TRAUMA

 

At an excellent workshop I attended at California Institute of Integral Studies, entitled "Tibetan Compassion Practices: Working with Terror, Trauma, and Transcendence," the workshop presenter, Dr. Steven Goodman, broadly but usefully defined trauma as "temporary energy patterns that are not being supported by kindness and compassion."

Trauma, Dr. Goodman explained, is the way the human mind/body reacts to any situation in which it is subjected to terror (violence, abuse, oppression, etc.) that it cannot successfully fight, escape from, or otherwise master at the time.

Terror is the incoming assaultive energy; trauma is the imprint it leaves. Terror is external oppression; trauma is internalized oppression.

Trauma creates a sense of energetic lack, which leads to a sense of need - a need to consume/possess more and more to fill the void, or a need to compulsively defend oneself (sometimes in a manner that feels/looks more like attack than defense to those in the line of fire or to sane bystanders).

Trauma, in this sense of the word, is a basic, pervasive part of the human condition.

The above definition of trauma is very similar to Wilhelm Reich's concept of "character armor."

Trauma or character armor acts as a set of constrictions, blockages, and barriers - points of resistance - in the mind/body, serving to lock down, lock out, and/or enshadow various parts of one's being. These parts are what the Jungians call the Shadow.