Wounds

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Let’s begin with dissociation. “a term in psychology describing a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from one’s immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from one’s physical and emotional reality.” “The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality.” Daydreaming and non-pathological altered states of consciousness are mild forms.

“On the other end of the spectrum are the dissociative disorders: fugue, depersonalization etc. These are typically experienced as startling, autonomous intrusions into the person’s usual ways of responding or functioning. They are quite unsettling. In mild cases dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanism in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress—including boredom and conflict.” Wikipedia

It interests me, and maybe all of us, to see a psychological picture of the wound which effects the dissociation. Before we do that, let us consider what causes the wound: generally associated with trauma, old-school psychologists simply sight the traumatic event as causing the resulting wound. These men were half right.
 
Deeper studies proved that very infants show a psychic splitting at the very earliest observation. Essentially, this discovery moved the initial wound back to babyhood. For a period of time in the research of the early 1900’s, this primary splitting or wounding seemed to be attributed to infant-hood events.
 
Later this same school of Psychology identified this split as a gradual one, and said “this belongs to our essence.” In other words the splitting looms inevitable, and will most certainly happen due to some event. Still only half true.
 
Quoting “psychological Types Revisited by John Ryan Haule, from the journal Spring 53(1992) pp. 95-112”, “But only six years later (Jung, 1912: par. 217),he defines “trauma” as “a psychological development which reaches its climax, and becomes manifest, at the traumatic moment.” In this Fordham University address, Jung argues that psychic injury requires a process of sensitization: an event has to be perceived as traumatic, and the perceptual system that so interprets the event is the complex-to-be. The injurious event gives the complex an identity, whereby the already autonomous and potentially dissociable sub-personality becomes capable of taking charge of the psyche as a kind of alter ego with its own agenda.”
 
Let’s break this big quote down a bit. First, as problems challenge, man defaults with a wounded or “split” “sub-personality.” So, he or she always interprets events the only way known —in accord with this “sub-thing”. This inherently-known way promotes a section of his or her split sub-personality, and creates something in the person’s nature never before existing.  Perhaps with this “sub,” and it’s split-perception, they allow it to take over the whole of the psyche. See, the problem with us humans goes deeper than we think. Stay with me.
 
Of interest here, assuming the above true —the event must be “perceived” as traumatic, in order for it to wound a person, so says Jung. Apparently, feelings and even pain are not the whole of wounding, but a person’s unique “perception” of the event also involves itself.

The “perception” of the traumatic event with its sensitization, becomes, potentially, the new identity, new soul-complex, an alter ego; according to this article. Amazing!
 
This means that two persons experiencing the same event, with same sensitization and same trauma, may interpret what happened in two different ways. A youth may feel the pain of being punched in the arm several times on his birthday, as I was. However he was not wounded by the event, as I wasn’t, because I interpreted it all in fun.

Quoting again “Psychological Types Revisited by John Ryan Haule,” “We find ourselves divided into a civilized, socially adapted part and a barbaric part that holds the secret of our individual uniqueness. We suffer from this internal split as from an ever open, never healing wound …” Can we affirm: at the bottom, we as people are really in an inward struggle between asserting-barbaric-individuality on the one side of the split, and fig-leafing (cover up of it all) toward social acceptability on the other side?
 
Folks, as people meet the events of life, the raw materials in the man try to sort out what just happened. Is it any wonder a weird interpretation emerges and takes on a seeming malignant life of its own?
 
So, the roots, with wounded “sub-personalities” and all, focuses our attention. Some radical alteration must be made here, or we are helpless against trials and traumatic events. As long as my interpreters are of a certain kind, I will decipher in accordance with their divided way.

As a remedy, God offers an unsplit sub-personality, (person), as a basis for interpreting events, and it requires a spiritual re-gene. God goes right to the root of things and remakes us with something unbroken —new spiritual D.N.A. When we receive and affirm this remake, our new method for unraveling negative events no longer has to fragment our psyche to offer coping peace.

Instead our very wholeness maintains itself and gives us a perception in the light of the unifying objectivity of Bible truth. In other words, we access the mind of God for the situation. We are not prolonged wounded, but on the contrary, we have enough spirit-weaponry now to deflect the event with wisdom from above.

Forgiveness, grace thinking, merciful understanding, and unconditional love with a view to ministering to our “enemy,” become bigger and sounder event changers! At the last we can apply the blood of Christ to our own conscience and effect a purging. It may take us time before we apply this blood, but it can erase the memory, as we live in the new man, and discard as irrelevant the whole of our past trauma. 

In closing, the psalmist said in Psalm 141:5, “let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.” We do not wish to pretend all wounds are easily healed. However, we do believe all wounds can be healed by God and his Word. Abuse, rape, assault, or battery etc, can traumatize a strong human. Atrocities have left poor victims in a perpetual state of mental deficiency. I hope we recognize that all of the above healing brags only God’s miracle, and never a psychological technique. love ya