ABSTRACT
Chapter Six presents a new paradigm in understanding and working with patterns of developmental trauma as they emerge for both therapist and patient. By observing baby-parent interaction described herein, the reader can see how the baby's behaviors powerfully impact the parent, as well as how the parent impacts the child, a bi-directional happening. A description of mother-baby interactions delineates how baby re-traumatizes mother by not responding in the way the mother wishes; and how the mother traumatizes baby by not seeing the child that is, rather than the child that the mother wishes him to be. The early infant Moro Response (the phenomenological equivalent of uncertainty), and the Startle Response (the phenomenological equivalent of resisting) are seen as the primary bodily roots of traumatic experience and expression. Isometric contractions at varied bodily levels express secondary responses to startling situations that develop over time. Once they are brought into awareness, they indicate how, when, and where the patient and therapist experience their reactions to re-traumatizing events stimulated in the immediate present of therapy. Focus is placed on how to work with and through these unfolding experiences by attending to movement. A case vignette (virtually) demonstrates how developmental traumas emerge within the therapy session, and how one can address them through the qualitative dynamics of movement.
