[toffeellen]

I just wondered, hearing about regresion and stuff, what is hte normal adult way to react to really frightening circumstances like being kidnapped for example?

And Im not sure what the ultimate aim of therapy is. Will we stop having these regressed emotions, or ideally would we stop haivng them even if tha is unlikely to acutally happen?

[pachyderm]

> what is hte normal adult way to react to really frightening circumstances like being kidnapped...

Is "normal" the same as "adult"?

Here is my claim of the day: being kidnapped is not necessarily "frightening". Or at least, not necessarily overwhelmingly frightening. One could in theory deal with it with maximal effectiveness, and not be totally disabled with fear.

[sunrise]

I'm not sure what you mean about the normal, adult way to deal with trauma. It is common to react to trauma by walling off the horrific experiences and "forgetting" them. It is also common to become "stuck" in the experience and be unable to move past it. One can become traumatized for life by the events and can't move beyond.

My T helps his clients deal with stuck trauma through EMDR. I have done this several times to help resolve traumatic events from my past and it helped me. By engaging alternate sides of the brain in succession and repeatedly (different methods can be used for this, such as electrical pulses in the hands or feet) while the client is recalling the memories, the memories become unstuck and pass from the place they are lodged in the brain to the other side of the brain. This allows processing and the person can at last become unstuck. I am sure I am not explaining this well, but it did work for me. I was able to process past traumatic memories whereas before I had been stuck in them. Now, when I recall these memories, they are not traumatizing for me, or are at least greatly less so.

I'm not quite sure either what you mean by regressed emotions. Do you mean emotions related to recalling childhood events? (Such as fear from a childhood kidnapping? Or the pain of being emotionally hurt and abandoned during childhood?) For me, I have a lot of feelings of being unloved and abandoned due to experiences in my childhood and my marriage. Having a positive, loving, trusting relationship with my T helps greatly with that. It helps show me I can be involved in a positive and caring relationship and he models to me how to do it. It is healing.

[Perna]

Trauma is trauma. There's nothing "adult" or "childish" about how we feel or react. Whatever resources we have at our disposal based on our age and experience we use! If we have experienced trauma in an experience and it repeats itself, we're going to react in a similar way but there's nothing "adult" or age-related about it.

[Mouse_]

Ultimate aim of therapy? To live with the range of emotions I feel and experience.

[sunrise]

Ultimate aim of therapy: to heal

[toffeellen]

I suppose I was just reading about regressing (which i dont really understand) and what it meant about expereincing childhood emoitons in response to trauma?

[WinterRose]

Purpose of therapy, imo:
Healing
Understanding
Grow and Discover
Self-awareness

(Spells HUGS!)

Regression, I believe, is to have childish reactions to something. For example, an adult having a temper tantrum in response to someone saying they could not lend them money. It's not always as extreme as that and it can be a healthy thing too. (Rocking to calm yourself when upset, for example.) It's only a problem if it becomes extreme and constant.