The "past” in Ireland is a highly contested narrative. It is interwoven in all our personal histories - more experienced by some than others, yet present in all aspects of life Nonetheless, it is at the heart of peacebuilding.
This understanding of trauma memory has great implications of us, particularly at this time, as the future of Ireland is being considered and negotiated.http://:https://iahip.org/page-1075484
We all have the same human physiological response to trauma and the body is the first experience. However, we have a personal history, a cultural, historical and political context which influences memory, meaning, emotional responses and behaviours.
In the resolution of trauma, repeated retelling of the “story” does not resolve its impact and indeed research shows that it serves to fix the experience even more firmly. Neuropsychological shows that we cannot think our way out of trauma.
At the same time, the importance of expressing what has happened, is a vital aspect of the integration of terrible events and the sense of belonging. Additionally storytelling is a strong element in our culture. However, how the experience of trauma is expressed, is of crucial importance.
Somatic Experiencing TM offers a way of working with the "dialectic" of proclaiming/denying terrible experiences. Through this approach it is possible to resolve the impact of life-threatening event without re-living them. By working with the somatic experience of the incomplete self-protective responses of fight, flight and freeze/dissociation, the dialectic is understood very differently as instinctive responses which inform the verbal narrative. Working through the “felt sense” of traumatic events supports a reconnection to the sense of not just having survived the past but of feeling alive in the present. https://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=63
