In July I went to a wonderful training with ICEEFT-endorsed trainer Kathryn Rheem on working with “those who have endured more than most” in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy. I was eager to attend this training because I have noticed that, not surprisingly, a very high proportion of my couples include at least one trauma survivor, if not two. I say “not surprisingly” because survivors of relational trauma in childhood (or even in adult relationships that preceded the current one), when triggered, will often momentarily perceive their partners, who are their primary source of safety, as a source of threat. Once past trauma is cued in this way, trauma survivors feel as if the danger is present now and react defensively with fight, flight, freeze, submit or appease reactions, all of which tend to lead to their partners thinking, feeling and behaving in ways that then lead to further upsetting the trauma survivor. In other words, in couples where a trauma history is present, emotion emerges quickly and chaotically and communication is scrambled. No wonder couples in this situation end up feeling so distressed, overwhelmed and confused.
The wonderful news here is that, because Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy ultimately leads to stronger bonding between partners, which produces a deep sense of safety, it can actually go a long way towards healing the aftermath of trauma in the individual partners who have survived so much. On the way to sharing their feelings of pain, terror, and shame with their partners, trauma survivors are helped, very slowly and carefully, to come to know and process these emotions within themselves. Thus, both intra-psychic and inter-psychic healing occurs. The less wonderful news is that, the more trauma partners have collectively survived, the slower the healing process will usually be. De-escalation of entrenched reactive patterns between the partners will likely take longer, and restructuring and deepening the partner bond will likely take longer as well.
The hard work that trauma survivors do in facing and processing the fears that lie behind and below their defenses takes great courage and requires skilled, well-paced, and attuned support on the part of the therapist and the therapist-supported partner. Giving up coping strategies that have served us well for decades feels like a crazy thing to do. And the only reason people who have endured so much already would do so in this context is because their coping strategies are now blocking them from getting at what they long for most–the deep sense of security they can earn when risking with, and being lovingly received by, their adult romantic partners.