That facet of mind

I'm a book worm outside of my office.  I prefer to read fiction that is way outside the possibility of actually happening, stuff about vampires, ghosts, supernatural, and the like.  I recently picked up a book titled "Anna Dressed in Blood" by Kendare Blake.  The long and the short of it is that the main character Cas helps ghosts who are stuck here to move on.  Funny thing though Cas goes into explaining why ghosts get stuck and it related right back to why sometimes our minds get stuck on traumatic events.  Let me start you out with the section that made me think about RRT:

"It's a funny thing about ghosts.  They might have been normal, or relatively normal, when they were still breathing, but once they  die they're your typical obsessives.  They become fixated on what happened to them and trap themselves in the worst moment.  Nothing else exists in their world except the edge of the knife, the feel of hands around their throat.  They have a habit of showing you these things, usually by demonstration.  If you know their story, it isn't hard to predict what they'll do."

So except for like the last few lines of that paragraph that's exactly what happens to a facet of our subconscious mind when something traumatic happens to us.  (Trauma=something different, unusual, unexpected, violent, disturbing)  That facet of mind gets completed obsessed with what had happened and is trapped in that horrible moment.  It then adds meaning to the event that happened.  The meaning is ALWAYS 100 times worse than the actual event and ALWAYS distorted.  (For example any client I have ever worked with that has been sexually violated has the meaning that they let it happen, they some how deserved it or created it, that they are forever broken and dirty)  Mind then scans through our personal history and looks for moments in our life that have some structural similarity and confused it as being the same.  So now not only do we have one traumatic event we've likely gotten about 15 traumatic events all collected together where that facet of our subconscious mid is totally lost in.
Now sometimes we are aware of this facet of mind working in the background in a way that is not advantageous to us.  For others they are not aware of that but just know that there is some emotional block (say on going anxiety or anger) that seems to constantly be problematic for us.  It's like somehow when that traumatic event happened an app was installed into our subconscious mind but it has some nasty virus in it so that app isn't helpful. 
Also that facet of mind has NO IDEA that anything has happened since that traumatic event.  So even though let's say the actual event happened when someone was 5 years old and now they are 40 and in between there they have earned a few college degrees, traveled the world, and have 3 beautiful children...that's all lost to that facet of mind with the viral app. 
And that's where RRT fits in.  We get to the root of the problem, establish what are combined goal is, and update that app so it no longer has a virus and runs in a way that is much more advantageous to the person. 
Be well, Be happy-
Tara S. Dickherber, LPC
Certified Rapid Resolution Therapy® therapist
Executive Director of the Institute for Survivors of Sexual Violence™

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