Re-Membering

Let's start from the idea that every individual has the capacity for all the mood states, from bleak depression and runaway anxiety, to elation and joy, and that the differences among people in terms of mood is not their capacity but their "habits." If it were a question of capacity, then presumably people suffering from, say, chronic depression, would never have felt anything but depression, and would never have any reprieves, any light days or happy moments. So if that's true, then what we've got is a problem of remembering .



Laurel Parnell, a psychologist and specialist in EMDR (a treatment for trauma which I'll write about later), has written a book called Tapping In , about the use of what she calls "resource tapping." Resource tapping uses the central discovery of EMDR, that when the brain is stimulated bi-laterally (by either moving the eyes back and forth, or tapping sequentially on each side of the body, or use of audio pulses), and traumatic memory is held in the mind, then there is a discharge or release of the trauma. It's a rather odd discovery that was made in the late 80's, and the scientists have not quite figured it out theoretically, but it does work and the research data shows that it is effective in relieving the symptoms of trauma.



However, Parnell's book is about how, when positive thoughts are held in the mind, and then bi-lateral stimulation is applied, those thoughts become more seated , like gently tapping on a peg to seat it in its hole. The thought (usually as an image) is brought to mind to evoke a desired feeling (say, safety), and when that desired sense is felt in the body, the tapping is applied.



As an example, I was working with a woman who felt frightened a lot. I asked her to think of a person or animal who, when brought to mind, carried a sense of protection and caring for her. She thought about it, and after a little bit, the image of a lizard came to mind. She'd been very connected to lizards as a child, living on a farm and on the edge of a large forest, where these animals had given her solace in a fairly lonely upbringing. She called the lizard forth, and she tapped on her knees, "tapping it in," allowing the associated sense of safety to strengthen.



She wasn't at all sure anything had happened when she left the session, though the lizard image had been consoling in the moment. But the next time we met, she told me that she'd been walking down a street near her house, and a car had almost run her down in a crosswalk. Whereas typically she would have shot into a panic and stayed there for some time, what she noticed was that immediately the image of the lizard sprang to mind, and in her imagination began stroking her hair like a mother with her child. She saw that her system began calming down right away, and she did not carry the fright beyond the incident itself. What could have been a low-grade trauma (an overwhelm of her nervous system) was simply a jet of adrenalin.



As you can see, she did not try consciously to soothe herself, but that the work we did created an association between feeling frightened and the soothing image such that when the emotion arose, the soothing also happened. Through this image--which actually is arbitrary, and the content is only important in that a particular individual's system associates the image with the desired feeling/state--an equilibrium was reestablished and trauma avoided.



What's happening is that resources that are already there in an individual are being accessed and connected with other parts of the mind/brain. My client had the capacity for self-soothing, but just wasn't remembering how or when to do it. Her's wasn't a resource problem, it was a remembering problem.



My preference, though, is for the term re-membering a bit better, as it seems to me a little more evocative and accurate. Our psyche's inevitably become dis-membered throughout our lives, often most strongly in our childhoods (via belief systems or trauma), and its natural resources go dormant, relatively unused or unaccessed. With depression, say, states of peace and self-acceptance don't disintegrate or die, they simply become disassociated from the individual. The depressed person, in a deep way, forgets that they have this capacity to experience, well, un-depression, and it requires effort and practice to remember the capacities exist, and then to re-member the psyche so that these resources become more readily available to day-to-day life.



The wonderful thing, though, is that with most people, their forgotten resources are just in the penumbra of consciousness, and can often be quickly called in. I've seen people cycling in fear or anxiety find images that, whoosh!, connect them to a state of safety so quickly it initially surprised me. Depression sometimes is a bit more difficult; the resources are there, but instead of being in the next room, they might be downstairs in the kitchen. However, they exist, and with other supports (medication, nutrition, exercise, more social contact) they become easily available as well.



The other wonderful thing about this resource work is that the resources that a person finds are unequivocally theirs. My client's lizard image came from within her own brain, and the soothing that ensued also came from own brain and neurological system. So if that's where it arose (and not from some outside intervention, divine or medical), and she's presumably always walking around with her own brain, then the resource is potentially always available.



Then it's just a matter of remembering.



(Resources: Dr. Parnell's website ; Tapping In on Amazon ; EMDR's main website )