I think I know who I am and take pretty good care of myself, so why do I keep on making the same mistakes, resorting to old patterns, having these recurrent and/or ‘strange’ medical conditions or accidents?
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Resociative Medicine takes some old philosophical ideas and throws in a handful of existentialist hope: i.e. that whilst we are some way fated by inherited genes, accidents, illness and other experiences, as well as transgenerational traumas and cultural norms, with help we can still shape our (embodied) destiny. The process is about developing neuro-emotional resilience and capacity at the deepest level, and so permanently changing the way one responds to situations, physically, mentally and/or emotionally, even under the most challenging of conditions. It is about regulating disordered systems and re-integrating dissociated selves or parts of self. It is about processing challenging emotional charge and acheiving 'post-traumatic growth'. The practice of Resociative Medicine is based on the understanding that the sum of our knowldege is not contained in our (head) brain, and that there is a distinction between knowing oneself and being ‘fixed’, versus the creative wisdom of being ‘healed’. The journey to healing is an embodiment process and working with all the accumulated emotional charge and memory in the tissues: charge that lies behind undesirable reactivity when threatened (not only emotional and behavioural, but also physical, such as inflammatory or unstable immune processes). Without this journey, one ‘coping’ or ‘survival' strategy may simply be shifted to another body system or behaviour, reflecting the fact that most ‘unhealthy’ patterns are simply attempts by a person/body (consciously or subconsciously) to protect themselves and feel safe. Hence there is often considerable resistance to change, and fear of it, or even fear of the fear of change, despite clear evidence that change would be beneficial. To acheive this change one needs to work with the conscious and unconscious selves simultaneously. For it is the case that soley cognitive approaches, invasive procedures or some medications may risk issues emerging in an even more challenging way in the future (by virtue of suppression or pushing the underlying dysregulation to another part of the self). Understanding however the value of many conventional approaches in initially bringing awareness to a problem and/or stabilising the system. The core ‘physiological’ awareness of Resociative Medicine rests on how dysregulated or dysfunctional autonomic nervous systems, or parts there-of, can feed into disruption of the immune and inflammation systems on the one hand, and behaviours and emotional filtering on the other. Thus Resociative Medicine takes a truly holistic bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach, where spirituality can simply be interpreted as the capacity to feel and connect in appropriate, boundaried ways with self and other. Whilst time is a great healer, frequently it simply isn’t enough. This is especially true of unprocessed relationships or events that involve the 'big emotions' such as shame, grief, envy, jealousy, esctasy and even joy. The charge of these emotions, and their links with identity and self-esteem, can easily overwhelm the interconnected systems, ultimately resulting in dis-ease. Resociative medicine works directly with these and other overwhelms in a creative, safe and paced manner, to resolve the charge without retraumatisation and acheive the desired growth. It can also simply change Time. |
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