Post by Admin on Feb 8, 2024 11:29:25 GMT
Complex Trauma & Self Actualization
Exhuming dormant potentials
medium.com/invisible-illness/complex-trauma-self-actualization-e89189024f1f
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.” ~ A. Maslow
Repetitive traumatic experiences such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, neglect, abandonment, witnessing violence, and other forms of chronic stress or adversity results in a mental disorder referred to as complex trauma. Those who have endured cumulative and prolonged exposure to such adverse experiences, for an extended period such as childhood, find themselves beset by developmental disasters. On account of this, personal growth is derailed in a variety of ways.
As a survivor and seasoned psychotherapist, I know all too well how traumatic abuse presents a significant barrier to actualizing one’s natural capabilities. The term self-actualization, popularized by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in his hierarchy of needs theory, refers to the realization and fulfillment of one’s talents and potentials. It is the process of becoming the best most authentic version of oneself and achieving personal growth and fulfillment through creative expression, problem-solving abilities, and a sense of morality and purpose.
The realm of relationships is crucial to either stimulating or impeding actualization. After all, it is irrefutable that we require secure connections to others. Since we are social creatures, being surrounded by significant life affirming relationships is crucial for self development. This being the case, it’s understandable how having one’s attachment template shaped by chronic neglect and abuse sets in motion a trajectory of distrust, rejection and low self-esteem, which derails the course of self-actualization.
Indeed, being displaced, ostracized, unwanted, or abandoned by one’s familial tribe ensures that difficulties in forming healthy, trusting relationships later in life occur. In fact, if severe chronic abuse and neglect infiltrated the parent-child relationship, traumatic enactments will seep into adult bonding in a subconscious effort to master core attachment injuries.
As developmental psychologist Erik Erikson’s theory of life span development conveys, when children’s needs aren’t…
Exhuming dormant potentials
medium.com/invisible-illness/complex-trauma-self-actualization-e89189024f1f
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.” ~ A. Maslow
Repetitive traumatic experiences such as physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, neglect, abandonment, witnessing violence, and other forms of chronic stress or adversity results in a mental disorder referred to as complex trauma. Those who have endured cumulative and prolonged exposure to such adverse experiences, for an extended period such as childhood, find themselves beset by developmental disasters. On account of this, personal growth is derailed in a variety of ways.
As a survivor and seasoned psychotherapist, I know all too well how traumatic abuse presents a significant barrier to actualizing one’s natural capabilities. The term self-actualization, popularized by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in his hierarchy of needs theory, refers to the realization and fulfillment of one’s talents and potentials. It is the process of becoming the best most authentic version of oneself and achieving personal growth and fulfillment through creative expression, problem-solving abilities, and a sense of morality and purpose.
The realm of relationships is crucial to either stimulating or impeding actualization. After all, it is irrefutable that we require secure connections to others. Since we are social creatures, being surrounded by significant life affirming relationships is crucial for self development. This being the case, it’s understandable how having one’s attachment template shaped by chronic neglect and abuse sets in motion a trajectory of distrust, rejection and low self-esteem, which derails the course of self-actualization.
Indeed, being displaced, ostracized, unwanted, or abandoned by one’s familial tribe ensures that difficulties in forming healthy, trusting relationships later in life occur. In fact, if severe chronic abuse and neglect infiltrated the parent-child relationship, traumatic enactments will seep into adult bonding in a subconscious effort to master core attachment injuries.
As developmental psychologist Erik Erikson’s theory of life span development conveys, when children’s needs aren’t…