A few months ago, I had in my care a young man who was suffering from remarkable intestinal troubles; a case which had been treated by other colleagues as one of “anemia with malnutrition.” I realized that it was a case of hysteria; I was unwilling to use my psychotherapy on him, and sent him off on a sea-voyage. Now a few days previously I had received a despairing letter from him; he wrote from Egypt, saying that he had had a fresh attack, which the doctor had declared to be dysentery. I suspect that the diagnosis is merely an error on the part of an ignorant colleague, who is allowing himself to be fooled by the hysteria; yet I cannot help reproaching myself for putting the invalid in a position where he might contract some organic affection of the bowels in addition to his hysteria. Furthermore, dysentery sounds not unlike diphtheria.

Hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences, they proclaim, and go on to note that these memories are not subject to the wearing away process of normal memories but persist for a long time with astonishing freshness. Nor can traumatized people control when they will emerge: We must mention another remarkable fact namely that these memories, unlike other memories of their past lives, are not at the patients’ disposal. On the contrary, these experiences are completely absent from the patients’ memory when they are in a normal psychical state, or are only present in a highly summary form. Traumatic memories were lost to ordinary consciousness either because circumstances made a reaction impossible, or because they started during severely paralyzing affects, such as fright. The lack of verbal memory is central in trauma and, if a person does not remember, he is likely to act out: [H]e reproduces it not as a memory but as an action; he repeats it, without knowing, of course, that he is repeating, and in the end, we understand that this is his way of remembering.

Some might ask, why would someone want to see projections of a traumatic memory over and over again? We found, to our great surprise, at first, that each individual hysterical symptom immediately and permanently disappeared when we had succeeded in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was provoked and in arousing its accompanying affect, and when the patient had described that event in the greatest possible detail and had put the affect into words. Recollection without affect almost invariably produces no result. Unless there is an energetic reaction to the traumatic event, the affect remains attached to the memory and cannot be discharged. The reaction can be discharged by an action—from tears to acts of revenge. It brings an end to the operative force, which was not abreacted in the first instance [i.e., at the time of the trauma], by allowing its strangulated affect to find a way out through speech; and it subjects it to associative correction by introducing it into normal consciousness.

I believe that it is wrong to designate the feeling or having experiences something before as an illusion. On the contrary, in such moments, something is really touched that we have already experiences, only we cannot consciously recall the latter because it never was conscious. In the latter, the feeling of Déjà vu corresponds to the memory of an unconscious phantasy. There are unconscious phantasies (or day-dreams) just as there are similar conscious creations, which everyone knows from personal experience. Even though psychoanalysis is today in eclipse, the talking cure has lived on, and psychologist have generally assumed that telling the trauma story in great detail will help people leave it behind. That is also a basic premise of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which today is taught in graduate psychology courses around the World because our bodies are the texts that carry the memories and therefore remembering is no less than reincarnation.

When awareness comes to the foreground as a resource, because it is both pervasive and totally detached, it profoundly supports the process of titration and releasing the energies from the nervous system. An awakened individual is a powerful resource who can provide a field of wisdom and unconditional love, which not only provides safety, but also facilitates awareness in others. This unconditional love and education allows people’s nervous system to relax and surrender to what is. The more clearly the healer is abiding as an open presence, the more naturally Divine Intelligence comes through, unimpeded, in each moment. Such a healer is better able to follow the natural wisdom of the individual’s body by being fully present and available to the subtle movements and sensations. Sensation is the primary language of our instinctual nature, which has its own wisdom and knows how to discharge trauma.

If you have a self-regulating nervous system, it greatly increases the capacity of people in your presence to regulate their own nervous system. Being awake to our true nature does not necessarily mean that out nervous system is self-regulating. Developing this resiliency sometimes requires spiritual awakening. A purified mind can magnetize people around you, and it will attract kind and loving people into your life. We are healing and releasing tightly bound energies at their cores—as if they were being unwound. And as the traumatic energies release, they naturally transmute into feelings of contentment, ease, love, and even ecstatic bliss, which are intrinsic to out true nature. I want to love somebody; I want to feel love all on me.  After everything, I still believe in true love. Not being able to find it. Damn, it tears me up, and I know it is my fault. Let us take a trip, ten thousand miles above the clouds. We can stay up here until we figure it out. I do not want to go to the house. I do not want to be alone.

When people have medical procedures in early life, they can be most traumatizing to children. These traumas can be compounded by the additional trauma of being tortured and harassed relentlessly. It is a good idea to limit activity to minimize the stress on your heart. Blood heat over tension and I know fear and anxiety were always present in your life experience to varying degrees. However, when it comes to you, close your window. You hate fighting in the World. Deception on my lips and blood on your hands. And I am tired of keeping lies, you can see it in my eyes. I do not want to die. I appreciated becoming more aware of my body and felt that this was exactly the right work for me. Initially, my nervous eyes did not have the resiliency to allow for pendulation. When the trauma vortex is being and strong, and the healing vortex is weak and undeveloped, attention on either good or negative sensation can quickly cause a spiral into the trauma vortex. Therefore, focus on what is here and what is now. Looking at me like you love me. I feel like I just had a trip to Hawaii. I just want to love you; we do not have to fake it. Focus on what is good right now.