Helping Children Heal from the Effects of Trauma
Trauma can have long lasting effects on a person. Although war, natural disasters, family violence and serious accidents can leave scars, there are many other lesser traumas that, if repressed, will continue to haunt a person. When such traumas occur in childhood, they can overshadow an entire life.
When clients come to me for Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR) services, often the issue does not completely resolve until they find some roots of it in a childhood traumatic incident. Once that root incident is fully viewed, the charge (or hidden influence), that has been holding those symptoms in place, disappears.
Despite all efforts to protect them, children do experience trauma. In fact, some events that seem normal for an adult can be a serious trauma for a young child who does not have the context and understanding to perceive it as normal. Like adults, children may unconsciously block a few details, or even the entire event, from their memory. As they grow into adulthood, those blocked memories are multiplied by other connections that are unconsciously made between various incidents. The clear lesson is this: the best time to handle childhood trauma is in childhood, before it accumulates a tangled web of additional incidents.
In a documented case a mom brought her 16 year old son to a TIR facilitator. The son was a delinquent high school dropout, addicted to illegal drugs. There were many painful and violent events in his life on the street but, when asked to select a first issue to work on, Carlo first responded that his sister had died. Although he was only two years old when his infant sister died, Carlo had some fragmented memories of the incident. Other details may have come from his imagination or from what others have said. Whatever the sources, Carlo had developed a real belief that he had caused his sister’s death. Reinforcing this belief were other events: he was sent to live for some time with his grandparents while his parents basically lived at the hospital during their daughter’s many surgeries. Also, when the son was about 6 years old, he asked about a baby picture and his mom replied “that is your sister” and abruptly left the room in tears. His parents just could not talk about the event with their son, leaving him with only his own conclusions.
After several times recounting what he could remember, the dreams and imaginations slowly changed into reality and Carlo realized that it wasn’t his fault. What a relief it was for him! His TIR facilitator remarked that “my whole life has been worth it just to see the relief on this poor child’s face.” In this particular situation, the mother then also received TIR services around the trauma of losing a child. Since then, the facilitator says that son and mother are both doing well and communicating effectively together.
The work of recovering repressed or hidden memories with a child can often be faster and more dramatic than for an adult. Simply put, there is a shorter life track to travel, with fewer events to uncover. Also, children are often more capable of contacting buried events, perhaps because they are not laden with years of suppression. Experience indicates that TIR can be used effectively with a child from around 5 years of age and older.
It is important to realize that a child may have experienced a traumatic event, even when adults would not perceive it as such. A negative change in behaviour, with no apparent cause, should be considered a possible symptom of trauma. Is your child having difficulty with social relationships; does he stutter; is he easily frightened for no obvious reason; is he overly concerned about being away from parents? These and other changes in behaviour may be the result of trauma. We should remember also, that experiencing trauma means not only the person who receives the pain, but also anyone who witnesses that event; both victim and witness have been traumatized. When a concerned adult (parent, teacher, or counselor) notices symptoms that suggest a child may be suffering from the negative effects of one or more traumatic incidents, they should consider finding a TIR facilitator to work with that young person.
TIR is a person-centered non-hypnotic approach to dealing with trauma, developed by Frank A. Gerbode, M.D. A TIR facilitator creates a safe environment in which the client can look at painful events. The facilitator does not evaluate what is being revealed, and gradually the viewer is able to see more and more of the details of an event that had been hidden from his view. These basic principles of TIR are particularly well suited to helping children recover from the effects of past trauma.