Traumatic Incident Reduction Association

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What is Unblocking?

Michael P. Brechtel, MEd, JD, LMT
Traumatic Incident Reduction Trainer and Facilitator

Pretty much everyone has a drawer or a box where, over years or even decades, they’ve tossed technology cables, cords and adapters, thinking that they would be useful and needed. You’ve probably got one at home. If you’re like me, when you need something, you open the drawer and find it a hopeless morass of tangled, useless junk. Then you close it, go to the store and buy the cable you need. It may have been in the drawer, but it was just too daunting, depressing and confusing to go there.

In our lives, we often have people, places or things that have become tangled and confusing. We know there is something useful in the relationship, situation or circumstance, but it’s become a daunting, depressing, confusing place to go. Unblocking is an orderly process, where we commit the time to empty the drawer, separate and untangle the various cables, roll them up, sort through them, discard those that are definitely useless, and put to use those that are. Only we do this with the people, places or things that have become chaotic in that corner of our psyche where we toss such things…

 

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Learning the The True Strength of Children

The True Strength of Children

Boy with telescopeHow often have we heard, “Children are resilient”?  As Dr, Bruce Perry says, “Children are not resilient; they are malleable.” (Of an object, malleable means “able to be changed in shape by force or pressure”; of a child it is used to mean “impressionable, adaptable”.)

Not too long ago it was believed that trauma was relatively inconsequential for children, as they were thought to “forget it”, or “get over it”.  As Dr Perry points out, of course they “get over it”; what other choice do they have?

With the advent of the historic Adverse Childhood Experiences Study by Felliti and Anda, it became obvious that childhood traumas cast long shadows.

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