Notes on Dissociation - Van Der Kolk

• What is dissociation?

  • “Feeling lost, overwhelmed, abandoned, and disconnected from the world”

  • “... seeing oneself as unloved, empty, helpless, trapped, and weighed down.”

  • A defense mechanism developed in early childhood to block our maternal “hostility or neglect.” Pretending we’re not affected by a caregiver’s neglect, resentment, “rejection and withdrawal” or abandonment. 

• Sources of dissociation

  • Lyons Ruth found when a mother doesn't see or know you, especially during the first two yours of life, the rates of dissociation are much higher. 

  • Maternal “disengagement and misattunment” is responded to by the child with repression of “frustrations and distress”, their “emerging self” as well. For the sake of ‘peace’ or avoidance of parental backlash the child mutes their authentic self. We’d rather shut off than feel rejected, neglected or abandoned, or resented.

  • Example correction: Don’t let the child cry it off, listen to their needs. Bowlby says “What cannot be communicated to the mother cannot be communicated to the self.”

• Long-Term Impacts of Dissociation 

1. Not feeling real inside 

2. Nothing matter anymore

3. Difficulty protecting yourself from danger

4. Self-harm or dangerous situation to “feel something” other than numbness. 

5. Impaired sense of inner reality 

6. “Excessive Clinging”

7. Difficulty forming an identity that is naturally emergent 

8. Asynchronicity with our bodily senses, our sense of self, with our relationships (123)

• Solutions: 

  • Knowledge of the original wounds is not enough, how our fear of intimacy has to do with our mothers or fathers for example. We have to learn new ways to connect in relationships. 

  • Training “rhythmicity and reciprocity”. This means being in synch with oneself, integrating our presence in our bodily senses. Embedding ourselves in sensory and affective awareness of the world around us, embracing our activities. 

  • Singing, dancing, playing music, or sports to “foster a sense of attunement and communal pleasure” (124). 

• Other takeaways

  • “Early attachment patterns create the inner maps that chart our relationships throughout life”

A., V. der K. B. (2015). The body keeps the score: Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma. Penguin Books.