The word trauma is thrown around quite a bit these days, but what is trauma?
Our very own Françoise E. Netter has dedicated her life’s work to researching trauma, the effects of trauma, and most importantly, the release and transformation of trauma. Françoise’s work covers the Five Prongs of Trauma and the Four Steps to Healing Trauma, which empowers those who experience her breakthrough sessions and healing services to work through and transform trauma and the residual wounds into Resiliency and Joy. This ultimate transformation is an act of healing and joy, something we could all use a bit more of in today’s world.
What is Trauma?
Trauma is an experience over which we seem to have no control and respond to or view in some negatively impactful way. It can happen in an instant or over a prolonged period of time. Often trauma is accompanied by physical dissociation or an emotional repression of some kind. We refer to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as the body’s lingering response to the effects of Trauma and the physiological stress response invoked by the event. This stress response can create the reoccurrence of mental states, emotions, and behaviors triggered by the original event, even decades later.
The issue with Trauma is that it not only affects the person who directly experienced it, but if not healed, it can be passed on intergenerationally and repeated. Like a wound that has not been cleaned out, it can continue to fester in subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle ways.
Through her research and work, Françoise identified five prongs of trauma, which are:
- physical
- mental
- emotional
- sexual
- intergenerational
These five prongs can help us better understand the trauma we experience and the impact that trauma has on our own lives and the lives of those we care about.
Let’s take a closer look at each of these five prongs. While these prongs are viewed separately, they are very much interrelated.
Physical Trauma
Physical trauma is the result of physical injury or damage to the body, no matter how big or small. This can be caused by a major car accident, a freak accident, a major illness, or another event where your body experiences damage. The body may be temporarily injured or permanently altered. These events both disrupt your daily life and routine, making you feel disconnected from the body and mind you previously identified with.
Mental Trauma
Mental Trauma has a cognitive impact and can be activated by childhood abuse or by any event that creates fear, anger, grief, or another emotion that then gets repeated mentally and becomes a belief. An example would be growing up in a household where a parent may continuously tell the child they can’t do anything right or are not good enough. That thought form becomes a belief that can then get triggered by events completely unrelated to the original trauma.
Emotional Trauma
Emotional trauma is closely related to mental trauma, but is more centered around the feelings that are activated by the Traumatic event, including loss and fear. Often with emotional Trauma, there may be somatic responses which we often find in sexual trauma. Even though we can separate the 5 prongs of Trauma, they are all interrelated because of our body/mind connection.
Sexual Trauma
Sexual trauma is the mental, emotional, and physical effects that are experienced by survivors of incest and sexual assault. These impacts can be experienced in a physical, mental, or emotional sense. Like with all forms of trauma, each individual who has experienced a traumatic event will experience the effects of that event differently.
The impacts of sexual trauma can include heightened feelings of anger, guilt, shame, and confusion. But it can also manifest in physical symptoms (somatic) such as headaches, sore throats, fatigue, eating disorders, shifts in behavior, depression, and even suicide.
Intergenerational Trauma
Intergenerational trauma occurs when trauma is passed down from one generation to the next. When it comes to intergenerational trauma, the individual presenting the effects of trauma does not always need to experience a traumatic event personally, but the environment of the Trauma is still felt.
Intergenerational trauma does not come in one specific form, but can present itself in many different ways. Examples of intergenerational trauma include sexual abuse, war, imprisonment, The Holocaust, slavery, or poverty, which can create a cyclical pattern if the trauma is not identified and released.
We just covered the five prongs of trauma, but it is important to remember that these forms of trauma are not isolated from one another. Rather, they are very closely tied.
In 2022, Françoise was struck by a car while walking in Coronado, CA. For those of you who know Françoise, you know that this was her happy place. As a result of this accident, Françoise suffered from a broken Tibial Plateau and tore several tendons in her left shoulder. She spent nine days in the hospital in Coronado. However, her release from the hospital was just the beginning of her recovery journey.
The event Françoise experienced caused immediate physical trauma that she still deals with today. The physical toll this took on her also impacted her mind. It impacted her ability to move and carry out the work she loves, which put strain on her business. While the trauma that Françoise experienced was from a physical event, it also caused her mental and emotional trauma, as well as pain, which she is still healing from today. We encourage you to remember that trauma is not boxed up as physical, mental, emotional, sexual, or intergenerational, but each of these prongs is closely related and intertwined.
The Process of Healing Trauma
On many levels, we would all love to hear that there are simple steps to heal from trauma, and then it is over. However, the process of healing trauma is far from linear. The path to healing is a spiral path that allows the individual greater freedom and a choice to respond to external circumstances in a new and conscious manner and to release the past with grace and emerging joy.
Françoise has dedicated her work to understanding trauma and how to heal trauma through accessing the Alpha Brain Wave State and creative self-expression, invoking body, mind, emotions, and Spirit. Through her research, she’s identified four steps to healing trauma, which include:
- Identifying the event itself
- Feeling the beliefs, emotions, and thought forms of the trauma
- Transforming the feelings surrounding the trauma
- Activating resiliency and joy
All of these steps create an environment where the wounds of the past can be transformed and released without recreating the Trauma or re-traumatizing the individual. This is vital information for anyone who is afraid of being re-traumatized and thereby avoids the healing journey.
Releasing Trauma, Activating Joy
Everyone experiences trauma differently, and there is no “right” path to healing. Françoise has decades of experience helping individuals identify, confront, and release their trauma to step into a more creative and joyous life.
On August 16th, Françoise is sharing her story and her professional experience in an upcoming workshop, Releasing Trauma, Activating Joy– From Wounds to Resiliency & Creative Contribution. This workshop will dive deep into the five prongs of trauma and how to heal trauma through activating the Alpha Brainwave State. If you are local to Boulder or Longmont, you can attend in person; otherwise, the event will be hosted on Zoom!
To learn more or to reserve your spot, contact us at fenetter@yahoo.com or 303-960-6000.