Psychotherapy Of Violence

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Author: Elena Guskova Source:

Against the backdrop of a growing flash mob on the network "I'm not afraid to say" - this article is about the psychotherapy of violence.

After the drama of violence has taken place, a person has two paths of development:

1) drive the experience deeply into the unconscious, from where the ears of fear and helplessness will stick out, periodically pull out memories from the unconscious, return them back to oblivion.

2) bring everything to the surface and treat what happened so that any memories on this topic are neutral. Is it possible? Yes, it is possible.

What are the main feelings of a person experiencing violence? Powerlessness and helplessness. There is no strength to resist and no help.

If you put a marker (sheet of paper) on the floor of the moment when the violence was committed, a person will feel these very states. Let's say it was June 30, 1985, 31 years ago. At that moment, he felt powerless and helpless. I ask you to describe these sensations in the body. Helplessness looks like a solid black metal ball, while powerlessness looks like a lump of swamp slime.

I ask the question: "Did you first feel powerless and helpless on that June day 31 years ago?"

I remember all such cases with which I had to work, and no one ever said: "Yes, it was then the first time." This has happened before.

Feelings of helplessness and powerlessness arose earlier than rape. In fact, people have already "loomed" to their rapists: "I am a victim, I am powerless, and helpless, you can do anything with me."

When did these feelings begin? When a drunken dad held his fist above his head and shouted: "I will kill you," - and the child for the first time in his life realized that he was powerless - hop, and a clot of swamp mucus penetrated his chest. Or when dad beat mom, and the child stood and watched, struck by dad's rage, and at that moment a metal ball of helplessness firmly settled in the throat. Or maybe this was facilitated by the teacher in the kindergarten, who yelled at the child, poking dirty panties in his nose?

Stop. Pause. We fix these moments when helplessness and powerlessness arose. We fix them with markers on the floor.

Next, we go forward from the June date. We look at the situations in which a person felt helpless and powerless, but outside of obvious violence. We put the markers.

Before us are markers - a segment of life that reflects the WHOLE picture of powerlessness and helplessness in the life of a particular person. Yes, in front of them are all those unpleasant pictures that he would not want to experience, but experienced.

And now, in fact, what to do with all this good? Transform memories. How?

I will not dwell on this topic for a long time now, but every negative event in our life contains a lesson and an opportunity for development. We safely slip through these opportunities almost every time, until life squeezes so that it is impossible not to change something, otherwise it is a threat to life and health.

What do you think was the lesson of every person who at some point began to experience helplessness and powerlessness? No matter how trite it sounds, he must become strong and must learn to help himself. In short, he must take off his "vulnerability" shirt.

Someone will immediately ask: "How could a child feel invulnerable when his father threatens to hit him?" Then - no way. Now - when a person can stand on the marker indicating the date of this event - he can.

And the person gets up. True, before that we discuss, and what he likes more - to feel powerless or cold-blooded and confident, how long he wants to feel helpless, how tired he is - in general, we create a willingness to change and raise energy to make a leap into something else state - a state of strength.

So, a person stands on this marker. He raises his eyes to dad (as an option) and looks into his eyes - calmly, without embarrassment. Or takes a step to the side so that the fist does not fall on him. And if these are memories associated with the rapist, then the person begins to call for help, fights (if it was necessary, and if he did it then, then everything would be different), says: “Get out of here or I will call my parents and I'll tell them everything. We find the best and most acceptable variant of the development of an event at that moment, which would suit a person and would not allow him to feel powerless and helpless. And there is always such an option.

In general, the situation is re-living, but in a different way, with new forces, with new resources - the way it should have happened then and would have ended happily.

And so, with such a transformation, we go into all the events of this time period of powerlessness and helplessness, and transform, transform …

It doesn't work any other way. It is possible to talk about it, but too little for major changes.

After such work, a person feels tired, but new. He is no longer someone who can be abused. He will always help himself now. Where is the metal ball and where is the mucus clot? There are no more of them.

Now, looking at the situations he was working on, he is likely to say, "I look at these people [rapists] - how pathetic they are." Miserable, mind you. But not strong anymore, not scary. And that's the whole point. The whole point of psychotherapy of violence.