Quotes from Laurence Heller

Paradoxically, the more we try to change ourselves, the more we prevent change from occurring. On the other hand, the more we allow ourselves to fully experience who we are, the greater the possibility of change.

Love that is conditional upon looks and performance is not love at all

It may come as a surprise that living life in a full and expanded way is one of the most difficult challenges we face as human beings.

Attempts to stop smoking or give up any sort of self-destructive addictive behavior such as drugs, alcohol, hypersexuality, overeating, or overworking, often fail because it is very difficult to give up a means of self-regulation even when it is unhealthy until it can be replaced with a better form of self-regulation.

For example, when children do not get the connection they need, they grow up both seeking and fearing connection. When children do not get their needs met, they do not learn to recognize what they need, are unable to express their needs, and often feel undeserving of having their needs met.

humans suffer from an endless number of emotional problems and challenges, most of these can be traced to early developmental and shock trauma that compromise the development of one or more of the five core capacities.

Human contact and warmth bring expansion and aliveness to the body. Making contact and allowing expansion to take place at its own rate begins to melt the frozenness. As shock energy is released, the frozenness progressively melts and more aliveness is possible.

The coping strategies that initially helped us survive as children over the years become rigid beliefs about who we are and what the world is like. Our beliefs about ourselves and the world, together with the physiological patterns associated with these beliefs, crystallize into a familiar sense of who we are. This is what we come to view as our identity.

Traumatized individuals, which includes most of us to differing degrees, need both top-down and bottom-up approaches that address nervous system imbalances as well as issues of identity.

The Thinking Subtype As a result of early trauma thinking subtypes have retreated to the life of the mind and choose theoretical and technical professions that do not require significant human interaction. These individuals tend to be more comfortable behind a computer, in their laboratory, or in their garage workshops where they can putter undisturbed. They can be brilliant thinkers but tend to use their intelligence to maintain significant emotional distance.

Regardless of age, Connection types, at some level, often feel like frightened children in an adult world. Because of their inadequate sense of self, they often try to anchor themselves in their roles as scientist, judge, doctor, father, mother, etc.

This is a book about restoring connection. It is the experience of being in connection that fulfills the longing we have to feel fully alive. An impaired capacity for connection to self and others, and the ensuing diminished aliveness, are the hidden dimensions that underlie most psychological and many physiological problems.

To the degree that our biologically based core needs are met early in life, we develop core capacities that allow us to recognize and meet these needs as adults (Table I.1). Being attuned to these five basic needs and capacities means that we are connected to our deepest resources and vitality.

These individuals need to see that as long as they continue to choose to please others at their own expense, they will be trapped. They need to discover how they try to control other people's responses by being the "good boy" or "nice girl" for them. They need to find the courage to give up that control by being frank and honest with people and allowing them to respond as they will.

Deprivation and attachment difficulties signal the baby's brain and nervous system to implement life-protecting strategies. Depending on the severity and the duration of the nurturing disruptions, there is a progressive loss of the ability to attune to and express one's needs. Along with the loss of attunement comes increasing autonomic dysregulation:

In the case of the earliest Connection Survival Style, for example, focusing on changing distorted cognitions is particularly difficult because with early trauma, the cortex is not yet fully developed, and it is mostly the underlying bottom-up nervous system and affective imbalances that drive the cognitive distortions.

Individuals with the Trust Survival Style seek power and control.

For this survival type, anger tends to be the default emotion; it is easily accessible and used to intimidate others.

Children become triangulated with warring parents. Within the family system the children are used as pawns in the struggle between the mother and father, and in divorce the children are often forced to take sides. By having to choose between one parent or the other, they are forced into a situation where they are asked to betray one part of their heart or the other.

Children are pushed to give up their dependency needs and assume responsibility too early. This is particularly common in alcoholic and dysfunctional families.

At its extreme, the Trust Survival Style develops when a person grows up in an atmosphere of abuse and horror. Children who witness or experience abuse are helpless and powerless. The horror they witness may involve family violence, such as observing father beating up mother, or witnessing violence in the community, as in ghetto situations.

There are two basic strategies that individuals with the Trust Survival Style use in their struggle to exercise their power: they become seductive and manipulative, or they become overpowering.

For Paul, being angry meant that he was like his father and therefore "bad." Splitting off his anger and rage reinforced a sense of powerlessness but also meant he was unlike his father and therefore "good.

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