Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Diploma Program and Master’s Degree in Processwork, Process Work Institute, Portland, Oregon
Local notes
http://www.processwork.org/files/Finalprojects/Sideri_K_August_2016.pdf
Abstract
This is a personal testimony, a heuristic research on exploring personal feelings and body experiences with the use of Processwork techniques, and uncovering their relationship to personal history and collective trauma. Following closely and unfolding my experiences for five years now, I have arrived to some personal revelations, reaffirmations and conclusions regarding the relationship of what I was experiencing as disturbances, illnesses or annoying moods and behavior in my everyday life, to what was finally organizing these experiences and lying in the background of their existence. My primary aim when I started this research was to help myself find ways to deal with what was really challenging my wellbeing. As I was moving through though, my passion became to speak about this disorienting place, the sensation of it, its intensity, its threatening quality; to uncover the mechanism that supports and sustains the suffering, promotes alienation even from one’s own self, and imposes silence and marginalization. My hope is that this material can be useful to both individuals and practitioners who are struggling in the blurry atmosphere of trauma. My aspiration is to offer some description and structural explanation of experiences that remain in the margins of our acceptance, in order for others to acknowledge and stand for their own feelings without shame, self-blaming and a one sided pathological explanation of their experiences. This is for me the first step towards healing and, according to my personal belief, this basic step is rarely reached, thereby prolonging and intensifying the suffering. Traumatic experiences can create wounds difficult to handle and accept, and thus create alienation and loneliness. Primarily self-protecting barriers can lead to the creation of a closed system that is hard to penetrate. My wish is that by naming and opening to my own experiences I can bring some knowledge that can cross those barriers, reach into that lonely place, and bring healing a step closer. The healing of the wound should actually be a community issue, the same way as was its creation. I wish that no individual should have to carry this heavy burden alone. At the same time, tracking and writing about this deep and mostly scary journey is also healing for me. It helps me ground some of the knowledge accumulated through experiencing and to finally move myself into a place of voice. I feel blessed and lucky to have survived. Sometimes I feel as a messenger of the pain and the difficulty I sensed, witnessed and inherited from people around me and whose suffering unconsciously fueled my progress with a burning urge for freedom and compassion.
Abstract
This is a personal testimony, a heuristic research on exploring personal feelings and body experiences with the use of Processwork techniques, and uncovering their relationship to personal history and collective trauma. Following closely and unfolding my experiences for five years now, I have arrived to some personal revelations, reaffirmations and conclusions regarding the relationship of what I was experiencing as disturbances, illnesses or annoying moods and behavior in my everyday life, to what was finally organizing these experiences and lying in the background of their existence. My primary aim when I started this research was to help myself find ways to deal with what was really challenging my wellbeing. As I was moving through though, my passion became to speak about this disorienting place, the sensation of it, its intensity, its threatening quality; to uncover the mechanism that supports and sustains the suffering, promotes alienation even from one’s own self, and imposes silence and marginalization. My hope is that this material can be useful to both individuals and practitioners who are struggling in the blurry atmosphere of trauma. My aspiration is to offer some description and structural explanation of experiences that remain in the margins of our acceptance, in order for others to acknowledge and stand for their own feelings without shame, self-blaming and a one sided pathological explanation of their experiences. This is for me the first step towards healing and, according to my personal belief, this basic step is rarely reached, thereby prolonging and intensifying the suffering. Traumatic experiences can create wounds difficult to handle and accept, and thus create alienation and loneliness. Primarily self-protecting barriers can lead to the creation of a closed system that is hard to penetrate. My wish is that by naming and opening to my own experiences I can bring some knowledge that can cross those barriers, reach into that lonely place, and bring healing a step closer. The healing of the wound should actually be a community issue, the same way as was its creation. I wish that no individual should have to carry this heavy burden alone. At the same time, tracking and writing about this deep and mostly scary journey is also healing for me. It helps me ground some of the knowledge accumulated through experiencing and to finally move myself into a place of voice. I feel blessed and lucky to have survived. Sometimes I feel as a messenger of the pain and the difficulty I sensed, witnessed and inherited from people around me and whose suffering unconsciously fueled my progress with a burning urge for freedom and compassion.