No. [Of course, some people may not understand enough to ask a question.]
T: Now I am going to talk about how severe trauma causes amnesic parts. When we think about trauma (f), we know that we completely remember some traumas. For example, I fall off my bike, go to the hospital, and go home, I can tell everyone I know about my experience. However, when the trauma has extreme emotions and at the same time there are no learned memories to manage the situation, the brain mobilizes with memories triggered by the intense emotions. When the brain mobilizes, the activated memories, independent of the Main Personality, push the Main Personality (MP) out of our Active Experience, and an executive function organizes and creates survival behavior. Behavior is created from the start of the trauma to the end of the trauma. This behavior becomes associated with a new memory structure that becomes a trauma part. When the trauma ends (End), the Main Personality rushes in or rapidly becomes active and pushes the new trauma part (TP) out of the Active Experience to become dormant. Because the Main Personality rushes out and in so fast, there are few associations between the Main Personality and trauma part. This rapid departure and entry of the Main Personality causes the amnesia between parts. Does this explanation make sense to you?
P: It makes total sense. [Most patients say, “Yes,” regardless of whether they understand it.]
T: The Main Personality, at the top of Figure 2-2, now has these bumps on it. These represent amnesic parts and the upline represents amnesia. The problem with having amnesic parts is the emotions from the parts can be triggered into the Active Experience and distort the here-and-now conscious and unconscious experience. With this distortion in the Active Experience, the response created may not result in getting more satisfaction and might put the person at risk. Getting more satisfaction and having less pain is the main reason for treating and integrating parts. Healing is another word for treatment that will remove all the negative emotions from the memory of the part and replace them with neutral or positive emotions. Then the part can join with the Main Personality (i). Parts don’t die or lose information. The subconscious strengthens their positive skills with positive emotions.
They simply exchange information with the Main Personality. The part’s memory becomes exactly the same as the Main Personality’s memory. Now, the trauma part and Main Personality can run the body at the same time without conflict. They still have unique structures. The response creation process uses their combined knowledge and wisdom, as needed, to get more satisfaction and less pain. Any questions?
P: No.
T: I want to ask all your parts to join the Treatment Team (TT) (j). By joining the Treatment Team, you all will want treatment, want your positive skills strengthened, want to work in consensus, and join with the Main Personality. Then you will help make a treatment plan for each member, which will be approved by the agreement of all members. One hundred percent agreement is necessary to accept treatment plans. However, I expect that the treatment of big, intense pain will worry some parts. If you look at (h), I will explain how big pain is treated. The trauma part works with the subconscious, who is drawn under the Active Experience. The trauma part moves over to the Active Experience and puts a little pain into the Active Experience. Five units of pain is just a little of the trauma time (f). The members of the Treatment Team can adjust the rate of treatment until all members are comfortable with the rate of treatment. It can be 5, 3, 1, 0.5, or whatever the Treatment Team decides. On the other hand, if we treated five units of pain one treatment after the other, the trauma part would destabilize and flood emotions into the conscious experience. It is like a word on the tip of your tongue. The word has not flooded your experience so you think of words or associations to help it become conscious. We want to stop the flooding, so we rest after each treatment. Over here (ttttt), you can see the part becomes destabilized and we wait a few seconds (t) until the part has stabilized again and then we treat some more. We repeat the process, treat-rest-treat-rest-treat-rest, until we have treated all the emotional pain associated with the part during the trauma. Will all the parts that want to join the Treatment Team please join the Treatment Team? Any questions?
P: No.
T: Now I want to set up rapport with your subconscious. Please put your hands flat on your legs on the couch beside you. Thanks. [Move each finger as you say the following.] I am going to call the index finger “Yes” and the thumb “No.” Then I’ll label the little finger “I don’t know” and the middle finger “I don’t want to tell you.” In addition, “no response” is a response. These five responses allow me to communicate better with all aspects of you and the subconscious. Now, here comes the fun. I am going to ask if I can talk with your subconscious. Your job is to be curious about whether one of your fingers is going to move and to try not to move them consciously. Now, if you feel sensations on the pad of your finger or something like that which I can’t see, you can move the finger so I can see it move. Do you understand?
P: Yes.
T: Can I talk with your subconscious? [Wait]
S: The middle finger raises. [This response is probably a part.]
T: Oh, [The middle finger — we both blush.] thank you for talking to me. Did you just wake up?
S: Yes.
T: Would you be willing to talk to the subconscious and get all the information about joining the Treatment Team, being treated, and then joining with the Main Personality?
S: No.
T: Are you worried about big, big pain?
S: No.
T: Are you worried that your memories will traumatize the Main Personality?
S: Yes.
T: Well, during the treatment process, the subconscious can use the dissociative process to dissociate all those memories so they will never go into conscious experience. Would you now be willing to join the Treatment Team? [This is an example of a reframe or explanation that neutralizes the concern.]
S: Yes.
T: Thank you. Subconscious, are all the parts on the Treatment Team?
S: I don’t know. [Little finger]
T: Can I talk to the part that said, “I don’t know”?
S: [No response.]
T: Is this part a prebirth part? [Prebirth parts learn to share information from the subconscious with the active personality and are frequent barriers to communication with the subconscious.]
S: Yes.
T: Would you and all the other prebirth parts be willing to join the Treatment Team?
S: Yes.
T: Thank you. Subconscious, are all the parts on the Treatment Team?
S: No.
T: Can I talk to all the parts that don’t want to join the Treatment Team?
S: Yes.
T: Will you all talk to the subconscious to find answers to all your questions and considerations? Then you can make an informed [emphasize] decision about joining the Treatment Team, getting treatment, having your positive qualities strengthened with positive emotions, and joining with the Main Personality? [When I get the parts to talk to the subconscious, it saves time.]
S: Yes.
T: [Wait] Subconscious, have all those parts decided to join the Treatment Team?
S: Yes.
T: Are all the active parts on the Treatment Team?
S: Yes.
T: Do all the members of the Treatment Team want me to teach the subconscious the treatment process?
S: Yes.
T: You mean there are no parts that have an objection to my teaching the treatment process to the subconscious?
S: No. [Oops, wrong answer. Also, “I don’t know,” “I don’t want to tell you” and no response are answers that lead to problem-solving.]