When the I shatters: Insights in Psychotrauma for Victims and their Accompaniers

This book aims at contributing towards overcoming speechlessness in every respect. It should help the traumatised to express their expe-rience in words and/or images, as well as those who live with and accompany them to gain an inkling of what the traumatised has ex-perienced. It can only be a hazy notion; the depth and intensity of the trauma will probably always evade those who have not been traumatised. This is because traumatised persons lose their freedom and dignity through the trauma, and this can probably only be meas-ured by those who have had the same, or at least similar, experience, or who have accompanied many people through the abysses of trauma. - This book asks you questions and attempts to give an initial answer. It should help you to work out whether you are traumatised (Chapter 1), and to understand what a trauma really is (Chapter 2), as well as what it feels like (Chapter 3). It shows how a trauma can happen, and that a trauma is different from what people usually understand: it can result not only from huge traumatic events, but also from al-most invisible, but seriously debilitating, realities (Chapter 4). Spe-cial attention is paid to so-called relationship traumas, that is, trau-mas that result from oppressive relationships. On the whole there is relatively little written about this. Traumas usually give rise to pro-found consequences. Sometimes traumatised persons hide them from themselves and others; sometimes traumas result in terribly confused feelings. I want to help you to sort out your feelings and to re-discover what you have hidden (Chapter 5), so that you can find yourself again in them and underneath them. For this reason I give initial hints about what we can do to confront trauma effectively (Chapter 6). Finally, I offer some helpful tips for the accompanier or partner (Chapter 7).