The Trinity of Trauma: Ignorance, Fragility, and Control

Enactive trauma therapy is grounded in so-called enactivism, which holds that, like anyone else, traumatized individuals are (1) embrained, embodied, and environmentally embedded; (2) constitute biopsychological organism-environment systems that are essentially interested in preserving their existence; (3) are primarily affective and oriented toward making sense of things. Individuals exhibit a phenomenal self, world, and self-of-the-world through self- and world-oriented actions. They do not act on the basis of knowledge, but possess knowledge on the basis of world-engaged sensorimotor, affect-laden, and goal-oriented actions. Whenever interpersonal traumatization by significant others occurs, individuals may get caught up in affective and relational conflicts they cannot resolve on their own. Their generation and maintenance of a trauma-related dissociation of the personality involves a kind of sense-making that supports their continued existence when their capacity to integrate traumatic experiences is still too low. However, what starts as a courageous effort to navigate a traumatizing life may at some point in time become a serious problem. Enactive trauma therapy comprises the collaboration of two organism-environment systems: the patient and the therapist. Together they spawn new meaning and adequate actions - an interaction that resembles dancing: It takes pacing, mutual attunement, good timing, a sensitivity to balance, movement and rhythm, courage, as well as the ability and willingness to follow and lead.

Ellert R. S. Nijenhuis, Ph. D., ist Psychologe, Psychotherapeut und Forscher. Seit mehr als 30 Jahren diagnostiziert und behandelt er schwer traumatisierter Patienten. Er lehrt und publiziert zu traumabezogener Dissoziation und dissoziativen Störungen. Er ist Forschungsberater der Klinik Littenheid (Schweiz) und arbeitet mit mehreren europäischen Universitäten zusammen. Die International Society for the Study of Trauma und Dissociation hat ihm mehrere Preise verliehen, darunter auch für sein Lebenswerk.