Becoming Your True Self

by Vivian Broughton, Karen McMillan (Illustrator)

Trauma is a situation where one is not in control of one's life. This book is about becoming the author and authority, rather than a hostage, of your life. We think of trauma as the big and obvious events, such as major catastrophes like 9/11 or a tsunami, or as childhood abuse and neglect. These are important of course, but there is another potential trauma that is rarely talked about. It happens at a time that we do not remember and cannot discuss. This is 'symbiotic trauma', the trauma of coming into a less than welcoming world at the beginning of life. It is a trauma that happens before memory, in that pre-verbal time of our existence, and it influences us profoundly, including our capacity for dealing with later traumas. This handbook will take you on a journey of hope. Trauma can be healed and resolved. You can't do all the work of healing your trauma on your own, but this handbook gives you some basics to help you on your way, and gives you some pointers to finding the appropriate help. Vivian Broughton has been a psychotherapist in private practice since 1989. She has developed her current work along the model proposed by Franz Ruppert in which unresolved trauma, particularly early attachment trauma and the entanglement with earlier systemic traumas, underlies all of our psychological difficulties.

Genres: Psychology, Self Help

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2014

Reviews

[Hayley Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to understanding trauma. The book draws on the work of Professor Dr Franz Ruppert’s and identity-oriented psychotrauma therapy. This is NOT a do-it-yourself guide. Rather it’s an introduction that might help you understand a bit more about yourself and subsequently, help you make the next step to getting the right kind of help.

As a psychologist specialising in leadership and management behaviour, I can already see how understanding trauma may help clients who struggle with healthy workplace relationships or who create toxic team or company cultures. In other words, this book is not just for therapists or clinical psychologists. It’s a useful intro for coaches and the lay person too.

[bubblegum.schnapps · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely feel more at ease with myself and less harsh after so many years of overthinking how I felt. I feel validated and heard. It’s very challenging at times to try and understand how family can unfortunately also be one of the initial contributing factors to our development of trauma and how we observe and analyse our relationships (platonic, intimate and family). I’m grateful for my therapist recommending this book. It’s also a less intimidating read if you are starting to read more on psychology , trauma and want something more concise and straight to the point!

[Gemma Barrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pre- workshop research. Interesting. Keen to know more.