The Inner World Of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit

"This book was recommended. I found it to have a valuable perspective, particularly because it was not just a Jungian perspective but integrated the valuable insights and paradigm of Winnicott as well. A good read."
~ Written on 2008-07-06

"I have had this book before and lost it or lent it, and I am very pleased with my purchase.The book reached me in great condition (I bought it new) and I am satisfied completely with the purchase and process. This is an excellent book that uses case example and exemplifies Jung's theory about early childhood trauma. Mr. Kalsched develops the theory of how inner defense mechanisms rally around trauma in childhood and talks about how these defenses can become stumbling blocks in adult life. Very well written and an excellent read!"
~ Written on 2007-09-09

"This is an excellent book regarding Jung's treatment of earlty childhood trauma. Kalsched also covers many views of psychoanalysis both early and late. I found this book a necessary review of the history of trauma treatment in Psychology."
~ Written on 2007-07-12

"This book is a clearly written explanation of the way the unconscious tries to protect the traumatized child from remembering and thus reexperiencing the original trauma. Kalsched gives extremely helpful examples of nightmares which may be the Self's way of protecting the vulnerable child from further harm."
~ Written on 2007-03-21

"The Inner World of Trauma is a truly compelling, moving and important book. Kalsched shows that when a child is traumatised, or shamed for its genuine and healthy needs, an inner figure is constellated in the child's psyche and the job of that inner figure is to protect the child from being further shamed and re-traumatised. What is more the inner protector will do whatever it has to do in order to prevent a repeat of the original, unbearable experience - and if that means turning into a daimonic, destructive and self-destructive inner persecutor, then so be it.

With the aid of real stories, dreams, myths and fairy stories, Kalsched describes some of the strategies employed by protector-persecutor to prevent and possibility of re-traumatisation. Protector-persecutor may (1) split the personality so that the traumatised child dissociates from his or her experiences, (2) take the person into to depression to prevent him or her having hope of something better (and thus opening itself to dissapointment), (3)encase the person in a world of fantasy, or (4) numb the person through addiction. If none of those work the inner daimon may lead the person to suicide.

More-often-than-not the strategies of the inner protector-persecutor mean that the person is stuck in a cycle where the 'trauma' is repeated time and time again. Every time the person has a chance of escaping into life the protector-persecutor deems the risk of retrumatisation to be too high, and so sabotages the path to freedom and emotional health.

Worse, the inner figure fails to take account of changing circumstances, and it fails to recognise that the traumatised child has grown up and now has new, and healthier, ways of defending him or her self. The inner protector gets stuck at the point where the original damage occured. Kalsched explains that in order to find freedom from protector-persecutor a person has to become conscious of how this inner figure is suffocating life, and then the person has to find the courage to do battle with the protector-persecutor.

All that Kalshed writes about resonates deeply with my own experience. I am not a therapist, and I struggled with some of the more technical language, but having read The Inner World of Trama I now have a sense of of what drives much of my destructive and self-destructive behaviour. More importantly, the new understanding that I have gained from this book has helped me to drop some of the shame that I have about my destrucitve and self-destructive behaviour, and it has provoked me into starting to challenge some of the toxic beliefs and strategies employed by my inner protector-persecutor.

In other words, for me, The Inner World of Trama has been a truly thoughtful, powerful, moving and healing book. In fact, I consider myself to be pretty widely read, and The Inner World of Trauma is one of the two most important books that I have ever read. Lots of books have added bits to the puzzel of my(self) understanding but with Kalsched's book those pieces have come together and I now have an expanded understanding of my life. That is both enormously challenging and enormously exciting. Kalsched's ideas offer me the possibility of freedom and healing 'just' so long as I can find the courage to act on what I now understand about protector-persecutor. Taking on protector-persecutor is tough, and I suspect that I will be challenging protector-persecutor for the rest of my life - however, becasuse of Kalsched's deep, deep insights I can sense the possibility of real change.

In many ways, having read Kalsched's book I feel like I have entered a new world - albeit a world that isn't going to suddenly become easy, happy and neatly sorted out!!However, I am hugely grateful for this book and I do not hesitate in recommending this book without reservation."
~ Written on 2005-12-31