Trauma, whether it is the result of something done to you or something you yourself have done, almost always makes it difficult to engage in intimate relationships. After you have experienced something so unspeakable, how do you learn to trust yourself or anyone else again? Or, conversely, how can you surrender to an intimate relationship after you

The sense of being inhabited by warring impulses or parts is common to all of us but particularly to traumatized people who had to resort to extreme measures in order to survive. Exploring—even befriending—those parts is an important component of healing.

to draw out the sensory information that is blocked and frozen by trauma; to help patients befriend (rather than suppress) the energies released by that inner experience; to complete the self-preserving physical actions that were thwarted when they were trapped, restrained, or immobilized by terror.