Questions Answers Insights Into The Complexity of Trauma

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal
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© COPYRIGHT 2017
Roland Bal. No portion of this book,
except for brief review, may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval
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MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
The following information is intend-
ed for general information purposes
only. Individuals should always see
their healthcare providers before
acting upon any suggestions made
in this book. Any application of the
material set forth in the following
pages is at the reader’s discretion
and is his or her sole responsibility.

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Licensed to Bruce Belcher. Email: deafcanuck@gmail.com, IP: 24.141.128.131
AUTHOR
Hello. My name is Roland Bal and I am the founder of the website
www.rolandbal.com.
I use a cognitive and somatic (body) based psycho-therapeutic approach to

effectively treat Complex Trauma and PTSD.
These eBooks have grown out of a need to provide a cognitive road map to help
those who seek to educate themselves and want to recover from trauma.
They outline the complex processes of trauma and go in depth into the various
mechanisms of Post-Traumatic Stress and how to bring about its resolution.
My overall approach to working through trauma focuses on nervous system

regulation, resilience, containment and processing of emotional residue, revers-
ing the processes of dissociation, bringing into awareness one’s particular fight-
flight-freeze-please responses, and relearning boundaries and vulnerability.
These eBooks are written in an easy to understand language and have proven
to be an excellent resource for laymen and professionals alike.
I sincerely hope they will be of help to you in your healing journey.
Best wishes,
Roland

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INSIGHTS INTO THE COMPLEXITY OF TRAUMA

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
I have composed this particular eBook out of the many questions I have
received over the past several years regarding dealing with Post-Trau-
matic Stress.
As it takes me considerable time to answer questions, and knowing my

responses can be of help to more people, I thought it wise to put them all
together and add them to The Trauma Essential eBooks.
This eBook displays my unique and particular approach to trauma, which

is based on real-time concerns and questions, from people just like you.
.
They are insightful and concise and I am sure you will find value in them.

4 www.rolandbal.com
1 But why does recovery take so long?
Some patterns are so deeply ingrained that it takes multiple efforts
to resolve them. At other times we, keep so much within our own
enclosed space that it slows down progress.
You may find yourself going through spurts of healing at times
depending on the people you meet or work with, or due to changes in
life circumstances.
2 Can PTSD ever be resolved?
The scar will remain, yes; but the emotional residue, which is the
wound, can be resolved. That said, I am not saying it’s easy!
Working through trauma is arduous and requires tremendous courage!

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3 I don’t understand why the dissociative elements that cause
such gut wrenching physical and emotional pain will not give
way to consciousness, so that one can shine a light on the
darkness and bring about healing.
Dissociation is both a lifesaver, as it attempts to regulate the
overwhelming emotions, and may form an obstacle to healing, as it
keeps the emotional inner storm from being fully met.
This is the conundrum of trauma. Understanding these mechanisms
and then slowly, gently allowing them to unfold within a safe setting
will help bring about its resolution.

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4 Have you been through a traumatic event?
Everything looks and seems fine if you read about it from a
book. You have to experience what I and other soldiers have
been through, and then let me know if you’ve resolved your
trauma and PTSD.
The binding factors of trauma are: guilt, blame, embarrassment,
shame, pride, jealousy, and self-reproach. One of these will be more
strongly expressed; that which relates most particularly to your
character structure and level of trauma.
Binding factors divert the excessive, overwhelming energy of the
intense emotion of trauma. Males and veterans often have pride
and stored up anger as their binding factors which are some of the
elements that keep trauma fixed in place.
I am not talking about pride in a condescending way; I am simply
stating that it psychologically binds and prevents healing, and does
not assist with feelings of being overwhelmed.

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5
Whenever I’m trying to calm myself my body goes into a more
anxious state, as if it’s trying to warn me; “What are you doing
now; it’s not safe, stop it!” Meditation and relaxation don’t work
for me at all!
Yes, muscle and nervous tensing is a way of coping with emotional
stress. When you meditate and relax, you then start getting closer to
the emotions again.
It’s a double edged sword, though. When done carefully, meditation
can be used to process and heal. If you enter too quickly into it, it can
just plainly be too much.

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6 Can you possibly tell me why it’s so important for me to know
“WHY” my mother was so abusive towards me?
It’s very likely to be an attempt to resolve it by understanding the “why
factor” of it all. There is the inner reasoning that when you have the
answer, your symptoms might lessen, which is not entirely so.
If you do look at the larger picture and see that trauma is passed
down from generation to generation, it might stop you from
continuing to attribute blame for what happened to you in that
direction; this might help you in opening up to working with the deeper
pains and bringing awareness to that.
As always, this needs to be done with care and preferably in the
company of someone who knows the territory.

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7
I suffer from PTSD & I have no energy during the day; then I
take a nap and am full of energy, and then I have to take my
medications to shut me down. Grrrr help! Please.
For many who have suffered a trauma, having energy and thereby
feeling too much can be overpowering yet again. Regarding this,
I would say that fatigue also serves as dissociation, as does
medication.
8 Could it be that those who suffer from PTSD are most of the
time very much in tune with their bodies and feel the sensation
of the slightest changes, and therefore have fibromyalgia pains?
I would rather say that these pains are caused by emotional residue
continuously being activated, and thereby wearing out the immune and
hormonal systems.

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9 Why, in severe PTSD, does sometimes the “fight or flight”
reaction turn into just “fight”?
Why is it that the ‘flight’ part of it can wear out, and then the
PTSD triggers into an aggressive reaction?
It depends really on the experience you have gone through and
how you reacted afterwards, which will be based on your character
structure.
Many of those who go through an overwhelming experience or period
will fall back into anger and aggressiveness.
In essence, the fight response is an attempt to reestablish boundaries
or to give a sense of control in the face of continuous meltdown. It is
both a way of managing, plus in the long run, exhaustion through self-
sabotage.

10 What if something so terrible happened that (as a victim), you

saw the abuse happening to yourself from across the room-
- like it was something you saw on television-- until one day
years later, you saw something so horrible that it reminded you
of your own trauma and those old memories were suddenly in
3-D, up-close and personal every time you closed your eyes,
and you continually relive it? What kind of non-dissociation is
that? Because I would like to have that back.
Often both parts are present after a traumatic experience. Some
go through this from moment to moment; others have a delayed
response -- like yourself. There is the freeze or dissociation part,
which can be that you perceive what happens to you from the outside
-- like a movie.
Then there is the series of flashbacks, the overwhelming part, where
it is all continuously in real-time, as you mentioned at the end of your
commentary. Both are part and parcel of the trauma, rotating and
reinforcing each other.
The way out is the way in, which is attempting to reach out for help,
either through a group or private counseling.

11 So you are saying that we’re predetermined to marry an abuser
if we’ve been abused as children?
I am certainly not saying that we are predetermined to marry an
abuser, but it is well known that we might attract similar situations
that involve certain forms of abuse, if it remains an unresolved
pattern. This is also referred to as reenactment. This is not meant as a
black and white statement and/or as the only truth.
Fortunately, many of us go through changes that help us break away
from the past and allow for more self-love, thereby attracting other
positive people into our lives. I think it is valid work to examine and
resolve our parental-relationship patterns in order to become inter-
dependent and resilient human beings.

12 Do you think acupuncture can help release residual energy?
In my experience of working with trauma, you need an integration of
cognitive understanding and perspective and somatic understanding
and release. If you leave out cognitive understanding, acupuncture
might only help temporarily with release; this certainly has its benefits,
but this might also create dependency.

13 Do we need to understand what trauma is, or come to an
acceptance of the various processes and symptoms?
Insightful understanding is a first step which helps to lessen
guilt, blame, and self-reproach. The job is then to start building
containment in order to process the underlying emotional residue.
I am not really a fan of acceptance as it often comes as a way of
trying to overcome, rather than to bring awareness to the issue at
hand. My point is how we use acceptance when we suffer, as we
often go from and attempt to reject or forget towards an attempt to
accept, which isn’t really any different.

14 I made a new friend recently and she seems to be doing
fine after losing her husband and doing a series of coaching
sessions. Why am I not moving forward, or seemingly so slow?
There is a major difference in resolving trauma that happened to
you as a child, as opposed to that which happened to you when as
an adult. With most complex trauma and PTSD you will find that the
roots of it go right back to childhood.
When the brain is still developing and the identity of a person is
forming, patterning of nervous system and brain tissue might be
impaired or impeded, due to traumatic experiences or periods;
therefore, working through these early patterns will take significantly
more time and dedicated work than traumas experienced in
adulthood.

15 This work sometimes is too hard. Dissolving the ego is not an
easy task. Sometimes I want to leave. It’s too tough to handle.
I get you. When you are overwhelmed by emotional suffering it is
instinctive to want it to go away.
I think we need to healthily balance our efforts to address post-
trauma, within containment, and to leave enough space to not get too
focused on it.
It is so easy to either fall into resistance to it, or get overwhelmed
and drown in our post-trauma symptoms. Part of the work is to keep
finding that dynamic middle-- that dynamic balance of not too much
and not too little-- of rest and activity.

16 What, in your experience, is the worst trauma possible?
If you were to ask me what is the worst kind of trauma you could
experience I’d probably say that it’s to not be wanted from birth
onward by your parents. That very act of deprivation inhibits the
proper development of our mammalian brain, which is the bedrock of
relating to oneself and others emotionally.
It is this lack of love and bonding that contribute to the multiplication
of so many traumas experienced later on in life.

17 Why do we project our patterns within intimate relationships?
It is within intimate relationships that we generally feel most safe,
and hence we play out and project our patterns. Relationship shows
different sides of ourselves; our different emotions. When those
emotions get activated through relating while you are still suffering
from post-trauma, the emotional residue related to your personal past
is brought out.
For example: You are angry because of something that happened with
your partner and that anger just grows out of proportion because it is
associated with held in anger from much earlier in your life.

18
How can I deal with the fact of being a social animal, extremely
hard wired to feel loved, cared for and accepted by a “herd,” but
unable to satiate that very human social need?
When that need comes out of deep pain, the likelihood is that nothing
will ever fill up that emptiness. No love or any action will be good
enough as that need still stems from the initial pain. Something might
temporarily cancel it out, but it comes back and its needy demand will
even push people away.
It is the meeting of that pain within a sense of containment that will
help process the internal suffering; when that starts to unfold, love
for oneself also starts to come back online which will set the tone to
realte in a healthy manner to others.

19
Would you please let me know what your qualifications are
with PTSD? Do you have evidence-based studies that show the
effectiveness of the material you are sending?
The effectiveness of any form of intervention or therapy will depend on
the level of personal commitment, and a strong willingness to work.
One must put importance on setting the intention to heal, persistence,
and having healthy expectations. As you likely already know, working
through trauma is hard work and can be confusing. The other major
player is the connection to your counselor/therapist and the growing trust
in the therapeutic relationship; and yes, the expertise of your helper’s
experience in working with complex trauma as well as his or her level of
engagement in study. If you look into the regular healthcare system you
will soon find that there is a lack of competence in working with trauma,
even though many practitioners hold a degree in psychology or psychiatry
or are licenced as therapists. I mainly draw my expertise from Somatic
Experience and Somatic Emotional Release studies and my many years of
experience of working with people, and I am proud to say I have developed
a trauma resolution approach myself.

20 What is your way of working, and how/why does it work better
than other methods?
I integrate a somatic and cognitive approach, which in my experience
is the most effective.
If you don’t address the body, which relates to the deeper parts of the
mind, you will not really process emotional residue; and if you do not
change perspective and create cognitive awareness, your symptoms
might just build up again and you will revolve on release and build up
over and over.

21 Can you really heal and overcome PTSD?
There is no such thing as overcoming your problems or your
emotional issues. I have written about this already, but it appears
to sit somewhat uneasily, as we are so accustomed to putting that
question in this biased way!
The process of overcoming is endless. Overcoming is not resolution.
Overcoming is a looping process where a dominant emotion has to
be overcome by its opposite, and it is the opposites that are bound
together.
Once you have felt through emotional dissonance it is for you to
remove yourself from it. It is negating the impulse of involvement
with these internalized patterns that breaks the momentum of the
past. It is not by force of will; far from it. It must be steeped in acute
awareness of what is happening.

22 I endured a childhood of chronic emotional neglect. I don’t have
any specific recollection of traumatic things that happened to
me. Rather, it was more about what didn’t happen than what
did. Does trauma therapy help in such situations?
I think the word “trauma” in general isn’t very well understood, as
I would categorize neglect, especially during childhood and for
extended periods, certainly as traumatic if not more upsetting than
what we normally perceive of as trauma. These days, childhood
neglect and abuse is becoming more recognized as developmental
trauma or developmental trauma disorder, depending on its severity.
In my work I almost always address childhood themes: neglect,
bonding, and the need for acceptance and love, as this is where
we establish our character patterns, and what most of our later life
experiences and nervous system connections are based on.

23 What do you exactly mean by saying, “meeting that pain within
a sense of containment?” Would you elaborate a bit more?
“Containment” means having the ability to stay with whatever is
present without either indulging in or getting too focused on it, or
escaping from it; generally what is meant by honestly meditating,
rather than the exotic fluff that meditation has been made into.
It’s usually the binding factors-- guilt, blame, self-reproach,
embarrassment, shame, jealousy, and self-pity-- that keep our
negative personal experiences and the emotional pain going.
In order to refrain from either indulging in or escaping from your
suffering, you must not allow yourself to inflate your internal pain
further; this will ensure that the past will remain in the past.
It’s not going to be a one day affair, but if you put your mind to it, bit by
bit, it will become a reality.

24 But in relation to trauma; how do you feel about medication; do
you think it’s effective?
Medication can be beneficial when symptoms are acute; there are
those who might want to harm themselves or others. In my opinion
it should always be considered a temporary option, as it generally
masks the symptom(s) and does not address the cause.
25 How is this healing accomplished within the body? I’ve never
had any therapist or doctor talk about healing my body.
Unfortunately, we have forgotten the body as a resource, and this is
definitely the case with regular medicine.
Overwhelming emotion usually pushes us into feeling disembodied
(dissociation). It is by careful integration, and addressing emotion
through the story of what happened and connecting with feeling the
body again, that one can heal.

26 Is there a correlation between PTSD and CRPS, or chronic
regional pain syndrome? Have you any idea whether there might
be?
In terms of trauma, chronic physical pain is an expression of
unresolved “emotional residue.” It affects the nervous system (often
going in between hyper and hypo-activity) and the connective tissues
(fascias) in the body.
Fascia wraps everything in the body, giving you structure and form.
Under emotional stress it coils up, leading to chronic pain and
syndromes. The body literally “hugs the lesion/pain” when there is too
much emotional pain that can’t be contained.

27 I need help to live the most normal life possible with this. How
can I understand it better and deal with the episodes?
Your life will never be as it was before, so one thing you need to
dispense with is the search for that which might remove some inner
conflict. When you are immersed in the effects of trauma, do give
great consideration to nature, sports, group meetings (if you can
handle them) and above all, relating to the right kind of people and
helpers who can assist you to move forward. People who encourage
you to turn the adversities you have gone through, and so far coped
with, into strengths.

28 Are the treatments offered management techniques that do not
address the true cause?
I have no interest in management techniques only, though they
certainly have their value.
To work towards resolution both the body’s and the mind’s responses
to trauma must be addressed.
Without cognitive understanding you will get into a build-up and
release cycle of trauma, over and over again. Without a somatic
approach you will not really address the emotional part of trauma, and
hence resolution cannot happen.

29 Do one’s residual patterns ever disappear, even with deep early
trauma?
There is the assumption that healing means that we can erase what
happened to us.
My experience is that the emotional charge invested in survival
patterns due to trauma can be processed.
Recovering from trauma is not about getting rid of patterns. Some of
them can be turned into strengths, some can be modified, and others
we will have for the rest our lives.
As long as we are aware of them without building up too much
emotion within, they do not to keep being problematic.

30 At what level is the shock stored in the system and how can
osteopathy help, especially cranial sacral osteopathy?
This depends somewhat on the trauma that one goes through. In my
opinin the nervous system is always involved on some level. Fascia
constriction depends on where the trauma “sits”. With loneliness
and grief it will, in all likelihood, resonate somewhere in the thorax.
With sexual issues/abuse, you will find it more often in the lower
belly-- uterus, large intestines-- and from there it wil affect the
musculoskeletal structure.
Dissociation, in general, creates an energetic disconnection in the
heart area and makes the limbic system overactive.
Dr. Barral’s book Messages of the Body goes deeply into what goes
where and is a great resource.
Bodywork on its own won’t be sufficient to work through serious
trauma, but can be a good addition to your package of healing tools.

31 Can you also become aware of the dissociation, and manage it?
Dissociation IS the managing of feeling overwhelmed, so in terms of
working through post-trauma, managing dissociation isn’t sufficient
as it requires a tremendous amount of energy to sustain.
In the long run dissociation wears everything down; your body, mind
and spirit, and turns into addictive and habitual patterns of behavior.
32 Why am I so sensitive to other people?
There is no issue with high sensitivity when you can simultaneously
maintain your boundaries. It is this ability that is lacking in many
people; however, their high sensitivity as a result of a “needing to
please response” is a coping mechanism resulting from traumatic
events and periods.

33 I was wondering what you think about massage therapy and
trauma?
I think massage can be great in helping those suffering from stress
and trauma. It makes them more body-aware, which aids resolution.
There are, however, some contra-indications. Tension is often there
to protect you from feeling too much. When you release too much
too quickly, you might also release too much emotion. When this
happens, it can be harmful.
The other danger is that people become dependent on release
through massage, as tension may build up again, or shift, because
underlying patterns aren’t addressed.
In short, it can really go both ways; therefore, sensitivity and
awareness will be your best guide.

34 Some days I really wish there was some type of therapy that
doesn’t make me feel suffocated, especially after leaving the
therapy while drowning in the chaos of my mind and heartfelt
anxiety.
Working with trauma can be a minefield, in which the careful
addressing of old wounds needs to be sustained and supported by
sufficient containment and the building of resilience. Without that, the
overwhelming emotions would not be integrated, but woud, on the
contrary, potentially lead to your feeling further overwhelmed.

35 I think, the hardest part for me will be convincing my mind that
I am not in some fresh way reliving the old trauma. That one’s
a bit tricky because I am almost certain that the old situation is
happening, but with new people.
In my experience two main things need to be addressed:
• First, the emotional residue that continues to impinge on the
present;
• Second, the habit of old patterns that influences us into
repeating and projecting the old onto the new.

36 To begin with, do you go back to those childhood experiences
and identify the coping mechanisms that you developed as a
response to childhood trauma?
Partly, yes. When a coping pattern from childhood is still “alive” it is
acting out in a person’s present situation. The variables are different
according to a person’s situation, but the emotional responses are
similar.
It is important to identify the reactive patterns of the present moment
and to relate those back to decisions made in early childhood, and
this often is done on a cognitive level first.
When that awareness sinks in, you will have to start to address the
“emotional residue” related to the past through different psycho-
somatic interventions.

37 What kind of behavior do you find most common in patients
who idolize the neglectful parent? Do they grow up to be
codependent, or love deprived, or something else?
In my experience, what often first needs to be addressed is the overt
abuse and bring that towards more resolution. When emotional
energy is released related toward the abusive parent it creates more
independence for the client.
The neglectful parent, in this dynamic, has an idealized role hence;
to start questioning and working with that is tricky, as it demands
the rewiring of a long held perspective. That needs carefulness and
readiness.
When allowed, the releasing of emotional energy toward the
neglectful parent similarly, creates more independence, although
chunks of anger usually need to be worked through first.

38 I’m not an addict but it would have been so easy for me to
become one.
I think the term “addiction” can be taken in a wider context. My
experience is that when you suffer from pain you gravitate towards
searching for elevation through pleasure, and it can assume any
form. It could be, working, drinking, shopping, chocolate, eating, yoga,
self-harm, obsessive cleaning, signing up for another tour of duty;
the list goes on endlessly, fitted to your own style, choice, and life
circumstances.

39 I am struggling to recover from extreme dissociation and so the
core emotion is almost always cut off from me, which is really
frustrating because I see clearly the compulsive behavior, and I
see the “inexplicable” irritability that is manifesting when I am
not distracted into behaving through my compulsion, but I don’t
understand what is underneath it, specifically.
I only know that it must be something from the past because
there is no present day reason for me to be irritable or needing
distraction. I’ve done lots of work to forge connections
between parts of myself and information from the past, but the
emotional aspect continues to elude me after all these many
years.
This is typical with overwhelming trauma and you describe it very
well. Often, it is honoring the disconnection without either moving
away from that or indulging in it that allows for some connection to
come “online.” The work then begins to slow down and open up to
what presents itself.

40 I dissociate still... so often… it feels like I always will. Does that
mean I have a personality disorder?
I think there are different stages of working your way through trauma.
Getting to understand your condition and removing some of the
blame, shame, guilt and self-reproach is one of them. A next stage
would be processing and containment which would also lessen the
dissociating factor.
Dissociation is a (temporary) split in personality used to survive, and
doesn’t necessarily have to be referred to as a disorder; this depends
of course, on its extent and severity of how it develops.
Now that you are on your path towards healing, you will gradually
reverse that dissociation and contain the wound which is within, and
thereby begin to process it.

41 What if something happens when you are a child and your
family is not safe, or is the source perpetrating the trauma?
If the negative assessment is “I cannot have this... “this cannot
be,” could it be that the thing which cuts off the memory
entirely, points to the juncture at which it goes into amnesia?
Possibly so, yes. With a negative experience or when trauma spans a
period, as often the case in childhood, we react internally as in “I don’t
want,” “I cannot have this,” “I hate,” “If only my life/this other person
would be different,” which are normal reactions in the face of feeling
hurt.
If situations persist in being hurtful and overwhelming, at some point
we further dissociate from a fight, flight or please response into a
freeze response.
Amnesia would be part of a freeze response where in order to
survive you have shut down a part of yourself so as to not be
confronted and feel overwhelmed by it all of the time.

42 I am still suffering from fight, flight and freeze even after all
these years of going to therapy and working on myself.
Defense mechanisms that are in place for many years will never go
away, and I think some of the conflict around them will go if we give
up the impulse to get rid of them. If we can see our defenses for what
they are, and process some of the emotional residue that is related to
them, that will take away the over-occupation and identification with
them. In time, it will make for more resilience in earlier avoidance of
trigger responses. Life will always have its challenges.

43 I am wondering if, like with other repetitiously occurring disorders,
when the old issue(s) resurfaces, there is a chance of creating
more trauma? In other words, while working through old trauma,
feeling the effects of that, and diligently working through them, can
experience “flare ups” can they actually create new trauma?
There might be several parts to your question. One part addresses the
question of what happens when you are working through your old trauma
and the process goes too fast and you can’t contain what comes up. This
can be re-traumatizing. Activations will happen in a therapy process. It
is for you and the therapist, then, to slow down and focus on containing
and processing rather than by digging deeper doing more. Trust in the
client-therapist relationship and having a cognitive understanding of this
beforehand will greatly help. The second part of your question addresses
reenactment, which often is unconscious. Situations and patterns that you
were exposed to earlier on that were traumatic can become hardwired,
and we tend to attract/reenact similar situations and/or people that trigger
us in a similar way because of how we, through defense patterns of fight,
flight, freeze and please, have been conditioned.

44 Is there a cure for CPTSD?
Sometimes looking for the cure forms part of the problem. You will
never be the person you were before, and when the hurt has been
deep the scar will remain and some hard-wired defense patterns will
remain as well. The emotional residue invested in the past can be
processed through careful and dedicated work which will make you
more resilient to triggering. It can be hard work but it is certainly not
impossible.

45 Why do I feel depressed, alienated and unloved?
When we lose depth and connection; depression, feeling unloved
and alienated are expressions of that loss of depth. It is not by
attempting to infuse it with meaning but rather by being attentive to
the disconnection that connection comes ‘online’ again.
When one is attentive to it, the story that relates to the disconnection
is naturally allowed to come to the foreground.
46 What is considered complex trauma?
Multiple incidents of trauma or traumatic periods make for complex
trauma.

47
I wonder how you address the “soul” pain that is often
experienced as an intense symptom of PTSD?
Emotional residue is held within the body and must be accessed by
addressing the body. Cognitive work helps to create a framework of
understanding and can help take away guilt, blame, and self-reproach
through changing perspective.
A somatic approach helps processing the underlying layered
emotional responses that are part of each trauma. You need both to
advance and bring post-trauma to its resolution.

48 I’ve read articles that state repairing memory in people with
PTSD cannot be done. Short term memory can no longer be
stored as long term memory. Can you shed some light on this?
Trauma impacts the amagdylas. They are the emotional eyes situated
4-5cm right behind the physical eyes. Visual information processing goes
through the amagdylas where it gets filtered in terms of whether or not
something is safe. From there, it gets passed on into the hypocampus
brain area. Both are involved in short term memory processing.
If trauma has been present, and especially childhood trauma, those brain
areas will be conditioned by those traumatic experiences and will trigger
when what you experience (see) relates to your past. Even if the current
situation contains no threat to you, you might still see it as such. From the
hippocampus, information goes to the cerebrum for long term memory, or
is discarded. If those short term memory brain centers are conditioned by
trauma, healthy functioning is affected.
That said, by working with the body, tracking sensations, and using the
right psycho-therapeutic interventions, some of those old wirings can
be reset, and others can be managed so that you do not experience the
constant emotional overcharge.

49 I am dealing with a lot of anxiety, especially social anxiety. Can
you give some tips how to deal with this?
Anxiety often is a symptom of unexpressed anger. When anger is held
inside it prevents you from setting boundaries/limits to what you want
or don’t want.
When personal boundaries are ruptured, this impacts your self-
esteem and, over time, giving rise to symptoms of anxiety in a variety
of forms; it could manifest as social anxiety or insecurity about your
physical appearance, sexuality, and many others.
See if you can give some mind-space to that anxiety without
getting too much into it; simply look. Once you are able to hold that
uncomfortable tension you might feel that it shifts into a deeper
emotion which could be anger or sadness or a mixture of both.
Another interesting exercise is to write a letter to all of the people who
have hurt your vulnerability, and to tell them in the letter how they hurt
you, and that you are handing that pain and its responsibility back to
them. Then burn the letter afterwards.

50 How should you go about restoring your own boundaries, when
your sense of self is so vulnerable?
The two go together. When you relearn boundaries, which are
suppressed anger, you will have to face fear and thereby heal the hurt
and dishonored vulnerability.

51 Roland, do you have advice for knowing when a treatment or
therapist isn’t working and when you should look elsewhere?
It’s a good question but not easy answered. If you don’t see/
feel change after some sessions, or do not feel that you are really
addressing your issues, it might be time to look elsewhere.
It gets a little harder when your coping mechanism is to please or you
have dependency issues; you will be more likely to stay too long in a
therapeutic relationship that isn’t working.
As you mentioned, you can also outgrow your therapist and then it is
time to move on.

52 What if you do not remember the trauma? I remember bits and
pieces from before I was fifteen, and what I do remember is not
very good. But what if there is more trauma than my mind will
allow me to remember? My therapist thinks that you can’t heal
what you do not know.
Amnesia is a dissociation mechanism. It is in place to protect you
from too much overwhelming emotion. Therapy needs to start with
addressing and feeling into that dissociation and how it protects.
Slowly, upon listening to the disconnection, connections start to
happen again to the underlying emotions. It may or may not come
with the memories, but you can certainly process that emotional
content once you have access to it.

53 I’m really struggling with opening up and feel that I always
subconsciously self-censor what I share, and then come away
loaded with thoughts about everything I didn’t say. I don’t know
how to stop myself from applying this filter, and to feel that I
really can be completely open. I have massive issues with trust
and I’m not sure how to dismantle those barriers so that I can
talk freely. Do you have any insights that you can share?
Trust and the therapeutic relationship is a process. It takes time,
consistency and persistence to come to that point where you can be
more open. Your “censoring out” is based on survival, related to what
you have gone through.
As you persist in your progress, your ability to contain more of the
emotions that you have been suppressing will increase, and you will
find that is becomes safer and more natural to open up with the right
people.

54 To what do we shift our energy?
What would be that powerful substitute? God perhaps?
Once any overwhelming emotion is contained, released, or processed
that energy will have moved into presence, silence, awareness or
whatever word you want to give to it. It is not a substitute, a state of
awareness is your natural state of being.
55 How would you sum up how to become healed from trauma?
Trauma signifies an experience or period that has been overwhelming
to the individual. Working through it means to slowly build up enough
containment to be able to feel the whole of the emotional charge that
has been overwhelming. This is only made possible when we take our
focus away from the event or person to whom the trauma is related,
and move our attention onto the underlying emotion, where the
trauma is held.

56 Didn’t the trauma cause the emotion?
The trauma is in the emotion. The event/person is the context in
which it happened.
57 By “cognitive,” are you referring to the mind and senses? And
by “somatic,” are you saying that the healing of past injuries
are stored in the body as well? In which case, perhaps massage
work would help, in addition to whatever positive effects can
be garnered by the help of neuro-plasticity (for the mind and
senses).
You need the cognitive part (our thought capacity) to create a healthy
framework to address trauma and not fall back into old patterns,
and one needs the somatic part to really work through the emotional
residue that is stored within the body/nervous system. Massage can
be a help for some, but can also be triggering for others. In itself it is
not enough to resolve deep seated trauma, but it is a good addition to
one’s effort towards healing.

This is an interview taken for the website psych2go.com in Spring 2017
and I thought it would be a good way to finish this particular eBook.
Interview Published on Psych2go in Spring 2017

Introducing:
Roland Bal, Resolving Trauma, and PTSD
You are the founder of Resolving Trauma and PTSD, a Facebook
community with over 40,000 members that focuses on healing
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Can you begin by telling us your
motivation for creating this community, and who did you hope to
reach?
Facebook, right now, is a great way to reach many people that relate to
any topic, so it makes sense to share my resources on trauma there and
create a community.
My FB page is meant to educate and provide support for those who
suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress. It has the intention to convey the
possibility that you can rebound from trauma.

How did you get into the field of psychology, specifically the study
and treatment of PTSD? What made you decide to pursue this as a
career?
I started with different forms of bodywork in my early 20’s; massage,
craniosacral therapy, visceral manipulation. After treating many people, I
noticed that pain and especially chronic pain would shift after treatment,
but not necessarily become resolved.
I learned that most chronic pain has some form of emotional residue
(trauma) related to it and hence my interest grew to explore that more
deeply.
After following several formations in body-based trauma work-- somatic
experiencing, somato emotional release-- I started to develop and
integrate a treatment module myself that was accurate, holistic and
turned out to be very effective for my patients.

In addition to seeing clients in private practice in Barcelona,
you offer one-to-one online counseling sessions that are based
on a somatic psycho-therapeutic approach, utilizing audio and
video to help heal trauma in patients across the globe. How does
communicating with patients online differ from in person?
Every method of working has its pros and cons independent of whether it
is online or face-to-face. What determines effective treatment though, is a
commitment and willingness to work through the tough parts of trauma,
and that starts with an intention and determination towards wanting to
heal. Of course my experience and insights into trauma as well as the
ability to “hold space” for whatever emotional activation that might come
up are equally essential.
To come back to your question: online work limits in some ways by
using physical space and distance as tools to work within the treatment
process. That said, I see a lot of clients with high anxiety levels, and not
having to be with another person physically, in the room keeps them from
shutting down, and of course, assists in the healing process. Besides that,
the work is very similar, whether face-to-face or online.

Your primary and related fields of study are expansive, and you
draw on the teachings of many different experts in your work. Have
you found that there is one technique in particular that patients
seem to best respond to? Which is your favorite method of therapy?
The model I adhere to the most is the one that I set up myself. You will see
this model reflected in my writings and other resources on the website.
I advocate integration of a cognitive and somatic approach, as one
without the other would be incomplete and thereby not assist fully in
recovery. My approach focuses on regulating, processing and containing;
the processes of dissociation, the fight-flight-freeze-please responses
and re-learning boundaries and vulnerability. In a nutshell!

You’re the author of several articles which explore trauma and PTSD
in depth, as well as The Trauma Essential eBooks, that serve as a
resource for many individuals who suffer from trauma and PTSD
to help understand and resolve their trauma. How is education
important in the treatment of trauma, and how can better outreach
and understanding benefit individuals and society as a whole, in
dealing with trauma?
Knowledge, for most people, is the first point of entry to start having some
sense of containment for the overwhelming feelings they are experiencing.
When you start to understand your reactions and symptoms as coping,
survival patterns rather than outright self-sabotage, you acknowledge
for yourself that you are not crazy. Your body-mind is very intelligent in
its responses. Knowing this helps to ease your self-reproach, blame, and
guilt as well as moving away from the stigma around trauma, and take
responsibility for starting to heal.
When someone transforms, it affects society as a whole.

Your approach to resolving trauma is more spiritual. How is
spirituality tied to trauma, and how can increased spirituality help
to mitigate symptoms?
Post-Trauma Stresses are a set of reactive patterns due to feeling
overwhelmed, out of control and helpless. It’s these reactions or coping
patterns that help you survive, but they also perpetuate your post-trauma
symptoms. If you keep in fight, flight, freeze or pleasing mode long after the
original trauma(s) happened, this begins to define your reality, and you will keep
reenacting and attracting similar situations that will re-traumatize you. Once
you start to see how that works and you become aware of those patterns, at
that very moment you introduce another element. You can call that observation,
awareness, presence, spirituality-- it does not matter. That very presence
creates a little space, a little distance, and non-identification with what has
been occurring automatically and has become hard-wired within you.
The process then starts to move from duality, from reaction-- into non-duality
or presence, observation, awareness. It is like the energy is held within the
material-- within the nervous system and thought, and this limitation gives rise
to so many ailments and pain symptoms. Once that energy start to free up it
can move back into presence or non-duality, and conflict ceases.

Lastly, what advice do you have for people who wish to recover?
Keep going at it with intervals of letting it rest. Follow what your needs are
at any given moment. If you need more knowledge, read, listen, watch.
When you are ready to go a little deeper, work within groups or better
still, find someone you resonate with and work one-on-one through your
issues. Doing personal counseling with the right person is like taking an
airplane; you will cover the distance much faster!
Don’t worry about money. Money follows right intention. Be resourceful.
And finally-- there is nothing wrong with you! You have a particular set of
survival responses concerning an overwhelming period or incident(s). You
will never “get over it,” but you can certainly move through, process and
contain it and you will be more resilient and resourceful after that.
Post-Trauma does not have to be a life sentence.

CONNECTION
Going through trauma is life changing. It alters your perception of the world
and yourself. Post-Traumatic Stress, however, doesn’t have to be a life
sentence; it can be resolved.
Educating yourself about your condition is a good start, but if you are
struggling in life, it is no substitute for professional help. If you’re ready to
take the first step towards healing, reach out, and give yourself a chance to
feel better!
I use a cognitive and somatic (body) based psycho-therapeutic approach

to effectively treat complex trauma and PTSD. My approach focuses on
regulating, processing and containing: the processes of dissociation, the
fight-flight-freeze-please responses and relearning boundaries and vulner-
ability.
Are you ready to make that next step?
Sincerely,
Roland



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© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

I use a cognitive and somatic (body) based psycho-therapeutic approach to

My overall approach to working through trauma focuses on nervous system

I sincerely hope they will be of help to you in your healing journey.

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

INSIGHTS INTO THE COMPLEXITY OF TRAUMA

As it takes me considerable time to answer questions, and knowing my

This eBook displays my unique and particular approach to trauma, which

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

1 But why does recovery take so long?

Some patterns are so deeply ingrained that it takes multiple efforts

enclosed space that it slows down progress.

You may find yourself going through spurts of healing at times

depending on the people you meet or work with, or due to changes in

2 Can PTSD ever be resolved?

wound, can be resolved. That said, I am not saying it’s easy!

Working through trauma is arduous and requires tremendous courage!

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

3 I don’t understand why the dissociative elements that cause

way to consciousness, so that one can shine a light on the

darkness and bring about healing.

Dissociation is both a lifesaver, as it attempts to regulate the

overwhelming emotions, and may form an obstacle to healing, as it

keeps the emotional inner storm from being fully met.

This is the conundrum of trauma. Understanding these mechanisms

will help bring about its resolution.

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

4 Have you been through a traumatic event?

Everything looks and seems fine if you read about it from a

book. You have to experience what I and other soldiers have

been through, and then let me know if you’ve resolved your

trauma and PTSD.

The binding factors of trauma are: guilt, blame, embarrassment,

shame, pride, jealousy, and self-reproach. One of these will be more

strongly expressed; that which relates most particularly to your

character structure and level of trauma.

Binding factors divert the excessive, overwhelming energy of the

intense emotion of trauma. Males and veterans often have pride

elements that keep trauma fixed in place.

I am not talking about pride in a condescending way; I am simply

stating that it psychologically binds and prevents healing, and does

not assist with feelings of being overwhelmed.

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

Whenever I’m trying to calm myself my body goes into a more

Yes, muscle and nervous tensing is a way of coping with emotional

the emotions again.

It’s a double edged sword, though. When done carefully, meditation

just plainly be too much.

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

6 Can you possibly tell me why it’s so important for me to know

“WHY” my mother was so abusive towards me?

It’s very likely to be an attempt to resolve it by understanding the “why

answer, your symptoms might lessen, which is not entirely so.

down from generation to generation, it might stop you from

continuing to attribute blame for what happened to you in that

pains and bringing awareness to that.

As always, this needs to be done with care and preferably in the

company of someone who knows the territory.

© Copyright 2017 Roland Bal

take a nap and am full of energy, and then I have to take my

medications to shut me down. Grrrr help! Please.

feeling too much can be overpowering yet again. Regarding this,