This project [3] spans 4 years [September 2013 to November 2014 or 50 months] and 9 months [18%] of the time-line has lapsed since launched. The motivating factor was based on client psychotherapeutic needs expressed by the target population: a small sub-group of clients, who despite many years of traditional/publically funded health care treatment, plus concurrent use of privately funded complimentary/alternative medicines/therapies [CAM], continued to struggle and suffer from high degrees of dis-ease or treatment resistant, thwarted trauma responses. The impact [depth of suffering] upon their overall health/wellness and functional abilities was noteworthy in their activities of daily living [ADL], and familial plus work-related relationships.
The project hypothesis is that the target population, who meet criteria proposed for C-PTSD [1], may benefit from a practical, clinically coordinated and collaborative team approach of healing-to-cure health care design as mentioned in previous articles http://www.ccpa-accp.ca/blog/?p=3192 . Additionally, the co-investigators are searching for 16 more research control subjects http://www.ccpa-accp.ca/blog/?p=3436 in order to complete comparative analysis of the selected trauma [research] test instruments administered to the target population for the purposes of the project. My primary practice role[s] and function[s] remains and continues to focus on engaging [research, advocacy, healing] with heroic survivors who are capable of self-directing their recovery and healing-to-cure programs/journeys. Being the eternal optimist I am, as evidenced by my own healing-to-cure journey plus 50 years of service delivery in the helping professions [trauma nursing/trauma counselling]; I know my greatest clinical psychotherapeutic skill set is patience with active listening [content analysis] in the depth-of-“it”-all. I am willing to work creatively with people, who are internally motivated and embarked on healing-to-cure journeys. They are the experts, no matter what “it” represents at the depth of their own core sense of being. I am able to stand firm with them, in the now, for I remain anchored by faith, hope and love at my own core.
To witness heroic survivors engage with me while self-directing their healing-to-cure plan, programs, collaborating with the established SLCHG project team of practitioners and simultaneously endeavoring to enlist support or help [perhaps even understanding] from their pre-project, operational systems [professionals + lay] at times appears to be an almost impossible feat for both of us! Trauma is not only part of the human condition, according to Ulrich Schnyder; trauma is a global issue www.ejpt.net/index.php/ejpt/rt/printerFriendly/21241/htm. Psychotraumatology has earned its right of passage and is an established ‘international’ field of study that now promotes ‘global’ collaborations. I struggle to get locals to collaborate. The 21st Century helping professionals and the associations they belong to will be emancipated into expansive virtual learning curves and shared global spaces. Local anomalies and phenomenal experiences need to receive global attention.
In constant states of flux and change human beings endeavor to adjust, adapt and accommodate to change and as the proverb saying goes, “change is as good as a rest.”
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/59/messages/250.html. The premises behind ideodynamic healing, state-dependent memory, leaning and behavior [SDMLB] and trauma memories http://www.ccpa-accp.ca/blog/?p=2660 has captured global attention!
We are altered not only by our own unique life experiences with the significant lessons learned, as gleamed from the stories [legacies] of our ancestors in our background; we are on the forefront and dawning of a new civil formation where people are experientially, virtually bound; engaged and living viral lifestyles with e-commerce businesses within a virtual field and global community interfaced by vast blogosphere networking capabilities and instant messages. The time is ripe due to technological advances for global projects including virtual mapping of ‘The Matrix of Trauma [MOT][2] concept within a global context” for alterations are predominant in C-PTSD http://www.ccpa-accp.ca/blog/?p=3232
Therefore, the challenge for the helping professions will be to find ways to collaborate that are helpful, pave-the-way to support and incorporate new ways of interdisciplinary and planetary virtual experience and realities to advance insights concerning the treatment and healing-to-cure for heroic survivors of traumatic lifetime events. Global collaboration is operationally without borders! Terms like traditional, liberal and conservative loose their grip [hold] on people who operate and utilize virtual spaces. Similarly, the concept of blending of the best from traditional and complimentary and collaborating as teams [participant choice/informed consent obtained] with helping professions for the benefit of health care consumers is steeped in complexity: controversy and diversity to the hilt! How do I begin to address these old ‘turf wars’ and issues? Perhaps, these old barriers will simply fade away into nothingness in a proactive, global collaborative community space?
Author: Dr. Linda AK Thompson, PsyD, CCC, FAAETS
Owner, Matrix of Trauma (© MOT ™): Research, Advocacy, Healing
References:
Pelcovitz, D.; van der Kolk, B.A.; Roth, S.; Mandel, F.S.; Kaplan, S. + Resick, P.A. (1997). Development of a Criteria Set and a Structured Interview for Disorders of Extreme Stress [SIDES]. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 10, p.9. Copyright 1997 by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Printed with permission pg. 88 in Courtois. Permission for Research use granted to Thompson April 2014
Thompson, Linda A.K. (1996). The Matrix of Trauma: A dissertation – partial fulfilment for requirements for degree of doctor of psychological traumatology in psychological assessments and etymology. © Unpublished/Sealed. Summit University of Louisiana, New Orleans: Louisiana.
Thompson, L.A.K. & C.A. Zimmerman (2013 – 2017). MOT: Pilot Project – Silver Linings Core Healing Group [SLCHG]. A Complex-Posttraumatic Stress Disorder [C-PTSD, visionary healing-to-cure, experimental, experiential, applied trauma psychotherapy protocol.
*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA