Trauma and Recurring Patterns
Trauma is not only what happened to us, but also what the psyche and body had to do in order to live through what happened.
The intelligence of protection
Our responses to overwhelming experiences can be remarkably intelligent. We may learn to disconnect, remain vigilant, please, control, withdraw, become self-sufficient or lose contact with parts of ourselves. These responses may once have made an unbearable situation more bearable. Difficulty arises when the danger has passed but the protective pattern remains.
Trauma may follow a single overwhelming event, but it can also accumulate quietly through neglect, instability, sexual or relational violation, repeated humiliation, illness or the absence of sufficient safety. Its effects may become visible in intimacy, creativity, self-expression, work and the ability to remain present within one’s own body.
A person may understand very clearly what happened and still find themselves entering the same emotional chamber. Insight matters, but the body and nervous system do not always change at the speed of conscious thought.
When the past enters the present
Old patterns often become more visible during transition. Parenthood, changes in work or identity, an unfulfilled wish for a child, separation, loss, midlife and perimenopause or menopause can disturb an equilibrium that has held for years.
What returns is not necessarily a wish to remain in the past. It may be an indication that the protection formed there can no longer contain the life developing now. Anxiety, numbness, anger, exhaustion or an urgent need for control may then carry both the imprint of what happened and the beginnings of a refusal to continue in the same way.
“We are complex and beautiful beings, layered and intelligent, capable of creating ingenious systems in response to trauma that first protect us, and later imprison us.”
A careful Jungian approach
Trauma cannot be hurried into meaning. Before difficult material can be approached, there must be sufficient trust, steadiness and attention to what the psyche and body can bear. Analysis is therefore not something done to a person, but a process shaped through relationship, dialogue and respect for the pace at which experience becomes available.
We may work with present relationships and recurring situations, with dreams and bodily responses, or with images that appear before experience has found words. When we meet in person, Sandplay can sometimes complement analysis by giving form to what remains difficult to speak.
A Jungian perspective asks not only how a symptom can be reduced, but what history and psychological necessity it may contain. This does not romanticize suffering or turn harm into a spiritual lesson. Meaning is not the same as justification, and responsibility remains where it belongs. The question is how a life that had to organize itself around survival may gradually recover greater movement, relationship and choice.
This work may be relevant when:
You repeatedly become vigilant, withdrawn, controlling or accommodating.
Intimacy evokes fear, numbness, shame or a loss of yourself.
You find it difficult to recognize or maintain boundaries.
You understand a pattern intellectually but remain caught within it.
Earlier sexual or relational experiences continue to affect your present life.
Your body reacts more strongly than the immediate situation seems to explain.
A transition has brought previously contained feelings or memories closer.
Beginning
You do not need to disclose everything in an initial conversation, nor arrive with a complete account of what is wrong. We can begin with what is most present now and consider whether my way of working is appropriate for your circumstances.
Sessions are available in Dutch and English, online and in person in Vorden and Zutphen. Sandplay is offered only in person and usually as a complementary part of Jungian analysis.
*This practice does not provide emergency or acute psychiatric care. If you are in immediate danger or crisis, please contact your doctor or the appropriate emergency service.