Trauma, invisibility, and identity development: An EMDR framwork

Traumatically experienced events, captured in memory and replayed like a familiar musical refrain from an operatic score, are negatively stored in the memory network. Recall of traumatic experience is characteristically difficult, despite the repetitive, nearly obsessive, refrain with which traumatic events broadcast into daily life experience. One of the sequelae of traumatic memories negatively stored is the complication of making sense of the self or self-understanding. Moreover, negatively stored memories complicate and perplex self-understanding. When viewed psychosically through the major statuses: race, sex and gender, social class and sexual orientation the affect of the environment on the self is significant. Racial and ethnic self-understanding, in particular, illuminates the way in which the self can become invisible rather than understood. EMDR an adaptive information processing theory, consistent with constructive versus essentialist conceptions of persons, is proposed, with its self-interpretation process, as a effective psychotherapy.

Conference

English

Robert Page

Page, R. (2009, August). Trauma, invisibility, and identity development: An EMDR framwork. Presentation at the 14th EMDR International Association Conference, Atlanta, GA