Trauma has been defined as an interruption of an affiliative or relationship bond. If left unsettled, past grief and psychological trauma can continue to impact our adult relationships and cause us pain in our entire lives. It's possible we may not even realize what is happening to us because usually relationships fail in parts rather than in total. Early childhood losses or traumas can create pain that is relived in adult intimate relationships. Intimacy can provide both an arena for re-enacting old pain and/or healing it. In this fascinating work, noted psychodramatist Tian Dayton shows readers how relationships can be used as a vehicle for healing, personal growth and spiritual transformation. Through fascinating case studies and probing exercises, Dayton helps readers get in touch with the deepest parts of themselves and heal the wounds that plague them.

LOSS AND TRAUMA The tragedy is not that a man dies, the tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives. #151 Albert Schweitzer The Wound That Can't Be Seen: Healing the Wounded Heart Any creature that bonds grieves when it experiences separation#151whether it be an elephant kicked out of the herd, a duck that has lost its mate or a mother who sends her child off to college. As humans, we are biologically designed to form kinship bonds through which we learn the lessons of love, caring and intimacy. When those bonds are broken, a piece of us breaks or is traumatized by that loss. Then we go through life hungry for what is missing. When we avoid the experience of grief, we lock ourselves up in the loss; we carry around an unhealed wound. Humans are physical beings, existing in time and space. Scientists tell us today that our emotional bodies are just as physical as our corporeal bodies#151only harder to see and measure. Healing is biologically driven: We cut ourselves, we clean and suture the wound. Then we rely on nature to complete our healing process. We cannot reknit our flesh, but nature can. So it is with emotional wounds. Wounds to the heart need to be cleaned in order to naturally heal. A wound to the psycho-spiritual body can be just as crippling to the whole person as a wound to the physical body. Life is full of losses. Passing wholly through the stages of mourning#151whether it be for a loved one, a job, a divorce, a child who has left home or a stage of life#151not only strengthens the ego and the inner self, but increases our trust in life's ability to repair and renew itself. It deepens our inner relationship with the self. Grieving serves a number of important functions. It releases the pain surrounding an event or situation so that it will not be held within the emotional and physical self. Grieving allows the wound to heal. If we do not grieve, we build walls around the ungrieved wound in order to protect it, even though these very walls can keep healing experiences out as well. I have asked myself a thousand times what is the difference between a person who can live a healthy balanced life and one who cannot seem to get life together in a productive manner. We all face problems. But some people move through them and some remain stuck. I have observed that clients who succeed in therapy exhibit or acquire certain qualities: They are able to self-reflect#151that is, they look at their own thinking, feeling and behavior and have enough emotional distance from their self-identification so that they see themselves realistically. They take their own good advice and live by it rather than spending valuable time and energy digging trenches, then sitting in and defending them.They identify what they are feeling and articulate it to themselves and others, which gives them the ability to face the pain of loss. They identify their issues and live with a realistic rather than an idealized view of themselves, and when life hurts they are able to own their issues and work with them. They cope with loss by calling it by its correct name, and move through the emotional turmoil of a grieving process. They separate the past from the present, which allows them to live in today without sabotaging it with unresolved, unfinished business from the past. They find meaning and purpose in their struggle, which is how spiritual transformation and growth take place. They use life struggles not only to get through but to grow, thus deepening and strengthening their relationship with life and self and others. I find it very exciting and hopeful to see this process at work. Over and over again I have seen lives that were in shambles turn around and become happy and productive. I have