Re-Enactments in Trauma Therapy (What Happens Between Therapist & Client)
Unprocessed childhood trauma increases the likelihood of a replay/re-enactment occurring in therapy between therapist and client.
This can show up in a variety of ways:
Client has a pattern of shutting down/freezing/dissociating when under stress and overwhelm. When the therapist asks the client about what they want to work on in therapy related to their abuse and neglect, they say
“I don’t know”
“I’m not sure”
“I forgot what you were saying. Can you ask me again?”
Client has a history of being abandoned/left by others and brings this into session such as when a session is about to end, or before the therapist is going on vacation. The therapist often feels uncertain, anxious, and/or may want to reassure the client. Fear may be elicited and subsequent fear thoughts such as:
“People always leave”
“I’m not important”
“What is the therapist doesn’t come back from vacation?”
“What if I need more support during their vacation?”
Client has learned to survive by thinking/rationalizing/intellectualizing their problems and concerns and brings this into therapy. These clients tend to be more rigid, perfectionists, goal oriented, valuing structure/control, knowledge/theories, anxious, and impatient. The therapist often feels detached, bored, and alone even in session.
“How long will therapy take to fix my issues?”
“Trusting others or depending on others is terrifying, so even though I’m in therapy, I’m not used to asking for help”
“Whoa, what just happened? Why am I crying? Did you make me cry? That was weird, I’ve never experienced that before”
Client has a history of being invalidated, not believed, protected, and/or listened to and brings this into therapy. The client unconsciously expects the therapist to invalidate them, forget pertinent details of their life, etc. The therapist often feels defensive and uncertain.
“I knew you weren’t listening to me”
“You’re just doing this for the money. You don’t really care about me and what I tell you”
Client has learned to be “good” in order to earn love and have connections throughout their life. In therapy, they bring this pattern into session and want the therapist to like them and thus fears disappointing the therapist.
“I need to do what I am told like homework in between sessions”
“I can’t be late because that’s disrespectful”
“Making mistakes is not tolerated”
Other examples include:
Therapist as rescuer/fixer and client as persecutor/victim
Therapist as bystander and client persecutor/victim
And more
It is the therapist's job to:
Notice patterns/dynamics occurring
Tuning into the body/soma
Tuning into non-verbal communication and process in therapy (what it not being said, how it is said, etc.)
Understand that a replay/re-enactment is appropriate and to be expected, but not to act it out/engage in it
Bring up these patterns/dynamics in a direct, but gentle manner
Therapist should be curious (not assume) and ask questions
Therapist should be stable, grounded, and present as much as possible (to avoid being triggered and emotionally overwhelmed)
Therapist should have good enough self awareness
Therapist should have a strong sense of Self to take things less personally and handle stress well
Understand how the therapist's own wounds can show up and impact therapy/session
Therapist should be okay with complexity, ambiguity, and not knowing, especially when pain, suffering, and discomfort arises
Therapist should continually adjusts their way of relating to fit the client’s evolving needs rather than following rigid techniques/modalities/approaches
Therapist should understand that every client needs different things. One client may need greater emotional affirmation/validation, another may benefit from more challenge or structure.
Therapist should be genuine and authentic in session
Therapist should be creative and flexible in session
And more
This means that the following things should and probably will occur:
Disagreements between client and therapist
Unprocessed feelings of anger, fear, terror, helplessness, grief being projected between therapist and client
Misunderstandings
Repairs and apologies
New corrective emotional experiences (trying and doing new things that weren't done prior in childhood)
And more
From Laura Brown’s Not the price of admission: Healthy relationships after childhood trauma
Many survivors unconsciously and repeatedly find relationships in adulthood that mirror the problematic attachment dynamics existing in their difficult families of origin.
This phenomenon of playing the painful relationship card one more time is known as a trauma reenactment.
A reenactment can be best understood as the replay of old familiar attachment patterns, in which the roles of victim, persecutor, rescuer, or bystander become reinstated in today's dynamics.
It only takes two people for all four roles to play out.
Being able to identify those roles and learn what you’re feeling when you’re in them, is an important part of getting a refund on the price you’ve been paying for relationships.
So, for example, a man who was emotionally abused by his father finds himself working at jobs where his bosses are bullies. When he quits everyone is surprised because he never once complained.
A woman who was sexually abused by her stepfather has partners who end up being unfaithful to her. Her friends wonder how she cannot notice the cues.
The child of a depressed parent marries people who are depressed.
Trauma reenactments occur without your conscious knowledge or intuition.
They’re the work of your EPs (Emotional Parts) who are unrolling the script of how to be in relationships that was written by the less-than-adequate caregivers of your childhood.