Core Integrity, Inc.

Transforming Lives
Impacted by Extreme Trauma.
Core Integrity Newsletter, Fall 2002

. . . to join an exciting new development in trauma therapy! Survivor based interventions that really work are changing lives, reducing hospitalizations, empowering self-regulation, and allowing survivors to thrive! The Core Integrity Model. Interventions for Extreme Trauma introduces and applies the newest in consciousness research.
Join the Initiative.

You can become a part of the Heartland Initiative by participating in training as a
professional, by utilizing the consultation services as a survivor, or by making a tax-
deductible donation to the Initiative.

What Therapists have to say . . .

Hi! My name is Pam Nelson-O’Neil and I am one of the “original” therapists that began a powerful and exciting journey of practice change through the introduction of the Integrity Model. It has changed my entire practice. I find that my clients have more confidence in their healing process because they have a lot more control over their symptoms. The Core Integrity Model allows clients to stay in the present (i.e., not regress) and still work on difficult memories without losing track of time or feeling unsafe. In addition, they have portable tools that can be used outside of therapy to help them through difficult times.

I personally have used this treatment model with my adolescent clients. It is so exciting to see success in a child who has been horribly perpetrated from birth. For that child to be able, within a year, to provide testimony in court against his perpetrator and feel, should I dare say, safe and comfortable in confronting the truths of what he endured is inspiring.

Or, perhaps I should talk about the clients who have been in therapy for seven years who were making good—but let’s be frank—not great progress. In two years of work with the Integrity Model I have clients who have easily surpassed those early seven years and are in the process of closure.

I particularly admire a client that came in two years ago with a history of 27 hospitalizations and as a result of her hard work within the Integrity Model, has eliminated her need to be hospitalized and is looking at the third stage and final stage of healing.

And, oh yes, the client that the psych ward called, “hopeless” and now wonders how she cut her hospitalizations by 90%; and then there’s the…………oh the miracles I could tell.

As a current client involved in this process, I can tell you that "it works"! In 13 years I was hospitalized 8 times, many long term. I have also had handfuls of therapists, none of which helped me or had the intention of helping heal my core self.

I have been in this process almost two years now and have been able to stay out of the hospital. This would not be possible without learning to keep myself, the Core, grounded in and out of therapy. This enables me to talk about my past abuse
with my therapist without having to relive abuse. And, most importantly to me, I am able to feel safe.

I am Lowell Routley, a trauma therapist in Dubuque, Iowa that is, where else, in the Heartland. The concept of "Core integrity" has been the outgrowth of my personal and professional development and a professional relationship with many amazing individuals who have survived real atrocities.

Social movements afoot in the 1970's and 1980's'were awakening society to the reality that traumatic events can drastically change lives. The veterans returning from Viet Nam, the women's movement calling attention to violence and sex crimes, and advocacy groups raising awareness of the realities of physical and sexual abuse of children all pointed to the problem of trauma. The outcome was the inclusion of the trauma-related diagnostic categories of PTSD and Dissociation and specific treatment modalities. During this same era, Jim McCarthy, a social movements researcher, was developing his own skills and knowledge base about how participants of deviant social movements were manipulated.

Organizations sprang up to promote professional development in the issues unique to trauma. Behavioral science returned to the research literature and found the scientific groundwork for traumatology had been laid 100 years before. Pierre Janet became central to the phenomenology of dissociation, a coping skill used in trauma events. His observations provided validation for what was thought by some bad science. Building on the advances in psychology and medicine, research has expanded the knowledge base of trauma.
Trauma survivors were finally recognized based on diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress and dissociation that were unique from other disorders. The people, struggling with these symptoms were the same clients who had been told by mental health professionals that they were resistant and really didn't want to change.

My professional journey began in 1972 with an interest in the use of biofeedback for self-regulation of emotions, physical symptoms, and habit control. Experience with biofeedback and clinical hypnosis made me aware of consciousness issues in relation to symptoms and behaviors with which people sought professional help. It was this foundation that later proved to hold some of the answers that were lacking in Traumatology.

Ten years into my practice, I met a person seeking help with the most troubling issues. She had a long-standing history of psychiatric treatment by the time she was 32 years of age. Her desire to be well, in the face of the most intense, changeable, and incapacitating symptoms was heroic. Such was my awakening to a world that the average American can't conceive would exist. "Inhumanity" defined her childhood experiences and adult circumstances that unfolded as therapy progressed. The term "trauma logic" took on real meaning as I worked with her and others. The usual cognitive reframing didn't work. The Core person had the hardest time "getting" it. I took every bit of professional training I could. None of the training addressed to my satisfaction the adult person who was born into this life. Oh, for a time, the word "Core" was heard in trauma circles; but, it quickly vanished when key leaders in trauma field disagreed with the concept.

Then the "False Memory Syndrome" people stepped forward. Research on memory was disputed back and forth, with traumatology finally making a stronger case by 1998. Survivors often had knowledge of trauma experiences before they even stepped into a therapist's office. Many felt insulted at the idea that their memories could have been put in their head by me. And I, of course, became super cautious that I would not be suggestive in the discussion of memories. I followed carefully the standards developed by American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. Survivors knew the reality of their memories by the intrusive symptoms indicative of past hurts. One researcher, Bessel van der Kolk, coined a phrase that became descriptive of what trauma survivors knew. "The body keeps score.

Research had come full circle in 100 years. Memory research brought my attention around once again to consciousness. The science of consciousness recently returned to the same research period traumatology had visited and had found the phenomenology of William James to hold insights relate to consciousness and traumatology. It was there I found the first definition of Core consciousness posed by Antonio Damasio, a present day researcher in brain injury and diseases. My clients' observations and reports
of the existence of "Core Self," for the systemic structure of the self, and for the phenomenology of memory retrieval all had found a base in consciousness research. Now, Pierre Janet and William James, contemporaries at the turn of the 20th Century, could speak to us at the turn of the 21st.

My experience with just such survivors has proven there is a deep Core desire to heal. Three factors determine treatment success:
1. That the therapist not be controlling, but compassionate, with firm boundaries to establish trust with the adult "Core Self."
2. That the client develop the awareness skills which support the adult "Core Self" to maintain self-regulation and high functioning.
3. That it be understood that Core integrity is the goal and not an integration of all parts into one (called fusion by some).

In 1990, out of a strong belief that a trauma survivor searches for meaning and purpose, I developed "The Core Integrity Model, Interventions for Extreme Trauma." The phenomenological research done by Jim McCarthy in social movements, established him as an expert trainer and consultant for law enforcement. While consulting on deviant youth movements at a Denver Hospital adolescent unit in the mid 1980's, he was invited to interview trauma survivors and to help to piece together perplexing memories. Through a colleague at a Dissociative Disorders Conference, I was given Jim's name as a consultant who could address my questions. That meeting 6 years ago was the beginning of a melding of knowledge and experience which rounded out The Core Integrity Model, Interventions for Extreme Trauma. Together, Jim and I welcome you to participate in learning state of the art interventions that work! The interventions and the factors of consciousness combine to address the most puzzling symptoms of trauma. Our training schedule will apprise you of upcoming opportunities.

Unit 1 - The introduction of the scientific and phenomenological concepts of The Core Integrity Model, Interventions for Extreme Trauma.
     When - August 30-31, 2002, 9AM to 5PM
     Where - Aquinas Institute of Theology, 3642 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108
     How much - $250

Unit 6 - Dynamics of specific contexts of trauma that lead to cognitive distortions, sensory/affective flooding, and self-dysregulation.
     When - Friday & Saturday, September 6-7, 2002, 9AM to 5PM
     Where - Heartland Initiative, 20 E. 13th St., Dubuque, Iowa
     The cost - $185 (consultation time may be scheduled for an additional fee.)

To Register, contact:

    Heartland Initiative, Inc.
    20 East 13th Street
    Dubuque, Iowa 52001
    Phone: (563) 588-4476

Email Contact: site_host@coreintegrity.net

Featured in the next newsletter:

Heartland Initiative houses The Contexts of Trauma Resource Library that is a growing collection of research literature on traumatology and consciousness. A database of trauma context information is also being developed which may prove useful to corroborate survivor experiences and reports.

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