Janina Fisher: Healing Trauma & Unblending From Our Fragmented Selves

Serge Prengel (00:02)
Hi Janina.

Janina Fisher (00:03)
Hi.

Serge Prengel (00:05)
So other times we’ve talked about trauma from the perspective of a therapist, but this time we’re going to approach it as if somebody, general public, know, something that we therapists call clients, patients, you know, just knows that there’s something a little bit, you know, going on that maybe might be trauma and asking you for what the journey might be like to deal with it.

Janina Fisher (00:36)
Right. And you know, really given the statistics on child abuse, we can expect that most people who wonder if they’ve been traumatized just are likely to have been just because that question has come up for them. So, so I’m, I’m

This is very exciting for me to talk about because I’ve just published a new workbook that is really meant for people who either know and feel a sense of having suffered as a result of trauma earlier in their lives or someone who wonders, is this a way?

of seeing myself that will help.

Serge Prengel (01:38)
Yeah, yeah.

Janina Fisher (01:39)
Because

people who wonder have been suffering from something that leads them to the question. Whether they’ve been suffering from depression, whether they’ve been suffering from anxiety, whether they’ve been having trouble sleeping, ⁓ troubles in their relationships, and you know.

the myriad with shame, with self-doubt. And so my workbook, which is called Embracing Our Fragmented Selves, starts by explaining what happens in our brains and nervous systems when we are traumatized.

And it takes very little to traumatize a child. So I encourage people, don’t go searching for the worst things that might ever have happened to you. Trust, trust your feelings, trust your intuition. If you think maybe what’s wrong with me is that somebody hurt me.

Just go with that and treat yourself as someone who’s been hurt. Because we do damage when we try to find the facts, when we try to find a proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Because all of that searching ⁓ leads to a lot of suffering.

Serge Prengel (03:32)
Yeah, yeah.

Janina Fisher (03:33)
And

a lot of saying, well, yes, that happened, but it’s not bad enough to be called trauma. So now I have to search for something worse.

I think it works so much better when people trust their intuitions and they begin the healing process.

Serge Prengel (03:58)
Yeah, yeah. So if you feel suffering, there is suffering. And so it’s not about labeling it, but it’s about starting from that place of wanting to heal the suffering. And it’s not necessarily a question of archaeological work, but it’s about the here and now, what’s happening in your life.

Janina Fisher (04:06)
Okay.

Exactly. Exactly. And I think in the trauma field, we made an understandable mistake early in the lifespan of this field because we assumed that the answer to treating trauma was the talking cure. Talk about the events you remember, relive the feelings.

and you will be well. That was really Freud’s approach. And when individuals tried to do that, instead of feeling better, they felt worse. And there were many, many years in the trauma field where people were getting worse instead of better.

because they believed that the only way to heal was to remember everything that had happened to them.

And then we, as a field began to grow, we had the neuroscience research that started studying the brains of traumatized individuals. And then we discovered through that brain scan research that the problem with trauma is not that we remember bad things, but that our brain

remembers the feeling of what happened for decades and decades after. And when we remember with our feelings, we don’t know that we’re remembering. So if I say, I remember the last time you and I talked, that’s easy to do. But to conjure up, I know it was a good experience, but I can’t feel what it felt like.

us feeling memory we can’t choose to remember. It gets evoked, you know, as when we have a deja vu experience when we go back to a familiar place and we feel a sense of familiarity. So our trauma survivors suffer because every day

their feeling memories are being evoked by little everyday things. For many people, it’s waking up in the morning.

Serge Prengel (07:07)
Yeah.

Janina Fisher (07:13)
Because when you wake up in the morning to a dangerous world in which one or more people might hurt you that day, you have a feeling of dread or fear. And 20, 30, 40 years later, many of my clients wake up in the morning feeling the same sense of dread.

bodies are remembering the dread of the day that awaited.

So in my book, I encourage people to notice the recurrent feelings that have been causing their suffering and to be curious about whether those are feeling memories.

and also how they might have helped the individual survive. Because anxiety, for example, is really smart if you live in a dangerous home.

Right? Beautiful.

Serge Prengel (08:32)
So maybe I want to slow down a little bit. So what you were talking about before is that notion of not remembering the facts, but that there is the feeling of what it was like to be under threat, and that is so prone to being evoked by.

things in everyday life, that you can wake up every day with that same feeling of being under threat. And so that’s what, when we were talking about trusting that sense, if you have that, then there is something here that’s worth exploring for curiosity.

Janina Fisher (09:17)
right, right, rather than thinking of it as something wrong with you. ⁓ Or for many people, it’s thinking something’s wrong with their current

Serge Prengel (09:23)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Janina Fisher (09:34)
I wake up with a feeling of dread because I’m married to the wrong person, I’m living the wrong life, as opposed to I’m waking up with a feeling of dread because waking up triggers the feeling memory of my child.

Serge Prengel (09:58)
Yes. So that sense of it’s happening because something triggers the feeling memory of the past, of the childhood.

Janina Fisher (10:07)
Right, right, right. And it’s so hard because when we have a feeling, we tend to believe it. So it’s a hard leap to begin to be curious. Is this feeling a feeling memory or is it a response to something?

that’s happened.

Serge Prengel (10:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so even the question itself is a step in the right direction. It’s not necessarily the answer, but just asking the question is the start of the process.

Janina Fisher (11:00)
Absolutely. And I think I call it being curious, being interested, right? Which is the essence of mindfulness, is that ability to just be interested in what we’re experiencing, our thoughts, our feelings, our physical sensations.

Serge Prengel (11:21)
Yeah, and it’s the opposite of being judgmental, self-critical, all of those things.

Janina Fisher (11:27)
Bye.

Yes,

Right, exactly, exactly. So this method I developed, which is a trauma-informed parts approach, I wrote about so that people didn’t need to go to a therapist to be able to work with all this. They could use the book to work through.

these different issues. ⁓

Serge Prengel (12:04)
Yeah, and so

the book in its title talks about the fragmentation. And so maybe we should talk a little bit more about what you mean by fragmentation, how it happens, its role, how we experience it, and all those kinds of things.

Janina Fisher (12:24)
Exactly. So, so we all have the mental ability of dissociation. It’s not something that we can, we can ask for. You can’t do it on purpose. Your brain dissociates under stress. And the theory that, that I use to make sense.

of the effects of dissociation is called the structural dissociation theory. And what it says is, I mean, it’s so brilliant. What it says is we are fragmented. We’re born fragmented because we have a brain that isn’t just one structure. It’s a number of structures, big and small.

connected by neural pathways that communicate with each other. So under the stress of being a child in an abusive, dangerous family environment, or being ⁓ the victim of domestic violence, or being a soldier in war, these are not single incidents. These are

day after day after day of being and feeling unsafe. That that kind of stress causes the physical splits in the brain ⁓ to become psychological splits. So that we develop a left brain part of our personalities that carries on.

as if nothing had happened. ⁓ It’s the part of us that floats up to the ceiling and watches what’s happening from the bird’s eye view. ⁓ It’s the part of us that blacks out and doesn’t know what happened, ⁓ but gets up and does homework and goes to school the next day.

and the right-brained side of the personality, which experiences the traumatic events and also anticipates what’s going to happen next. Because in an abusive family environment, what just happened is not the only thing that’s going to happen.

The child has to anticipate tomorrow, five minutes from now, five hours from now, what’s going to happen next. So the brain is really good at that.

Serge Prengel (15:30)
Yeah. So again, want to slow down a little bit.

Janina, if it’s okay, I want to slow down a little bit. So a couple of things you mentioned. One is that contrary to popular imagination, we’re not one. All of us, totally normal, that we have multiple selves, self parts, different things. And ⁓ that in

normal everyday life, these kind of functions somewhat harmoniously. But if

Janina Fisher (16:03)
when it’s right,

every day, safe life.

Serge Prengel (16:07)
Yes.

And under traumatic stress, it’s like it’s no longer possible to kind of juggle all of these different things. So you have some kind of a split.

Janina Fisher (16:22)
that favors survival and adaptation to a dangerous world.

Serge Prengel (16:28)
Yes. And so when you say that, that favors survival and adaptation to a dangerous world, then that puts the split and the different parts in a positive view. It’s not, my God, you’re messed up because you have this, but how wonderful that this allowed you to survive.

Janina Fisher (16:48)
Exactly, exactly. And that’s what I love about this theory is that it says, it invalidates. You didn’t go on pretending to be okay. You went on because a part of you just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And because the other side of you

was watchful and vigilant and poised for the next terrible thing that was going to happen.

Serge Prengel (17:28)
Yeah, So fragmentation was a wonderful survival tool.

Janina Fisher (17:33)
Yes. And then if we need it, and most of the time children do, because these are situations that are prolonged, right? If you grow up in an unsafe family environment, you are trapped for many, years. ⁓ The same is true of a victim of domestic violence.

It’s not right. is a prolonged period of being trapped. And in those situations, we start to develop subparts that are driven by the survival defense responses common to all animals and people.

So a part or parts that fight, a part or parts that flee, a part or parts that hold fear, a part or parts that submit, and a part or parts that cry for help.

Serge Prengel (18:50)
Yeah, so again, I’m just slowing down a bit. So you put this within the context of threat, danger, but not just a one time thing, but a lasting one. And that shapes you. And it shapes you. But what it does is you have all these responses to danger.

Janina Fisher (18:54)
Wow.

Serge Prengel (19:13)
that then start to become in a way solidified or encapsulated into these different parts.

Janina Fisher (19:21)
Right, right. I think encapsulated is a really good word to describe it. And then through just repetition, they become solidified.

And so, and it can be very, very confusing because many people I’ve worked with have a very, a very functional going on with normal life part. Right? They’ve from an early age, they’ve gotten up each day and done whatever they had to do or wanted to do. ⁓

Many of my survivor clients have had very rich full lives, but despite having a rich full life, they suffered because these parts kept getting triggered and kept reliving the past.

Serge Prengel (20:30)
Maybe let’s talk some examples of how these parts might manifest.

Janina Fisher (20:37)
Yes, I was thinking about that because I saw a client earlier today. And and she was. She was she was a little distraught. Well, she has because she had said no to her 43 year old autistic son, and he got angry at her.

Which is not surprising because when you tell people no, they usually don’t like it.

but it was very, very distressing to her. And she felt as if she had to give into him to keep the peace. Now she is a 72 year old woman. Her son rents an apartment in her house. And there are two apartments and she has a choice of which one to rent.

She and her husband, I should say, have a choice of which to rent him. And he didn’t like the choice. But for her parts, those child parts, saying no meant abuse. Right? In the dangerous world of her childhood, and especially an angry male, was

a very dangerous person. So she had parts that were angry at her for ruining his life. She had parts that were afraid that he would hurt her. had parts that were angry at her son. And the whole thing was overwhelming.

Serge Prengel (22:41)
Yeah, yeah. So it’s not just one part, but actually there’s a multiplicity of parts. So in a way, it’s like the different angles of a diamond or the different points of view of Rashomon. You have all of these different perspectives that are each manifested as a whole part.

Janina Fisher (22:42)
⁓ no.

Right, exactly. And when they have developed out of a need to survive a traumatic environment, their feelings are intense.

Serge Prengel (23:18)
Right. And hence the folly of trying to address it through logic.

Janina Fisher (23:24)
Exactly. Right. then so then then I heard from a suicidal part saying, I think really the answer would be just to end it now. And and and so and this this is the work I do. This is my method. I had her notice the suicidal part.

And notice how expert the suicidal part was in trying to sell her this idea of death.

and just coming up with a multitude of good reasons for dying.

Serge Prengel (24:12)
Down, down.

Janina Fisher (24:14)
But it was very interesting because, again, there’s no logic when these parts, the feelings and beliefs of these parts just rise up in a wave. ⁓

But I kept thinking this five minutes ago, there were parts saying, you’re going to ruin your son’s life by telling him no. And then five minutes later, the suicidal part is making the case that everybody would be better off if she were dead. Imagine if you were living with all these feelings.

Serge Prengel (24:58)
Yeah, yeah.

Janina Fisher (25:04)
each overwhelming in itself, just one after another after another.

Serge Prengel (25:12)
Yeah, and so no logic whatsoever in a traditional sense of logic, but each of the parts has its own emotional logic, even though each has a very different emotional logic from the others.

Janina Fisher (25:27)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Yes.

Serge Prengel (25:35)
⁓ Earlier you were saying, you know, I just helped her notice. And so I want to point out helped her. So it’s like, in addition to these different parts, there’s an observant self, an adult self that you can relate to and have relate to the parts.

Janina Fisher (25:55)
Right. So, you know, as you probably know, the mindfulness center of the brain is the medial prefrontal cortex, this part of the brain right here. And that medial prefrontal cortex ⁓ is able to function even though the

the client is highly activated and triggered. So helping people to notice their different, I mean, I’m sure this is exactly what you do. You help people to notice their physical, emotional, and cognitive experience. And that’s the approach that informs

my method called trauma-informed stabilization treatment. Because it’s simple enough that even someone who’s overwhelmed can do it. Most of the

Serge Prengel (27:12)
Yeah, so there is, in a way, in this cacophony, chaos of multiple parts, each having their own logic, know, crazy logic or whatever, there is a little something, a little part that you can build on.

to regress so the integration is not about cutting off parts, is not about telling some to shut down, but is something about having them play together through the mindful part, the adult self.

Janina Fisher (27:48)
Right. And when we notice the parts, you think of really of mindful noticing, we notice without judgment, without interpretation, without drawing conclusions. And for the parts, it’s a healing experience.

Serge Prengel (28:00)
Mm-hmm.

Janina Fisher (28:18)
Because think about a child in an unsafe environment. Nobody notices that child. Nobody’s interested and curious. And so I teach my clients to notice the part, to be interested in the part, to listen to the part. Again, this takes, goes in

in tiny steps. Because if you can’t notice a part, you can’t be interested. Right? And, so, so it’s a process of learning. And but at each step, the listening, the staying with the part, these are all reparative experiences.

Serge Prengel (28:49)
Yeah, yeah.

Janina Fisher (29:16)
because these parts have never had that.

Serge Prengel (29:16)
Yeah.

So the process itself is healing in that it engages a person with the part. so all of that happened from the place of there’s no room for you. And now the corrective experience is you’re listened to by somebody who’s interested and curious.

Janina Fisher (29:42)
And instead of being unwelcomed, the parts are welcomed.

Serge Prengel (29:51)
Yes.

Janina Fisher (29:52)
And that could be quite, that’s a big shift because usually people start out by wanting their distressing feelings to go away, right? Which is the opposite of embracing the parts that have those experiences.

Serge Prengel (30:14)
Yes, yes. So ⁓ you mentioned with that client, you know, great variety of parts and how distressing they are and make sense of how much one would want to avoid them. And so counter-intuitively, it is actually to embrace them.

Janina Fisher (30:34)
Right, right, right. Her MO has been to try to fix them. But you know, you and all of our listeners probably know when someone tries to fix you, it either makes you feel defensive or ashamed. And so it wasn’t having the desired effect.

And that’s the pattern that she’s trying to unlearn in favor of just noticing apart.

Serge Prengel (31:19)
Yeah, so the unlearning, that sense of their bad, have to be fixed to having a different relationship with them, understand them.

Janina Fisher (31:30)
Right, right. And of course, when she was young, they did have to be fixed. That is to say she had to act normal.

Because the perpetrators didn’t want the secret coming out. ⁓ Because she didn’t want to anger them. And also, she had an entire family of perpetrators. There wasn’t anyone who was safe. So it meant that her parts had to be pleasing.

or at least go it.

And so this idea of you’ve got to fix them or you’re in danger is a trauma idea.

Serge Prengel (32:31)
Yeah. Yeah.

Janina Fisher (32:37)
Because when we’re safe, we feel free to be ourselves.

And if we’re over the top, we apologize and try to be a little less over the top the next time. ⁓ But we don’t feel that it’s dangerous to feel what we feel and think what we think.

Serge Prengel (33:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that it’s… the circumstances have changed.

Janina Fisher (33:25)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Serge Prengel (33:26)
And

⁓ you’re re-establishing a sense of what it’s like to behave with different parts of oneself under safety, different rules of engagement.

Janina Fisher (33:41)
And offering them the safety that, you know, the individual may not feel the safety, but most people have created a life after trauma that relatively speaking is incredibly safe.

Serge Prengel (34:07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But so nevertheless, the client may still or the person may still experience a sense of flooding in dealing with these things, because it’s triggered by past experiences. It’s not reflecting the current moment.

Janina Fisher (34:08)
Okay.

Yes.

Right, right, absolutely, absolutely. And when we get flooded with the feelings of a part, we blend with that part so that we’re speaking the parts feelings, having the parts reaction.

And you know, as when my client became afraid of her son when he has this little temper tantrum about being told no.

Serge Prengel (34:55)
Mm-hmm.

Right. She gets

swallowed by the part and forgets there’s more to her than that part. And so that’s what the flooding is. so much in that part that the rest kind of disappears.

Janina Fisher (35:16)
except

Exactly. And the term blending really works for people. They get a little confused. It’s what you and I think of as flooding. But the term blending is the term that most individuals instinctively understand.

said, yeah, blending. so just learning to recognize, ⁓ I’m blended. I’m feeling hopeless because I’m blended with a part that feels hopeless.

Serge Prengel (35:48)
blending.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Janina Fisher (36:11)
And now the work is, notice that part and notice you noticing the part.

Serge Prengel (36:20)
And of course, the noticing itself gives you the experience that there’s more to you than the blended part. And then as you notice the differences, you get even more of that sense of there’s more to me than the blended part.

Janina Fisher (36:31)
Exactly.

Exactly. But at first, first, it’s really interesting. Maybe you have some ideas about why this is true. Before, at least my clients can say there’s more to me than this part, they have to actually feel the separation to feel, ⁓

The part is afraid of his anger, and I’m noticing how afraid that part is.

And then it’s possible to have a sense of, ⁓ this is me. I don’t have to feel overwhelmed by these feelings, but I do have to notice them. Otherwise, I’m going to be flooded and overwhelmed.

Serge Prengel (37:43)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there’s kind of subtle steps, leading, like a gradual emerging.

Janina Fisher (37:47)
Right.

Exactly. Exactly. And that’s, and that’s, those are really the steps that I created the workbook to help people who, who know they have been traumatized or, or feel a sense of, yes, this must, might explain things to me. To help them do this kind of work.

even if they don’t have a therapist. Because you and I know that there are many people who don’t have access to therapy, to good therapy, trauma-informed therapy. There are people who live in remote areas. They don’t have the means. ⁓

Serge Prengel (38:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Janina Fisher (38:48)
It

seems important. I mean, think that’s one of the reasons that you created a podcast that speaks to all humans, not just to the top of students.

Serge Prengel (38:50)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yes, yes. That, you know, that there is something that we can do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It feels like a good place. Just wanted to see if there’s something else you might want to end or if ⁓ it’s good to stop on that note of, you know, the possibility of doing something.

Janina Fisher (39:08)
Yes, like so.

Yes. ⁓ Let me just say one thing about healing. We talk about trauma healing, but no one has actually ever defined what that means. And I had an epiphany probably 10 years ago when I thought, ⁓ healing.

is the moment that we accept all of ourselves. We forgive ourselves and we offer compassion to ourselves. And that’s been the, that’s really the mission of my work ever since. How do we help people to get to that place where their parts feel safe?

and welcome and the individual feels a sense of compassion and warmth toward them.

Serge Prengel (40:37)
Yeah, yeah. So that feels very moving, that sense that healing is that compassionate accepting of reality, stopping to fight it.

Janina Fisher (40:47)
Yes, and it’s relational because it’s accepting them. It’s accepting all those hurt children.

Serge Prengel (40:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, Janina.

Janina Fisher (41:04)
Thank you.

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