notes on freedom
A weekly email series containing easily digestible morsels of info on relational trauma and how to find freedom from it.
THIS WEEK IT’S A NOTE ON…a parts approach
Complex relational trauma from childhood exists in many layers of our being. It affects our mind, body and behaviour, our beliefs, identity, energy, ways of coping, relationships, physical health and much more. Because of trauma’s ‘balloon affect’ one theoretical model alone cannot fully describe trauma and how to heal it.
Somatic branches of trauma healing that focus on nervous system healing communicate about trauma in physiological and biological terms. Their clarity on the physiological processes of trauma (e.g. the role of the dorsal vagal nerve) is extremely important and empowering. But I’ve noticed in my clients, and in myself, that a purely physiological explanation can feel unrelatable. Just as the medical model often feels as if it somehow misses the complexity of humanness, the language of these approaches can at times feel a little too mechanical.
A somatic, nervous system approach to understanding and healing trauma is essential. And it must be combined with a language and framework that can reflect the full spectrum of our human psyche and spirit. In short, we need metaphor as well as mechanics.
Parts approaches, like Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) model or Pia Mellody’s Developmental Model, can provide this metaphor and colour.
A ‘parts approach’ to trauma healing encourages us to separate our adult self from our younger traumatised ‘parts’. Whereas a nervous system approach might work with your ‘freeze response’, a parts approach would ask you to get a sense of the part that froze-up. How old is this part of you? What are they afraid of? When did they start protecting you by freezing in this way? What do they need?
Richard Schwartz’s, who founded IFS, explains that ‘parts’ are natural – they’re not the product of trauma. They’re a normal facet of the human psyche. But at some point trauma and attachment injuries move our parts into roles that can be destructive.
Schwartz writes:
“A lot of the time these parts don’t know that you’ve grown up. They’re ‘frozen’ in the time of the trauma and keep doing whatever extreme things they did to protect you when you were young.”
Think about any survival adaptation that started during your childhood – maybe overthinking, striving, anxiety, procrastination, compulsive overeating, people-pleasing – well, within parts work, we get curious about the part of us that acts out the adaptation. This begins as we’re able to unblend just a fraction from the part – we separate just enough that we can see it, validate how it feels and come to understand it better. Over time we learn the power of saying to our wounded younger parts “it’s ok, I see you, I know this hurts, I know you’re feeling afraid.”
Beginning to view ourselves as separate parts is a paradigm shift in our thinking. It feels odd and glitchy to start with. And then, as we begin to more clearly separate our adult self from our traumatised wounded parts it all begins to make sense.
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Sarah Woodhouse is a trauma expert, research psychologist and writer who delivers people the knowledge and tools to recognise and overcome self-defeating cycles, to achieve personal freedom and success. Please follow her on Instagram, Facebook or X for all the latest updates.
