True Resilience

In the many months since I have blogged, I have not been idle…I have used my Facebook page:  Challenging Children to write.  Sometimes, I realize that I just might be getting too wordy for a Facebook page and should use the blogging instead.  Today’s thoughts are on what it takes to be resilient in the face of childhood trauma.  As always, I invite your comments.

Have you seen the movie, “The Heat” or the show “Mad Men”?  These are fictional stories of adults, but so obviously adults who have not healed from childhood trauma and keep trying to bury their life story with arrogance and false pride (really fear and stress in disguise).  They have achieved success, and some would say have shown how resilient people can be despite so many odds.  And then I realize that no one really puts his trauma to rest. In order to have healthy adult relationships, healing is what is most important and that is a process.  Trauma is not forgotten, it becomes a part of one’s life experience.  In the healing process children and adults develop a true resilience. True resilience because when trauma is worked through and healing has taken place, any shame and guilt that may be felt is understood from the perspective of who is really responsible for abandonment, abuse, or neglect. They learn the tools to calm when the unconscious trauma memories are triggered and come flooding in. 

About Author

Elaine Spicer

I have been a social worker for 31 years. My work has been with families and children first in the area of Child Protective Services and then as a therapist working with the same population. I have worked with divorcing and divorced parents teaching co-parenting techniques, supervised therapists and have been a social worker for emotionally challenged children and adolescents in an inner city school system. About 7 years ago I was introduced to the work of Bryan Post and, as a friend and colleague said at the time…I went Post-al. All of my previous assumptions and indeed my work using behavioral interventions, got pushed aside. And along came the realization that none of the interventions, meant to change behaviors, had anything in common with helping children heal from the trauma they had experienced. My best work these days is as a coach/consultant for parents, other caregivers, and teachers. The services I provide are parent education, coaching, consulting and supervising. I am the mother of five adult children and grandmother to five. I am both a bio mom and an adoptive mom.

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