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Break the [wounds +
unawareness] cycle and guard your descendents |
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Recovery from False-self Dominance -
p.
5 of 5
Recovery Themes,
Symptoms of true
Recovery,
and Types of Recovery Help
By Peter K.
Gerlach, MSW |
 The Web address of this
5-page article is http://sfhelp.org/Rx/recovery1.htm
This concluding page describes...
-
seven key
wound-recovery themes,
-
typical signs of recovery progress, and...
-
an
overview of the kinds of recovery help that
are available now.
Note that there are individual recovery articles on each of the
six wounds. If you haven't yet, read the first two pages
in this Web series to get the most from this
page.
 Seven Recovery Themes
Tho individual wound-reduction is unique to each person, there are at least seven
things all recoverers have in common.
1) The six
false-self wounds affect each other. For example, shame, distrust, fear,
and reality distor-tion combine to promote difficulty bonding and loving –
which promotes shame and fear. The silver lining is – reducing (vs.
"curing") each
wound makes reducing the others easier, over time.
Empowering the resi-dent true
Self to lead (goal # 1) reduces all five other wounds simultaneously
- tho each condition needs specific healing efforts.
2) Each wound is the result of a group of
personality subselves interacting: typically
subselves who distrust your
(like the
focusing
narrowly on calming, comforting, or protecting one or more shamed, guilty,
scared, or lonely young
subselves from new
discomforts.
3) Each main recovery goal is
composed of
subgoals. This makes progress more easily identified, and the overall
healing process less
How long do you suppose it might take an average person to make significant progress on all
six of these healing goals (vs. "achieve them")? Do you see why true recovery from
false-self dominance and other wounds is an ongoing multi-year project?
|
4) The overall recovery theme is helping the personality subselves who cause
each wound to (a) meet each other and your true Self and (b) agree on common
life goals; (c) relax old
perceptions and security-strategies; and (d) risk letting your Self and other
subselves make
significant life deci-sions. That frees Guardian subselves to shift to
new personality roles
(functions). |
5) True wound-recovery rarely (never?) occurs without evolving
a serene
and an interactive relationship with, a nurturing, loving (vs. jealous,
punitive, vengeful) Higher Power. Such faith requires (a)
wanting to become
and often (b) some kind of enlightened spiritual (vs. religious)
mentor/s, encouragement, and inspirations.
Reality check: try to find someone in true (vs.
pseudo
)
wound-recovery who is an atheist or agnostic...
6) Note this paradox:
and
effectiveness is hindered by false-self
wounds - and are essential to reducing them. That means
that recoverers benefit from working patiently at
and
at the
same time and
them with other life
goals and priorities.
Because our media ceaselessly urges typical Americans to be excessively busy and
avoid self-awareness, healing progress requires recoverers to want
to replace some current life priorities and activi-ties with commitment to
these two Projects. Typical false-selves will strenuously resist this, until
they trust the benefits of doing so and the resident true Self and other
Regulars. A final recovery theme is...
7) Wound-recovery is
wholistic and organic, like growing a garden. It yields
progress and rewards in different areas, in fits and starts. Some people choose a
structured recovery plan ("I'm working on conver-ting my excessive shame
to self-respect and
this month.") Others evolve an unstructured healing experience
without clear, explicit goals. Though the latter may take longer, the end
results are the same:
-
a calmer, clearer, more focused, spiritual,
enjoyable and productive daily life based on living from your
true Self; and...
-
increasing clarity on, and acceptance of, your strengths, limits, and
your true
Where is your (your subselves') comfort zone between
structured to unstructured recovery now?
Over time, effective wound-recovery usually works best by using an array
of resources like these:
Types
of Recovery Help
Resources
for recovery from "toxic parents," "dysfunctional childhoods," and "child(hood)
abuse"
have exploded since the 1980s, though few of them use the Inner Family
(personality subself) concepts so far.
Options include ...
-
Self-help books and
workbooks;
-
audio and video tapes;
-
Internet Web sites (search on
recovery,
inner wounds, abuse recovery, Adult Child, and healing);
-
Individual therapists specializing in aspects of
"Adult Child" recovery - specially
inner-family therapy;
-
Professionally-run
wound-recovery groups;
-
Local and national recovery conferences,
seminars, and workshops;
-
Lay-led mutual-help groups, many of which are
modeled after the successful 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous groups. These include
and
many more.
Most have national or local Web sites and some have online groups;
-
Art, dance, music, and massage therapies and workshops;
-
Personal
retreats, and focused meditating;
-
Spiritual/pastoral, exercise, and nutritional counseling;
-
Various public and private agency or hospital inpatient
programs - typically two to four weeks, usually with an aftercare-option.
Choosing Effective Help
§
Four key sources
of recovery help are lay and professional people
(e.g. coaches, counselors, clergy, and therapists), the media
(e.g. authors and speakers), and recovery programs and groups.
Each of these can range from ineffective to effective in
promoting true wound-recovery. How can you evaluate potential
resources?
Common traits of effective helpers include…
-
(Ideally), they have some years'
personal experience wound-recovery;
-
They know the difference between
high-nurturance and low-nurturance
relationships,
families, and
groups;
-
•They accept the
realities of
and false-self wounds,
(this is unusual);
-
They are steadily
and are usually
by their true Selves, or are working at that;
-
They have specific, realistic
ideas about recovery goals
and the healing process;
-
•They promote using
nurturing
as
a vital part of the process;
-
•They clearly
understand the concepts of
and
and...
-
•They clearly...
-
understand what an
and addiction recovery are,
-
embrace the
12-step philosophy,
-
know the difference between
and pseudo bottom, and
they know...
-
how addiction
recovery relates to reducing false-self wounds.
§Implication:
to evaluate potential helpers, the recovering person must
understand all these traits and to-pics.
Reality:
most lay and professional people will lack some or all of these
requisites, so their ability to help will vary.
There
are other effective
ways to recover besides inner-family therapy.
Another vital question: How
do you judge whether wound-recovery is working?
Symptoms
of True
Recovery
Common symptoms of true
(vs. pseudo) recovery
from false-self dominance are...
A growing
in a benign (nurturing)
Higher Power and increasing personal aware-ness and
even in
crises and conflicts; and...
Increasingly experiencing the
pleasurable
that your
is guiding and har-monizing
your personality subselves; and...
A growing clarity on your special gifts,
limits,
and related
and...
Increasing abilities to make spontaneous,
win-win short-range and
long-range
decisions, and to calmly trust these decisions despite uncertainties;
and...
A growing number of
high-nurturance relationships,
work and social settings, and activities;
and...
Increasing comfort in
choosing responsibility for your own
life, and compassionately giving others responsibility for theirs;
and...
More true-recovery signs...
A clear decline in daily ambivalence, uncertainty, confusion,
and self doubt, a decrease in sending other people
and an
increase in thoughtful decisiveness; and...
A rising reflex to
laugh
appreciatively (vs. derisively) at personal, human, and Nature's
foi-bles, sillinesses, and ironies; and...
A growing acceptance of
personal rights and of other people's equal rights
- and
responsibil-ities. An enjoyable symptom of this is increasingly-effective
and
and...
Increasing
and
in ambivalent
and anxious situations; and declining (a) rigid, black/white
thinking, and (b) needs to compulsively
feelings, relationships, and events,
without undue anxieties.
And you can feel confident recovery is "working"
when you notice...
A growing ability to
feel and
exchange true
and mutual
love
every day. This includes a growing empathy and compassion for
others who are unaware of being dominated by a pro-tective
false self; and...
Spontaneous genuine
forgiveness
of your subselves and other people for past "mistakes" and betrayals;
and you notice...
Suspicions, jealousies, biases,
scorn, and resentments gradually become empathy, compassion, and
firm
of your
values, opinions, and
with
adults and kids who
hurt, disappoint, or irritate you;
and you will notice...
Increasing periods of genuine
centeredness, balance, happiness, hope, productivity, con-tentment, energized
peace, resilience, focus, clarity, and firmness of beliefs and actions
- specially amidst change,
and conflict; and
also...
An increasing
attitude
of gratitude for recovery; human and spiritual support; and the
beauty, wonder, richness, and opportunities of daily life on Earth.
For more on what to expect from effective wound-recovery (harmonizing your
subselves), see this.
Sometimes
as a
(GWC) breaks old protective denials and starts to
recover, other family members get
interested and start their own healing. When wounded mates both
make per-sonal recovery a high priority, their
relationship
can grow specially rich and strong.
Other times, wounded, insecure kin
and/or partners are threatened by
the recoverer's new attitudes and behaviors, and their
false-self behaviors increase.
This eventually requires the recovering
person to
choose between continuing to heal or ranking key others' insecurities as
being more important. The latter
others' denials, and is usually a symptom of pseudo recovery.
Perspective:
in a stepfamily setting, co-parents
for false-self wounds
is the first of
for long-term
family harmony and
success. I believe ignoring or paying only lip-service to wound-assessment
and recovery steeply raises co-parents' odds of eventual re/divorce
or daily misery. Recall the premise here
that
true phase-2 recovery
can only begin after a GWC hits true
- i.e. exceeds their
personal tolerance for
weariness, and hopelessness.
Are you significantly dominated by a protective false
self? After reading the introductory Project-1 pages,
use the 11
self-assessment
checklists honestly. Then continue
reading
further about ...
-
"dysfunctional" (low nurturance) families,"
-
Grown Wounded Children
[often called "Adult Children" (of dysfunction)]; and ...
-
personal recovery.
Your Self and Higher Power will guide you:
Listen!
If you're
confused and unsure as you
investigate these things, consider consulting a
qualified pro-fessional clinician - e.g. a veteran degreed, licensed clinical social worker,
pastoral counselor, clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or counseling-psychology major
who has studied (and/or is in) true recovery from false-self
dominance.
A clinician who is trained and experienced in
inner-family systems
therapy, Voice dialog, and/or
psychodrama can be specially helpful with this.
Recap
The scope of major U.S. societal problems, including
divorce; and the
existence of the multi-billion dollar "mental-heath" industry, testify to
the epidemic of psychological wounds that most average Ameri-can kids and adults
bear. This is probably equally true in other countries.
Based on 30
years' professional research, this nonprofit Web site proposes that growing up in a
family
environment causes typical young children to
by developing a
and up to five
related psychological
This five-page article:
-
defines true and
pseudo recovery from false-self wounds,
-
overviews
recovery goals for each of the six wounds, using inner-family therapy as a
framework;
-
describes seven
recovery themes to guide the process;
-
hilights typical
symptoms of true wound-reduction; and...
-
summarizes the many types of recovery help
that are increasingly available.
See the overviews of
and
for vital perspective on how, when, and why to choose false-self wound
recovery. The
guidebooks for these two Projects integrate the key Web articles in this
nonprofit site.
What would you like to do with what you just
learned?
Options: invite selected people to view this
introduction to wound-recovery basics - (slides
or text), and
note these options for
relating well-enough to significantly-woun-ded
adults and
kids.
+ + +
Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get
what you needed? If not, what
you need? Who's
these questions - your
or
Project-1 index
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Updated
January 04, 2009
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