Unprocessed Trauma
When dealing with an event from your past that has not been fully processed. This can lead to intensely negative core beliefs about one’s self. Statements such as “I will never be the same again” can occur.
Research suggests that individuals who have endured significant stress in their lives are at an increased risk of experiencing avoidance, anger, frustration, and anxiety as primary ways of being in the world, regardless of their circumstances. Early trauma and insecure attachment (Not feeling safe with a caregiver) correlate with low reflective functioning (Who I am in the world).
Trauma can be difficult to remember. As your therapist, we work on both the physical repercussions of the trauma experienced as well as the sensations felt with that event.
“Attention to the trauma-related sensations felt in the body is necessary to identify and resolve all aspects of traumatic memory fully" (Van der Kolk, 2014).
Returning to an event with your counsellor will allow you to process and go through that event in a safe space. This allows active neuroplasticity to occur (where there is a change to this memory) in which the new learning is rewritten in place of the old memories before being returned to long-term memory (Ecker et al., 2012).
All effective psychotherapies carry out memory reconsolidation either implicitly or explicitly.