While there are many theories of war, there is one root cause that seems not to have been widely acknowledged. And yet it is perhaps the single most important root cause of the form modern warfare has taken. Its perpetuation, escalation, and violence, at least, can be attributed to post traumatic stress. (Levine 2000).

It is unfortunate, but trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have forced themselves indelibly onto the global scene as well as into the lives and psyche of this generation. Due to an increase in armed conflict, violence, terrorism and extreme poverty, trauma and PTSD are terms that have begun to dominate this era of human history. As a result of the increased awareness of trauma and its damaging effects of the psyche of individuals, institutions and entire societies, science has begun to explore this phenomenon in a more thorough and pervasive manner then ever before. The findings of these studies are both startling and disturbing.

Through advanced scientific studies and historical research, it has been recognized that there is no avoiding the traumatic aftermath of war; it reaches into every segment of society (Levine, 2002). The effects that trauma has on the general population has been thoroughly studied. It has been demonstrated that work impairment due to secondary comorbid disorders of PTSD such as anxiety, depression, irritability, disturbed sleep and elevated mood disorders all damage the cognitive and interpersonal skills of individuals. This has a staggering impact on the social structure of any country or society. Since the average duration of each trauma episode is reported to be more than seven years, Kessler alerts us to the daunting fact that the typical person with PSTD has a duration of active symptoms for more than two decades. The process of healing therefore will have to be measured in terms of generations rather than years (Kessler, 2000).

Somatic Traumatology

One only has to read the most basic of the literature on the function of the brain, the nervous system and the physiology of stress to understand that the mind and the body are undeniably linked. Rothschild (1994).

Until recently most research programs on trauma and post traumatic stress symptomatology were conducted in the field of psychology. Subsequently all of the recovery programs designed to help relieve symptoms of PTSD addressed the psycho-emotional behaviors of the individual. However, the most recent research in the field of traumatology is helping to dispel this limited view of trauma and PTSD. The cross-fertilization of fields of study such as psycho-biology, neuro-physiology and physiological psychology are revealing new levels of understanding of the effects of trauma on the human organism. This dialogue among diverse fields of medical science has increased scientific awareness of the critical interaction and mutual interdependency of autonomic body responses and neurological processes.

This shift in awareness is increasing the recognition that trauma is primarily an autonomic, physiological and neurological response and this somatic reaction creates a secondary psychological response. Acknowledging that the human organism has a systematic set of autonomic responses that become engaged during the time of trauma allows us to study these unconscious responses. If these autonomic responses can be reversed, then the secondary psychological disruptions can be limited and the psyche of the individual can be restored to health much more readily.

To understand these unconscious physiological reactions, we have to look at the human person as an animal species in the process of evolution. During any traumatic experience the extensor muscles are inhibited so that the flexor muscles can contract. This allows the body to bring the extremities together, creating an enclosure that gives us a sense of safety while protecting the soft, vulnerable parts: the genitals, vital organs, and the head and its contents the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. (Koch, 1997).

A key set of muscles that assist in this complex series of contractions are the psoas muscles. This pair of muscles that connect the trunk, pelvis and legs are considered the fight/flight muscles. These muscles stand guard like sentinels protecting the center of gravity located just in front of C3 of the spine. These muscles help pull the body into a semi-fetal position as a way of protecting it from anticipated harm.
Since this contraction response of the human body is autonomic, instinctual and primarily unconscious it is not necessarily under the control or awareness of the individual. Because the human organism is genetically encoded to preserve its existence, this process of contraction is the emergency survival system designed to engage itself in any real or imagined life threatening experience. Since this emergency mode is not under the control of the conscious brain, the behaviors, actions and reactions of the individual(s) are instinctual rather than calculated and conscious. So, unlike other psychological issues, traumatic experiences cannot be immediately dealt with via conscious and logical methods to achieve a resolution. It is precisely this conscious and logical resolution of a psychological crisis versus the unconscious and illogical resolution of trauma that has tremendous implications for the therapeutic session.

Trauma Releasing Exercises

Since the psoas muscles are primary muscles that contract to protect the center of gravity, it is imperative that these muscles are relaxed so that the somatic recovery process can be engaged. Liz Koch (1997) writes very clearly and at length on this subject in her book The Psoas Book. As Koch tries to point out, traditional stress reduction techniques are designed to release surface level tension and are often insufficient and ineffective in releasing the deep chronic tension created in the body during traumatic episodes, particularly if they are prolonged or repeated experiences of trauma. Likewise, Trauma Recovery Services has designed a unique set of Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE) specifically designed to release the deep, chronic muscle contractions created by severe shock or trauma. By releasing the chronic tension created by trauma the individual feels some immediate relief from the debilitating physical effects of trauma. This relief naturally provides the individual with the psychological insight necessary to continue to integrate their psycho-somatic experience in their trauma recovery process.

Although deep relaxation is the answer to somatic recovery, a fast, effective and efficient method for this deep relaxation still eludes us. However, if we return to our study of the human species we will discover that our trauma recovery process is very similar to most other mammals. As a living species on this planet, we like all other living species are genetically encoded to experience, survive and resolve trauma. It is part of our natural instinct that guarantees we will not only survive but actually evolve as a species. Without it the human animal would already have become extinct.

This mysterious and elusive key that activates the release mechanism of the humans natural recovery process can be found discretely hidden right within the natural psycho-neuro-physiology of our bodies as well. We are already familiar with this mechanism. We use it regularly although we try desperately to control it. Children are our best examples of unguarded behaviors. When a child is frightened or highly charged by some experience, their knees will begin to shake involuntarily. As adults we say I was so angry I shook! When we are unable to control our overwhelming emotions our lips, jaw, legs or hands may shake involuntarily. This shaking is the body’s natural method of releasing tension that has become so high within the system that it requires a discharge. It is precisely this shaking mechanism that needs to be reactivated in the human species after a traumatic event. This shaking mechanism actually stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, discharges the tension in the muscles, reduces the high biochemical levels and restores proper neurological functioning. This combination of effects helps to turn off the organisms emergency protective response and restore it to normal functioning.

By understanding why and how this physiological process occurs we are able to use it to help restore the person to normal functioning. A specific series of anatomical movements and exercises must be followed in order to evoke this shaking mechanism. These exercises create the natural shaking of the iliopsoas muscles (fight/flight muscles). When the natural shaking mechanism of the body is evoked at this powerful center of the body where the protective organismic contraction began, the shaking reverberates throughout the entire body looking for deep chronic tension in its path and naturally dissolving it.

Re-enactment and Repetition Compulsion

Fear is lodged in our bodies. It vibrates in the nervous system and is easily evoked. Although fear is often a subtle experience, we attempt to control this unpleasant feeling of anxiety by adding more muscular tension, resulting in layer upon layer of rigidity. (Liz Koch, 1981)

Post trauma reactions are caused by the residual undischarged excitement (biochemical energy) generated at the time of the traumatic event. If this high state of aroused energy is prevented from being discharged in the body it remains trapped in a bio-neural-physiological loop that causes a repetition compulsion behavior. Until the brain receives a signal from the central nervous system that the danger is over, the body will continue to repeat the bio-neural pattern of protection and defense. The key to a successful recovery from trauma is to activate the organisms natural releasing (shaking) mechanism that signals the body to return to a state of rest and recuperation. Because the excessive energy created in the body during a traumatic event continually seeks an organismic discharge, it will continually repeat some form of the trauma creating a cycle of compulsive reenactment an endless and unstoppable neurobiological feedback loop that keeps the individual locked into a kind of psychophysical imprisonment.

Transformation and Future

Letting go is not for the purpose of forgetting or forgiving the past, it is about releasing the energy of the past to give us back our lives in the present which is necessary to deliver us into a new future.  (Holloway, 2002).

Trauma and tragedies often find their way into our lives despite our greatest attempts at protecting ourselves from the suffering and pain that they inflict on ourselves and our families. As living organisms our bodies know we are capable of experiencing, enduring and recovering from even the most severe of tragedies. It is our egos that try to avoid, deny and refuse to forgive and let go of our past tragedies so we can move into a new future. What we are recognizing however is that it is precisely our inability to forgive and let go that adds to the pain of the tragedy of loss that is already in our hearts. This inability to forgive and let go of the past leads us into an excruciating double bind. Our refusal to forgive the past imprisons us in our own resistance to our natural, evolutionary instincts and thereby has the power to deny us a healthy movement into our future. (Arendt 2000). The question that haunts us is how do we get through this painful egotistical refusal to let go and move on? Why is this so difficult? Once again we are faced with the paradoxical experience of being part reflective human and part animal instinct. One the one hand, the ego refuses to let go of the past because it is equivalent to a second injury or death experience. The primary blow to our existence came from the initial trauma and the second threat to our existence comes from our need to re-experience the painful scars and memories left behind in order to heal. This therapeutic process of remembering, forces us to face the residual reminders of trauma that belie our fragility, vulnerability and precarious place on this planet. This experience is often a shattering of ones self-identity and a destruction of ones entire belief system.

One the other hand, as living organism we are compelled biologically to rid ourselves of anything that is obstructing our growth process. To exist and evolve we have an instinctual (nature-like) mechanism genetically encoded in us so that we can complete our process of letting go of the past and begin something new. This process is nothing more than part of our unending cycle of evolution. This ability to let go only seems to happen when we diminish the egos resistance and increase the bodys natural biological instincts. This process allows the life-force to work in us with less constraint. In this respect, forgiving and letting go are like natural control mechanisms in us that assure our unending process of evolution. There is a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche in Untimely Meditations (1997) that says; we possess the power to grow uniquely from within, to transform and incorporate the past and the unknown, to heal wounds, to replace what is lost, and to duplicate shattered structures from within.

Inevitably, whether we like it or not, whether we want to or not, our trauma recovery process will force us deeper into our bodies and further into the reflections of our minds than we would dare to go. As painful as this exploration may be, in the end we have to resign ourselves to the fact that this is the way things are and that they have been made that way by factors that are not in the persons control. (Holloway, 2002).

Refusing to let go of the past can only force us into a neural feedback loop that causes the trauma to be replayed over and over in our minds in an endless loop of madness. Eventually, the neurological process of our brains will transform this excess neural energetic activity into ideations of hate, revenge, shame, suicide or depression. Once we enter this arena we can be forever trapped into the compulsion and vengeance of victimhood rather than the freedom and forgiveness of survivorhood.

Letting go of the past is, in the end, the individual responsibility of each trauma survivor. It is our responsibility to guarantee that revenge does not steal the future of our life from us. Only this radical experience of letting go can restore our natural biological process. This restoration of our natural instincts of survival and evolution are so powerful that we even give up the need for past ideations of hatred and revenge. With the recovery from each traumatic episode of our lives, we give into and accept more easily the way the universe has treated us. Paradoxically, the more we let go into life the more we discover that we can re-take control of our lives and participate once again in the precariousness nature of being human. Only by letting go can we unlock ourselves from the past, be delivered into the future and prepare ourselves for our next evolutionary experience.

References

Babette Rothschild, M.S.W. & Erik Jarlnaes. (1994). Nervous system imbalances and post-traumatic stress: a psycho-physical approach Members: European Association of Body-Psychotherapy and European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Hannah Arendt, The Portable Hannah Arendt, Penguin, London, 2000, pp.180-181.

Holloway, Richard (2002). On Forgiveness. Canongate Books Ltd. Edinburgh, Scotland.

Kessler, L. This report is from the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. It can be found in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 2000;61 [suppl. 5]:4-12.

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1997). Daniel Breazeale, (Editor), R. J. Hollingdale (Translator), Untimely Meditations, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997, p.62.