As I read through the first half, I felt like you were describing very accurately some of the situations I have subjectively experienced in the past few years. But I haven't really known what to do about them. Even just reading how other people feel this way makes me feel better about myself.

While I do not have a therapist or counsellor myself, I will try the ideas you suggest the next time that I feel like a child. If you have any other links regarding this idea of 'lifespan integration,' please post them so we can have a read.

I think it is great that through these blogs, you bloggers can help many more people out there than just your clients. Thank you again. =)

I think it's almost natural to have this child-like feeling. If Freud is right then our childhood experiences will always resonate with us no matter how old we are and an inability to deal with them then will transcend age and come back to haunt us as the years roll by. I think though that as we get older and take in more responsibility we at times miss the innocence of youth and want to visit more carefree times. It's not something we hope to live in everyday but it does seem a rather appealing concept when times become hard.

easier said than done.

I had this feeling of an inner child right up to my twenties. As I recall, three things liberated that child:
1. revisualising the scary situation, through adult eyes and realising that it was no longer scary
2. "standing next to" my child self and doing the things I would have liked to do at the time (eg beating up the bullies)
3. giving the inner child hugs and reassurances that weren't there at the time - this was pretty important, for me, and did the most to dissolve the inner child and reunite my mind.
I think actively talking to the child is crucial, because it is a very real part of us.

Hmm, yes, insightful. Though I wonder if the writer is talking about 'normal' everyday trigger events predominantly?

Would the same assessment of 'inner child misintegration and reappearance under stress' apply to someone who's been the victim of sadistic and/or horrific crime or very traumatic injury?

I'm thinking that just about every human being would display these feelings of overwhelm and a form of traumatised dissociation in those types of extreme and unusual situations.

I worry that this line of thinking - that all human reactions are the responsibility of the subject/victim - is yet another, subtle flavour of 'blame the victim'. When, in reality, horrific accidents ARE horrific and sadistic crimes ARE deeply traumatising no matter how integrated and mature one is. It seems to me that these sorts of 'nothing to do with the perps, all within the victim' arguments could lead to another form of the degenerative moral relativistic exoneration/failure to hold to account of those who caused the trauma.

I genuinely do look forward to the thoughts of the writer and readers on this point.

Well said! (except for the "blah, blah, blah")

Thank you YG for your answer. I can certainly see where you're coming from. You explain things really well.

I still have queries about one's responses to crime though. Perhaps I didn't explain myself very well.

I guess my position could be summed as 'you don't need to have been subject to child abuse and be reacting from this child-victim position to be very traumatised as an adult subject to horrific accident or serious crime.

I wonder if you've had any experience of either? (Not that I'd wish either on anyone, you understand.) I have no experience of rape but I do know that all expert and police advice is NOT to fight, that those who fight the rapist often end up with far worse injuries or even murdered. They're not saying 'Roll over and act like a restimulated victim of child abuse'. They're giving sensible advice that could save your life. Indeed, being strategically compliant can be seen as actually a very adult, composed and in control response.

Closer to home, personally I was subject to a street crime which was over and done with before I knew it. (There are no interpretations of abused/victimised childlike trust in my surroundings etc to be made here.) Nonetheless, I was very badly injured and traumatised for many many months. It didn;t rekindle any ancient abuses or hidden memories. It was what it was - shocking. It was compounded by incredibly dreadful police and other authority responses. I now consider my response to be normal and sane, the reasonable response of any healthy adult.

Thus, I guess that my criticism of a blanket analysis of all failure to deal well with events where one is made a victim is that blanket interpretations are superficial and inaccurate. To that extent such blanket assessments may lead others to consider 'victims' as already at fault (too 'damaged' by their previous abuse?) and less deserving of support and redress.

In a cultural climate where criminal justice standards are falling and erring on the side of the perpetrator and where services are struggling to provide a bare minimum of support/intervention, anything that appears to support public services and the general public to avert their eyes from real suffering is not really to be encouraged.

What a very informative and well written article. I'll be sending this out to my friends and will share it with my therapist.

You've hit the nail on the child within us and the end of your article says it all :)

Hello YG

Thanks once again. Gosh! You certainly (and very eloquently) summed the picture.

I hadn't drawn a parallel between victims of e.g. crime and accidents and military personnel. But, you're on the button, I feel: these people also suffer as victims of violence and as witnesses to violence despite their training which is pretty advanced.

Indeed, your connection illustrates most pertinently what I'm endeavouring to articulate. Whilst out in theatre, defending, fighting, killing, being killed and maimed, 'our boys (and girls)' are lauded as wonderful heroes. As of course they truly are.

Once they get home, traumatised and battered, they're treated abysmally. (I forget, for example, the statistics with regards to homelessness amongst veterans but I recall that it's scandalously high; and we've heard stories of the gvt's cutbacks concerning their treatment for PTSD). Somehow, vets are treated as abnormal once they get home and struggle with the personal aftermath of all that they've experienced - and those who should help and support do not.

This parallel exactly encapsulates my issue with casting people who have been personally under fire (whether in war or on urban streets) as intrinsically victims who need to sort themselves out because they are somehow deficient.

You write that very few have genuine understanding and compassion, and that so many live in bubbles of illusion: as long as it doesn't touch them then everything's fine.

You also write of the fear and hatred that underpins so much of human life. For some reason I could not summon up hatred for my attacker - as you said, I've just sought to understand why victims are so universally feared and hated! As they certainly are - by all sorts of professionals - and this manifests in all sorts of ways both overt and covert.

In sum, I pity my attacker who is clearly ill (and most likely an authentic victim of Dr. Seltzer's unresolved child abuse). But I have nothing but disgust for the hypocritical authorities and those professionals who then went on to underplay, dismiss, deny, ignore the offending and its effects. (It seems to me that this is somehow worse than the attacker's blind, unthinking behaviour: all the authorities have access to information and research about crime and the effects of crime/violence/accident trauma, there is no excuse for then participating in 'secondary victimisation').

Your last two paragraphs struck me particularly and I share your dream:

"When it is revealed to us the extent of fear, violence, and hatred that exists in this world, it can be at first quite consuming.. I'm finding that the only way I can effectively deal with it is to learn more about it and try to heal it through actions of love. (And there is a big difference between ideation and action). A public service worker can do a lot more to serve the public by showing compassion. It may even cut their effort in half, who knows..

Trying to gain understanding and compassion for all other beings is a lot of responsibility to be charged with, but it seems once a person has gained a certain level of understanding, it's hard to go back to the world of blindness or violence. I dream of a day in which our children no longer inherit confusion and suffering and can live freely enjoying the beauty and love that can instead be our existence."

I hope Dr Seltzer doesn't feel like this is a criticism but I'd like to hear his thoughts on my proposition that it's far easier (and more lucrative) to get a person into therapy as a victim of violence/trauma than it is to encourage a blind, unthinking perpetrator into therapy to work on why they attack others. You see, I'm not so sure it's the victim who needs the most help...but we victims, having had our worlds rocked/devastated etc., are indeed the most vulnerable to all sorts of suggestions that we are the ones at fault.

I am completely in agreement YG, that public service workers could indeed cut their workloads (and their resource expenditure) in half by actually employing a soupcon of compassion and empathy when dealing with those of us who've been through a traumatic experience. I now have much experience of the 'blame the victim' syndrome! Indeed, as a professional writer and researcher, I feel a book or two coming on! Meanwhile, I'm currently holding police and other authorities to account for their 'secondary victimisation' (the police in my case, for example, are now subject to a high level investigation of their 'harassment of the victim of crime' and 'conspiracy to pervert the course of justice' - these simply because they did not exercise the least compassion and chose to cover up their failures and incompetences.)

This secondary victimisation in so many different forms is very common I've been appalled to find. Mostly people accept it 'because it's the system', 'I can't do anything about it' (which, in itself, is a victim/childlike disempowered mentality!).

So, I'd genuinely like to hear more from Dr Seltzer on these other aspects of psychological trauma: the wider, societal context in which a person becomes a victim rather than the focus on the victim as a disconnected being subject only to ancient unresolved disempowerment/abuse.

Thank you once again for your engagement, YG. You've certainly helped me to think further and generously shared your caring, compassionate (and sanely practical and practicable!) aspirations for human society.

Hi Alan,

It sounds like you had a really horrible experience with the justice system, and I'm really sorry for all the unecessary insult to injury..

You've brought up many very important issues that linger in the moral-political zone in which I tend to focus much of my energy as well. If you don't like the world, change it, right??

Something you wrote concerns me, and it is this:

"You also write of the fear and hatred that underpins so much of human life. For some reason I could not summon up hatred for my attacker - as you said, I've just sought to understand why victims are so universally feared and hated! As they certainly are - by all sorts of professionals - and this manifests in all sorts of ways both overt and covert."

I think it's great you were able to forgive your attacker, but it seems you are now focusing your anger on "the professionals" and go as far as to say that victims are universally feared and hated. I don't know what exactly happened to you nor should you probably discuss it in an open forum if there are legal actions in progress, but it is the broad generalizations that concern me. Of course, if I were a rape victim who was humiliated in court with the perp getting off free (as I believe happens frequently), maybe I would better understand your level of discord..

You say:

"I hope Dr Seltzer doesn't feel like this is a criticism but I'd like to hear his thoughts on my proposition that it's far easier (and more lucrative) to get a person into therapy as a victim of violence/trauma than it is to encourage a blind, unthinking perpetrator into therapy to work on why they attack others. You see, I'm not so sure it's the victim who needs the most help...but we victims, having had our worlds rocked/devastated etc., are indeed the most vulnerable to all sorts of suggestions that we are the ones at fault."

I think it's easier to get a victim into therapy than the vampire, and Leon can correct me, because typically vampires have some level of antisocial tendencies which make them not trust other people. Sometimes NO other people and certainly not therapists. They have so many defense mechanisms put up that the last thing they would ever want is to be vulnerable to someone skilled at mind-reading. I chatted with a schizoid on here once, and he was telling me how "obviously manipulative" therapists are. That's probably a pretty common observation in those types, they don't see people as genuinely wanting to help them, as I feel most psychologists want to do.

So, let's say a person gets attacked and seeks treatment for the resulting trauma. The perp would be SO LUCKY as to get caught and be institutionalized in a real correctional facility that actually tries to help heal them. Does that even exist? I don't know, but our tax dollars would probably pay for it, or shrinks working pro bono. I know nothing about it, really, but one of the other bloggers used to do work in this arena, which I think is awesome.

Now why were the professionals so rotten to you? I don't know. I would pobably have to hear more in order to say, but again it's probably not in your best legal interest to say.. Do service workers become hardened by the work they do? Do they start off being idealistic and wanting to help and then feel that it's endless, and give up the good fight? I don't know. Do they see their work as just a pay check and not really care about people due to their own bad childhoods? Did you just happen to catch a bunch of people on a super crappy day? Do you have pent up rage about your own upbringing and are you taking it out on the professionals??? That might be a valid question! And I am NOT saying that's what I think, but make sure you give it a lot of thought first.

This goes back to what I was saying in my first comment about recognizing situations in which you feel defenseless or on the defense and try to link it up to childhood experiences. So, the attack itself is not the issue, but it's feeling attacked by the professionals that worries me. And I am not "blaming the victim", but I'm trying to make sure you have as much power as you can have before continuing on this arduous battle. From my own civil rights battles that I've engaged in, I've learned that having high levels of self-knowledge is the single most effective way to make change happen, because if you know yourself, you know everyone else, and can speak directly to their hearts which is what makes people change.

Steven Stosny has a great blog about compassion being power, compared to people armed with anger, and he is so correct. No one wants to listen to someone who appears to be angry (even if the anger is warranted). If you show a true level of concern and compassion for the entity who you are trying to change, you gain the respect of people who can help you as well enable the entity to bring down their defenses so that such change is possible. And remember that even if you're trying to change entire political systems, you are speaking to the hearts of individual people, people who have the same fears and dreams you do, (they just might not know it yet).

Alan, it's been a real pleasure chatting with you as well. I'm a regular on here, so you may see me floating around. I wish you a lot of courage for what may lie ahead.

Love and peace,
YG

Hi. May i ask if this syndrome might occur due to their childhood. Like it could be the lack of parents attention in ensuring their child's development?

Nice article to read. I think being a child is fun that is why We adult tend to imitate childhood behavior to have fun.