This article aims at supporting the healing process for traumatized children. Carl Jung once said, “In every adult there is a Children – an eternal child, something that is always becoming, doesn’t complete, and requires unceasing love and attention.” This is the part which wants to grow, and becomes whole. This is the difficult, courageous journey that takes you back to your eternal child…resources your inherent desire to be whole.
Trauma is a grave injury or penetrating injury that can endanger one’s life. Trauma causes disruption to the normal development course by repeatedly intruding terror into the lives and causing helplessness. Trauma can cause a fracture in one’s personality. This can lead a family to lose trust and identity.
Judith Herman M.D. Dr. Judith Herman wrote in her groundbreaking book Trauma, Recovery that “Repeated traumas in adulthood degrade the personality structure already built.” However, childhood traumas create a personality disorder. The victim of abuse must decide how to make it better. For survival, traumatized kids must resort to primitive psychological defences. For survival to be possible, the abusers should be seen by the child as caring and competent. The primary attachment cannot be lost at any price. This could result in the child trying to minimize or deny the abuse. Sometimes, dissociative states are characterized by complete amnesia. Sometimes, dissociation can cause severe personality fractures and alter personalities.