When Trauma is Unspeakable

At Lost Stories Counseling Services, we use a variety of techniques and frameworks to help clients process their traumatic experiences based on the principle that each persons unconscious has a capacity to craft sublime poetry with infinitely intimate meanings. One such technique to open one up to this poetry is the technique of "linking objects" developed by Vamik Volkan for Re-Grief Therapy..

Volkan, a Turkish psychoanalyst, believed that we often use objects in our environment to represent important relationships or experiences in our lives and therefore developed what he called re-grief therapy. These objects act as a bridge between our conscious and unconscious mind and can be used to access deep-seated emotions and memories.

In therapy, linking objects can be used to help clients process traumatic events or complex relationships through symbolic representations. The therapist may ask the client to identify an object that represents the traumatic experience or relationship and then use this object to explore the client's emotions and experiences.

For example, a client who experienced a traumatic event involving water may choose a seashell as their linking object. The therapist may ask the client to talk about their memories of the traumatic event while holding the seashell or to imagine themselves inside the seashell looking out at the event from a safe distance.

Linking objects can also be used to foster positive emotions and connections. For example, a client who has lost a loved one may choose a favorite photograph or piece of jewelry to represent that relationship. The therapist may encourage the client to talk about positive memories associated with the object or to create new positive memories by engaging in activities while holding or wearing the object. The patient is also invited to do the work of demarcation, which is to use the object to set a boundary between the patient and the representation of the dead so that they ritualize a turn back towards life and its meaning.

Using linking objects in therapy can be a powerful tool for helping clients process complex emotions and experiences. At Lost Stories Counseling Services, we are committed to using a wide variety of established therapeutic techniques to help our clients achieve emotional growth.