were the driver? Most of us are experienced enough drivers to drive automatically under "ordinary" circumstances. The problem comes when something out of the ordinary happens such as heavy traffic, another driver suddenly stopping in front of you, someone or something running in front of your car, etc. If your conscious awareness is attending to texting, you will struggle to bring driving back to your awareness so that you may decide what to do at a critical moment. By the time you are aware of your driving, the moment to act has passed and you have the pleasure of being consciously aware of the mess you are in!

Our subconscious is an awesome multi-tasker. I am breathing in and out, beating my heart, taking in cues from my surroundings, typing, and doing any number of things below my awareness. Through my work I have found that every experience, and every facet of every experience, that is the sensations, thoughts, and details of the experience, is held in our subconscious. The subconscious part of our mind can be a useful and productive tool in our recovery, if we know how to listen to and follow this amazing resource."

What type of help is available for someone that has experienced trauma and needs the area of the subconscious healed?

"The most commonly used therapeutic methods used to treat trauma are exposure methods. The person "relives" the traumatic experience in their mind in increasing details until the experience is remembered in totality. The idea is to help the person process the event from a present perspective and to desensitize them to the emotions and responses they initially experienced. I find that the "reliving" of traumatic events is inconsistently effective and for sensitive individuals or in cases of complicated trauma, can be more damaging than helpful. Desensitization tends to wear off over time and requires greater and greater exposure to have the same levels of effectiveness.

There is another method called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) that is well-researched and found to be effective in some cases. This method requires the therapist be trained and experienced in the process. It also requires the reliving of the trauma in the mind by the individual.

In my opinion the most effective and least potentially harmful treatment gives the person a new experience that combats the "lessons" of the traumatic experience. For instance, if the trauma taught you that you are worthless and that you were created to be used sexually and emotionally, a therapeutic experience would include a caring therapist who taught you healthy boundaries and to respect yourself as a person.

I volunteer in the summer at a camp for children who have experienced a traumatic event. This camp is a wonderful example of offering experiences that help the children redefine who they are and rebuild their self-trust and self-respect. It is a week-long camp filled with activities that challenge and empower the children, coupled with caring and warm staff members who provide appropriate affection while honoring the children's boundaries.

I have developed a system called the Experiential Transformation System © (ETS © for short) that works deep within the mind using the subconscious to construct transforming experiences using the traumatic event. The person is not required to relive any painful or traumatic event and is kept safe from the trauma. They are encouraged to take on empowering roles such as rescuer or defender helping them to recover and rebuild a healthy relationship with themselves. After working with many different clients using various therapeutic models, I have found ETS to be the most effective with the most lasting results."

Thank you Rhonda for doing the interview on the impact of trauma on the subconscious. For more information on Rhonda Moore or her work you can check out her website at www.PeaceThruUnderstanding.com.

Recommended Readings:http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/6041508/how_trauma_is_connected_to_the_body.html?cat=5">How Trauma is Connected to the Body

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5992282/how_to_overcome_post_traumatic_stress.html?cat=5">How to Overcome Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5905054/treatment_methods_for_post_traumatic.html?cat=5">Treatment Methods for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder