Trauma can be big or small. Finding a way through involves clearing the debris that gets in the way of experiencing the freedom to fully be oneself. But freedom to be oneself may seem impossible for someone who has experienced trauma's devastating effects. Trauma has a way of imprisoning one in an experience of the world that is quite restricted with little freedom of movement possible. Ironically, the walls that imprison were perhaps initially constructed to protect the tender heart of the person who endured the horrific violations of trauma's predation.

While trauma can come in many different forms and wear many different faces, the dynamics of its after-effects follow certain patterns that can be identified and worked through during the course of therapy. This involves working intensively with the deeply hurt parts of oneself that have borne the brunt of trauma's attacks and cruelty.

The good news is this: having experienced profound mistreatment does not mean one is cursed to a life that can only be lived within the circumference delineated by the merciless dictates of such treatment. Acting as a compassionate witness and ally to one's experience of what has been endured, the space is opened to work through trauma's debilitating effects. Working in this way, one can begin to bear witness to events and circumstances that have remained frozen in memory, bringing new life to these areas of experience that had long been devoid of any generative meaning. In learning to bear what had previously been unbearable, one can begin living a life, perhaps for the first time, that one desires to live and believes is worth living, thereby reclaiming one's birthright in the communal land of the living.