Frome Valley Osteopaths

Is the myth of individuation an incomplete story or a lethal lie? I heard this question posed this week by Dan Siegel. Dan Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry, executive director of the mindsight institute, prolific writer and speaker, and in my opinion, all round genius.

I am sure I will not do him justice in my interpretation of his question as my knowledge is limited, but I will attempt too… and consider why it’s relevant to our patients.

Individuation is considered to be a healthy, critical process during development, particularly in adolescents when teens and young adults start to assert their own independent identity and establish a cohesive sense of self. They become less controllable and they should.

If individuation is limited, the development of our sense of self is limited. This can cause significant distress. Issues around separation and individuation can present as difficulty pursuing goals that differ from family and friends wishes, this can result in depression and anxiety.

However, in Western culture, individuation appears too have been taken to the extreme of separateness, and is maybe being confused with independence. Maybe this means we feel like it’s not OK to ask for help, we go it alone.

But we aren’t really truly separate and we aren’t meant to be. We need each other. When we are first born we don’t know we are separate from our birth parent and as mentioned above, we don’t truly individuate until our teenage years.

Our nervous systems are connected to each other all the time, it is said that our nervous systems are a balance of the five people we spend most of our time with. This is why our relationships are so important to our health. As children we cannot regulate ourselves, it is up to our care givers to teach us how, by doing it for us. Responding when we cry, soothing us. They co regulate with us so we can learn to self regulate.

As adults we should have some self regulation skills, an adult who acts like a toddler is not someone I would find it easy to be around. But we still co-regulate with each other. You and I become a we. That person who always helps you feel calmer, the person who helps you feel playful, the person who feels draining. We are in relationship with each other all the time. We are connected.

In clinic this all feels important. Firstly coming to clinic suggests that you are open to relationship, to someone helping. A big part of the ‘success’ of treatment is to do with the felt safety of the patient practitioner relationship. This is not something that we can consciously tell ourselves, our systems either feel safe or they don’t. We can help patients feel safe by making sure the space is clean, tidy, peaceful, although for some people this may have the opposite impact. We can make sure we are regulated, we can meet patients where they are, validate their experience, hear their story and their pain.

In all ways we treat patients, the patients experience of felt safety can be healing in itself. If we use the more gentle approaches to our patients such as cranial/biodynamic work, we can put hands on and help their nervous systems experience dorsal vagal rest and restore. This dorsal vagal state is also healing, organising, a person may experience a sense of wholeness and integration they haven’t before. If we then support treatment to occur we support deeper wholeness and integration. If we allow patients to talk through what comes up for them, this is all healing.

This only happens in relationships that feel safe, but it doesn’t only happen in treatment rooms. We are all connected to each other. We are programmed to be, to be impacted and influenced by other people, the challenge is to be individuated enough to have a sense of self that can be held in relationship with someone else. We don’t want to dissolve completely as soon as we sit/live with someone.

This awareness is hugely important when supporting people who have experienced trauma, relationships themselves may feel threatening, but it’s in relationship that people heal.

We are connected to each other, we are meant to be, individuation is healthy and taken to the extremes of hyper independence (a trauma response) it’s not. The opposite, codependent, victim mentality is also not healthy. Can we be regulated enough to support the people around us and can we reach out to the people who can hold space for us to feel and help us regulate when we can’t be. The epidemic of male suicide in particular is partly because men aren’t told it’s OK to need people. It doesn’t make you needy, it makes you human.

If you need support, reach out, we are here for all kinds of support, from back pain to more complex work.

go gently

Lauren Manning BSc Hons Ost.

References include:

portal.theebodimentconference.org interpersonal biology Dan Siegel and Alanis Morissette.

en.wikipedia.org individuation

University of Gävle, faculty of education and business studies, department of humanities, The process of individuation in Willy Loman by Joakim Åberg.

drdansiegel.com