Trauma disrupts one’s sense of time and causes one to lose the plot of their life, but a new therapy offers hope for building a future. 

Films might cut out after the protagonist has been saved, but in real life, escaping trauma doesn’t equate to walking off into the sunset amid Hollywood credits and a catchy pop song. Many people who have experienced trauma find themselves removed from their traumatic situation for weeks, months, years, and even decades, although they remain unable to move on from the event and rebuild their life.

Those who have experienced trauma or repeated traumas may find themselves unable to construct a future or piece together their past. However, a new therapy is now offering hope to people who find their trauma has prevented them from advancing in life and regaining their sense of self. Is it possible to rebuild after trauma? In order to find out, it’s first necessary to understand the traits of trauma.

How Trauma Shatters Identity

Trauma is something that disrupts one’s life. Though all people experience trauma differently, there is often a before and after, and trying fruitlessly to bridge the losses can cause the trauma survivor countless pain, confusion, and frustration. Trauma by nature changes one’s life. It overturns everything someone knew about the world, yet forces one to continue living in it.

Though people might have found the strength, guidance, and luck to pull themselves out of traumatic situations, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that the trauma just leaves the body. And when the trauma stays, it holds a person back. It can also alter their view on the world and their place in it.

An in-depth report on trauma that Sujata Gupta wrote for ScienceNews details how trauma impacts one’s grasp on reality. Trauma is a powerful experience that can shatter one’s sense of time and cause someone to be unable to piece together how separate events of their past form a connected narrative that contributes to the person they are today.

Trauma Impacts Linear Life Narratives

Trauma can shatter the cohesive narrative of one’s life and leave them feeling as though their past exists in disjointed fragments. This leaves a person unable to firmly understand their placement in the present or work towards constructing a fruitful future.

Trauma so severely disrupts one’s sense of self that it can also root people firmly in the past. Though individuals might have focused all of their efforts on escaping traumatic situations, they might now be mentally tied to their past trauma and are unable to construct a new present and future apart from their past.

People who have been traumatized are at a higher risk of losing their self-continuity, which leaves them unable to stitch together their sense of self over time. Trauma can severely affect memory and cloud one’s views on the past, leaving them with the gnawing feeling that they are still rooted in a stressful situation even though their physical environment has significantly changed.

How Therapy Can Repair Trauma & Identity

Psychologist Yosef Sokol of Touro University developed a new therapy known as continuous identity cognitive therapy to help traumatized people reconstruct their lives with the goal of understanding who they are and what they can do with their futures. This treatment provides hope for moving on from trauma.

Participants work in four stages to reshape, redefine, and rediscover their sense of self. For the first week, they define their core values by reviewing their life experiences and the different choices they made. They are asked to think of people they admire to list which values stand out to them and focus on building a sense of self around the values they seek and recognize rather than events that happened to them. This helps establish an identity outside of trauma.

For week two, participants are asked to think of their futures. They are tasked with constructing possible futures and seeing how the scenarios could play out depending on whether or not they stick to their defined values. They also work on creating self-continuity, such as by writing letters to themselves across various periods.

The third week then focuses on the differentiation between external life stories, what was not within an individual’s control, and internal stories, which are the sum of personal choices based on the defined values. For the fourth and final week, participants are tasked with imagining their future selves overcoming issues that they are currently facing.

Will This Therapy Help Trauma Survivors?

Though this therapy is still being researched, initial results are already promising. Two of the greatest hurdles that traumatized people have to overcome are reconstructing a linear and connected narrative of their past and gaining the ability to visualize a future based on their individual strengths. Continuous identity cognitive therapy is one solution for helping trauma survivors reclaim the plot of their lives.

Trauma recovery empowers survivors to both tell their stories and continue to write new stories for the future. Though life might feel as though it stopped at the moment of trauma, there is still a new life that can be lived after hard work and self-reflection. And survivors of trauma deserve to move forwards and experience this life especially after their past life was taken from them.

Continued Reading: Can Trauma Be Passed Down?