Others positively don’t want treatment. Any one of these parts, therefore, can cause a barrier to the treatment process. These disruptive parts have to be helped to join the Treatment Team either by a representative of the Treatment Team, the subconscious, or the therapist. Chapter 3 and later chapters provide treatment details about these and other barriers to treatment. Activity in the Active Experience causes a condition called disorganization, which is a barrier to treatment.
Treatment in the Active Experience requires that the Active Experience be calm or organized so the structure of the trauma part does not change. The activity of other parts or active memories in the Active Experience can disorganize the Active Experience. The disorganization stops the treatment process. When the Active Experience is disorganized, the activity in the Active Experience changes the trauma memory’s neural structure to a series of new memory structures. This is not, in itself, a problem because a new memory structure created once is not permanent. However, this disorganization prevents negative emotions associated with the target memory structure from changing, and hence the treatment process does not work to change the pain associated with the target.
Many kinds of barriers can stop the treatment process or inhibit communication with the subconscious. Chapter 3 explains in detail about removing these barriers. Giving information or looking at the barrier in a different way handles most of them. Sometimes removing the barrier involves explaining the function of the brain or explaining how the barrier interferes with getting more satisfaction and less pain. Here is a partial list of the barriers:
•A part has just awakened and needs educating, or there is more than one part active in the Active Experience at the same time.
•Sometimes a part doesn’t want treatment because of the fear of pain or loss of function, or a part wants more pain and less satisfaction.
•Some parts have beliefs that stop them from communicating.
•Less often, a barrier is caused by a part without eyes or ears, or a part that is emotional or muscle activity is functional, while the sensory experiences of that part remain dormant.
•Finally, a barrier is caused when a brain polarity reversal stops the learning process necessary for treatment.
Soon, you will read a transcript of a first treatment session giving the dialogue between the therapist, the patient, and the subconscious. The transcript will give you an idea of how Process Healing works. It shows how I introduce the Process Healing Method. Several barriers are resolved. I have also included examples of treatment interventions showing how I handle (residual) issues. There are some examples of problem solving. I also describe interventions, such as tagging and treating parts, and give three examples: treating shame and guilt, dreams, and anger.
An example of teaching the Process Healing Method
This transcript is a condensed example of teaching the information needed for doing Process Healing with a patient, friend, or yourself. As you recall, I present a model of the development of the personality, the reasons for getting treatment and joining with the Main Personality, and then address barriers. There are barriers to wanting to join the Treatment Team and barriers to treatment. I found the more I taught Process Healing to patients, the less I had to do to resolve some barriers. I attribute this change to the fact that some apparent nonverbal communication is taking place between my patients and myself (Flint, n.d.). For this reason, I am able to leave out most information and use a “bare bones” approach, teaching only the information needed to use Process Healing.
I recommend that with your first patients you initially give all the reasons for being treated. Then review with the patient most of the barriers to wanting to join the Treatment Team and to wanting treatment. This repetition of the teaching method will firmly implant these concepts into your memory. Read Chapter 3 many times so the barriers and reframes are easily available from your memory. Implanting these concepts will help you remember the correct solution to a barrier when you need it.
When teaching Process Healing in my office, I draw pictures to help the patient understand more clearly what I am saying. These pictures add a visual aid to my explanation. Teaching Process Healing over the telephone is different. In that case, I try to describe a visual picture to go with what I am saying. Sometimes, I direct the patient over the telephone to draw some of the figures on a piece of paper. So far, many of those who are willing to do therapy over the telephone usually have a productive experience with therapy and are easy to work with. I ask them to read Chapter 3, downloaded from the internet (Flint, 2005), to see if they can teach the treatment process to themselves.
Here is an example of teaching the treatment process to a person in my office. I have included several examples of its application.
T: (That’s me.) So, would you like to have me teach you Process Healing?
P: (The patient.) Yep, I sure would.
T: I am going to try to get all aspects of your personality to join a Treatment Team. All members of the Treatment Team will want their trauma treated, their positive qualities and behaviors strengthened with positive emotions, to work on a consensual basis, and to join with the Main Personality. I usually start by giving you a visual description of what I am describing. Can I move a little closer to you so you can see my paper? (See Figure 2-2, next page.)
P: Yes.
T: Can you see my paper?
P: Yes.
T: Up here on the top, I am drawing our lifeline. This point here is conception and this is birth. Sometime after conception, our brain starts learning words and phrases. At birth, when our senses become active, the objects and actions that we see and hear are linked to the words. A language forms and continues to form throughout our whole life (a). I call it the subconscious (S). Does that make sense?
P: Yes.
T: Then shortly before birth, or at birth, our Main Personality (MP) starts forming and continues to the present (b). [I initially draw a straight line.] We start learning in utero and continue to learn all our lives. Learning means the formation of memories. The formation of memories for the Main Personality amass in what I call Memory III. [Draw an ellipse around the MP line in the figure at b.] Memories in Memory III are used to run our body and thoughts. Memory III contains dormant memories. Dormant memories are ready to be triggered into our experience by an emotion or some content of an active memory. For example, if I asked you this question, oops, the answer is not conscious yet because the question has not triggered the answer. So, you don’t know the answer, but if I ask, “Do you remember when you last rode a bicycle?” the question will trigger the dormant answer. The answer or memory awakened and popped into your Active Experience. Do you understand so far?
P: Yes.
T: Now, I am going to explain how our behavior and thoughts form. Here we have what I call the Active Experience (c). The Active Experience represents all the activity in the brain and body related to survival. It is where all our internal and external sensory experience, all our internal processes, and the Main Personality are active. It includes all the Content and Emotion Memories triggered into our experience that are used to form the next response. The creation of behavior is a recurrent process, which means that our last response is the basis for the next response. For example, suppose I am moving my hand to scratch my ear. My nose starts tickling. This new stimulation will result in changing the direction where my hand is going. My hand will scratch my nose.
Now, what is interesting about the Active Experience is there is a dissociation process (d) that causes the conscious and unconscious experience. It is the job of the dissociation process to simplify the content and emotions of our conscious activity so we can behave to get more satisfaction and less pain. There is also an association process (e). When memories in the subconscious trigger other memories, the association process allows the most fitting memories to be triggered. If it lets in memories too easily, then a pencil might look like a hot dog. The association process is like a metaphor manager and limits which memories can become