Eisteach Autumn 2003

PERSON-CENTRED THERAPY AND TRAUMA

A PERSONAL VIEW
By Christopher Murray
I am a person centred, humanistic, psychodynamic,
counsellor, psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer, 27
years in practice. I call on a range of approaches in my
practice. I can talk Psychodynamic, I can talk
Transactional Analysis, I can talk Existentialism, I can
talk Gestalt, I can talk Jungian Creative Therapy, I can
talk the Person Centred Approach, I can talk Solution
Focused Brief Therapy, (a bit). I can talk trauma,
depression, sexual abuse, suicide, relationships,
psychiatric illness, neurosis, psychosis, narcissism,
projection, introjection, attachment, dissociation, free
association. Boy can I talk the talk. But my experience
of working with trauma in Northern Ireland has often
silenced me.
This is not a piece aimed at contradicting existing
research, nor is it claiming the efficacy of any approach.
It is not research in the traditional sense. It is research
from a phenomenological perspective, from the
perspective of my experience. That is my validity
I wrote this piece initially for myself following a day of
trauma counselling. But in the writing of it I am valuing
the importance of the existential questions that
underpin the Person Centred Approach, and the
repeated asking of those questions of existence in
trauma counselling. There are pieces of research that
will demonstrate contraindications to the use of the
Person Centred Approach with trauma victims. I wanted

to share my experiences of the work not as an answer

to how to do trauma work. I do not believe that it is
possible to have a definitive type of therapy for each
type of condition. I believe that the relationship
between the therapist and the client to be the most
significant part of any answer to effectiveness. I believe
that the therapist as a person is just as important as the
type of theory that they utilise. I believe this because it
is my experience. I trust in the process of being with
myself and the other person in therapy. I experience the
other in the relationship reporting repeatedly that they
value being accepted as they are and that although
they would like me to have a magic wand, that it would
be most unhelpful.
PANDORAS BOX
I wish to offer some of my thoughts and experiences
working with trauma in Northern Ireland. It comes from
a need in me to share experiences in a community
where sharing is a rare commodity. I also wanted to say
something about what it is like being a counsellor in this
community where I feel I am in a privileged position in
being able to witness peoples stories. As part of a
community of counsellors I witness and carry much of
what troubles individuals in Northern Ireland, from all
communities, ex-paramilitaries and security forces.
I begin with the indominability of the human condition
in particular and that of organisms in general. Humans
are after all complex organisms, whose motivation is to
survive and continue the species. For millennia humans
have been surviving the most atrocious conditions from
early life, through ice ages, meteors, reversals of
magnetic fields, floods, earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions, to name but a few natural catastrophes. The

remainder of atrocious conditions are all created by us

and are too numerous to mention. Our capacity to
wreck havoc on each other knows no bounds. War,
torture, rape, murder, mutilation, child abuse and
neglect, to mention but a few, all of which occur on an
historical and global scale.
And yet life in this planet has such an amazing capacity
to survive, develop, in the face of the greatest odds. We
make cinema, create great works of art and literature in
order to celebrate heroic acts of courage and daring do.
It almost seems that we are at our best when defending
ourselves against an enemy. It was seen as a curiosity
that the Second World War brought communities
together, and there is a yearning from older members
of the community to return to those days.
All organisms seem to be invested with this never say
die attitude. After the Mount St. Helena eruption in
America, scientists were incredulous at the speed, rate
and strength of the natural growth that returned.
Scientists speculate and produce some evidence for a
catastrophic meteor crash in the golf of Mexico several
million years ago. Many plants and animal species were
wiped out, and yet life returned and proliferated. Life
has an immense ability to hang on and flourish, even
when it seems that all hope has gone. Pandora knew
not to open the box, but human enquiry being what it
is, she could not resist the temptation. Is it not
significant that hope remained in spite of pestilence,
war and evil? On many occasions I have listened to
clients and supervisees describe the greatest cruelty
perpetrated against babies, children and adults. And yet
there are as many occasions when those same people
also describe their experience of the tiniest candle light
flickering in the darkest corner of their being, waiting to
be rekindled. In my experience there is a yearning in

individuals traumatised by the acts of others for an

unconditional relationship with a trustworthy individual.
Something that their experience of trauma has
removed.
THE TROUBLES?
I have been involved in counselling and psychotherapy
for over 25 years and have worked with trauma for 17
years. Until 1999 I worked in England, in mental health
social work and private practice. In late 1999 I returned
to live and work in Northern Ireland, having left in 1969.
On my return I discovered that many attitudes
remained as intransigent as the day I left. However, I
was different, and I began to work with so called
victims of the so-called troubles. I dislike the epithet
troubles. It is so minimising of peoples experiences. I
was shocked at the level of trauma that I heard from
ordinary folk, through intimidation, murder, fear,
multiple loss, beatings, torture, kidnap, and all of this
from all sides of the political and religious community.
Here were ordinary people surviving and trying to carry
on as normal as possible, carrying the impossible.
Although I knew intellectually that the media
representation contained a lot of gloss, I hadnt realised
how much. I experienced a stench of corruption, a
purulent and rotting flesh of humanity, a fear so deep it
was normalised. I felt that I had walked into some sort
of open concentration camp that mirrored the worst
atrocities anywhere in the world. A programme of ethnic
cleansing was in full swing, paramilitary gangs policed
their own communities meting out fierce punishments.
The police were powerless and not trusted by either
community, law and order was in disarray. Ordinary
people were being shot, internal Paramilitary feuds
raged, pipe bombs were a regular occurrence. Yet the
politicians continued their rhetoric. The police that I
listened to had a horrendous tale to tell. But like the

American G.I.s returning from Vietnam to a cold

reception from fellow Americans, so the police in
Northern Ireland are vilified. Yet they are human too,
and have experienced a multitude of horrors that can
only be imagined. They do not even have the support
and sympathy of the communities they are trying to
protect.
PEACE?
I thought about the sigh of relief in the country when
the Good Friday agreement was signed. I have watched
the ordinary people seduced by the thought and
promise of peace for the first time in thirty years, being
betrayed by power hungry politicians with no regard for
the safety and dignity of the citizen of this country. I
saw that thirty years of intimidation and brutality had
produced signs of trauma in a whole country.
Derealisation, startle, dissociation, disempowerment.
TRAUMA
When I sit with people who have been traumatised,
(from the Greek to pierce the skin), I am silent, I am
speechless, I am aghast, I am there with them in the
middle of a petrol driven fire knowing they are about to
die; imagining how a loved one had been shot in the
back, did they know it was coming? Did they feel
anything? I am there to witness the fourth, sixth,
seventh or eighth murder or maiming from within one
family. Fractured bones, plated skulls, empty wombs,
dislocated families and communities. The once
peaceful, plentiful, trustful life is gone forever. Belief,
spirit, soul, mind and body broken. Why? WHy? WHY?
SILENCE

I have read a lot about trauma, the research into what

helps, what doesnt help. There are ways to test an
individual for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I was
stumped when someone asked me if there was a test to
tell when it was over and you were no longer Post
Traumatic Stress Disordered. What helps me is a good
strong pair of arms on the chair that I can hold on to as
I listen to horror upon horror, the result of what the
human race is capable of, and of the compassion of the
traumatised, resisting taking up arms in the name of
justice, desperate for peace and humanity.
THE MONSTER OF SIMILARITY
Apparently we are 95% similar to each other according
to recent genetic research. The 5% of difference refers
to height, gender, hair and eye colour, skin colour.
Underneath those peripherals we are the same. And yet
those smallest of differences are at the very core of
conflict. We are the same and capable of the same
deeds of the Good Samaritan and the most wicked
deeds ever committed. When we vilify Sadaam Hussein,
Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, Genghis Khan, we are
vilifying our own shadow. It is said of serial killers and
child murderers that they must be insane, because no
normal person would be capable of such deeds. What
type of monster is capable of these unspeakable deeds?
The answer is simple, the human monster. One of our
own. I sit with that for a moment. I sit opposite
someone who has been terrorised and hear him or her
talk about revenge. Not bloody, eye for an eye,
revenge. Simply that the other says that they would like
the culprits to be made to experience some degree of
their terror. But not to the extent that it would harm
them. My god I think, and why not, they deserve what
you experienced and more.

SILENCE
I watch the disbelief slowly appear on the faces of those
telling, and I am aware of my own. I dont even bother
to search for a theoretical context for my own
experience, never mind the other persons. The roller
coaster is off and running and I am holding on, white
knuckled, sick in the pit of my stomach. Tears well up in
me, anger grips my gut, I clamp my jaws to silence my
outrage, I am aware of staring, just staring. I feel some
relief as I imagine the worst of the story is over, only to
be pinned back by the next horror. They were gently
easing me in through the overture, building up to a
crescendo of Mahler like proportions.
I SIT IN SILENCE
I sit in awe at the capacity of human beings to inflict
such brutality on fellow human beings. But the greatest
awe is reserved for those fellow humans, classified as
Victims of the Troubles. How I hate that phrase. Who is
troubled by murder, cold-blooded, thoughtless murder,
sickening maiming, crippling, and a legacy of sweating,
repeating nightmares? Troubled. We call the terror in
the Twin Towers in New York last September, 911. Turn
horror into an insignificant word or number and we can
all cope. Those Victims are Heroes, they are
21st Century Odysseus or Jason, they are Herculean in
strength, they are heroes. They hold the pillars of the
world on their shoulders and hold the hope for all of us.
They feel that the Gods have deserted them, and yet
each seems to have gifts that have carried and are
carrying them through their ordeals. And I, a mere
mortal, have some place in this journey.
HUMBLED

I sit humbly before heroes who have been through, are

in the labyrinth, waiting for the centaur to charge again.
Somewhere is hope and a search for answers. I notice
that I am being watched, as if I too might run from the
chaotic brutality. I notice a sense that the other person
is conscious of how much more they can tell me, or is
judging how much more I can take. Perhaps they are
wondering if I have a ball of string with me, so that if
they survive I can show them the way out of the
labyrinth. They are calm until the fall into a cinematic
flashback, and are back there to the very second in
time it happened. I throw a string so they can find their
way back. My string is a slight shift in the chair, a gentle
cough, just enough to say, Im still here. Time stands
still as I am led through, shown in greater and greater
detail the sickening horrors, until I am there in the place
with them. I do not know if my images are accurate and
it doesnt really matter. What really matters is that the
other knows that I am still there. In the room is another
who is sharing the same air, the same stench, and the
same horrors.
SILENCE SOMEHOW
I cant explain, but somehow I know that something will
make a difference. I do not know what, when or how. I
only know that it will. It may not be with myself. It may
not be this week or in the next ten years, and it may be
just before their death, something will make a
difference. My belief is that being able to sit in the room
as myself is sufficient. That I can listen and not be
blown away by what is to come. That what I will hear
will not destroy me, and that I do have a ball of string
that I secured somewhere before entering the labyrinth,
and that I can find the way out. I am also aware of the
other person watching me closely in order to see if I can
manage and survive. My ability to meet the challenge

will determine how much I hear of the other persons

account.
THE ENDING
I search for a way of ending, of interrupting the horror.
There is a look of relief, not only that it is over for today,
but also because I have kept to the agreement about
time. I have not been consumed, eaten alive, by the
story. We chat about generalities for a few moments,
both fully aware that we are ending and that a chat will
enable the other person, as well as myself to
disconnect, until the next time.
THE AFTERMATH
I leave in a trance. I am aware that a relationship has
begun. I am aware of the feeling of chaos, of a lack of
sense. What is it all about? Some happenings in this life
make no sense to me. I could go back to the textbook in
order to understand the mysterious, but I am too far
into the experience for rational thinking to be of any
assistance. I am afraid that there is little comfort in
what I have just experienced in the theory books. I do
not understand the human condition; I am only able to
experience myself in the present, by myself and with
others. That is my only true and real understanding. It is
only now that I am beginning to understand the half of
what Carl Rogers described in his life. I am only
beginning to grasp the true meaning of being and being
Person Centred.

Christopher Murray, in Private Practice, Northern Ireland