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Dissociation deadens verbal ventilation
It is important to differentiate verbal ventilation from dissociative flights of fantasy or
obsessive bouts of unproductive worrying.
Dissociation is a defense that children develop to distract mad protect themselves from the overwhelming pain of their abandonment. They have to dissociate because they are not able, as unsupported children, to effectively grieve or even allow their pain into awareness.
There are two common types of dissociation in Complex PTSD: right-brain dissociation and left-brain dissociation.
Right brain dissociation can be seen as classical dissociation, and as the defense most common to freeze types [see my article on “The Four F’s: A Trauma Typology”.] It is the right brain process of numbing out against intense feeling or incessant inner critic attack.
Dissociation is a process of distraction...of getting lost in fantasy, fogginess, TV, tiredness or sleep. Verbally reporting from a place of self-distraction is in fact the opposite of verbal ventilation. Getting lost in daydream-like descriptions of improbable salvation fantasies
or in the recounting of long elaborate dreams devoid of emotional content and serious introspection are examples of this.
Left-brain dissociation is obsessiveness. Commonly, this ranges in severity from repetitively cycling through a laundry list of worries to panicky drasticizing and catastrophizing. An obsessive defense against internal pain strands us in unhelpful perseverations about issues that are minimally related or unrelated to the true nature of our suffering. Here is an example of this. I can complain incessantly about the bad weather or the unfairness of the rising cost of movie tickets to distract myself from the fact that my partner’s constructive feedback is continuously flashing me back into the fear and shame I felt when my mother verbally abused me at the kitchen table.
Left-brain dissociation can also be a process of trivialization – avoiding upsetting inner
experience by over-focusing on superficial concerns. Becoming overly preoccupied with sports statistics or the lives of Hollywood celebrities are common examples of this; this is, of course, not to deny that such interests are in themselves worthwhile when they are engaged non-defensively and in moderation.
Finally, left brain dissociation can also be seen in intellectualization. This is
what the novelist, Ian McEwan called the “high-walled fortress of focused thinking”. Some survivors over-rely on rationalization and lofty dialogue to protect them from the potentially messy and painful world of feeling. Even the highest levels of creative thinking deteriorate into an obsessive defense when they are excessively engaged.
http://www.pete-walker.com/pdf/GrievingAndComplexPTSD.pdf
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