Personal problems.
Hello. Today we are starting a workshop based on Marilyn Murray's therapy method. MM. is a professor at the University of Torron in psychology and a practicing consultant.
Method M.M. offers an in-depth understanding of the emergence of addictions of various kinds as the root problems of the human personality. If we consider only addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, food, nicotine, etc. separately from the family, then we are fighting the effect, not the cause, which does not allow a person, while maintaining sobriety, to feel the joy of life, fulfillment, freedom, success .
Let's define what human health is.
“Health is the complete physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual well-being of a person.”
From this definition it is clear that a human being is not only a physical body, but its spirit and its soul. Graphically, this can be imagined as a circle divided into segments.
Different methods of treating addiction.
All four components of human personality are very closely intertwined and interdependent. Therefore, when working on the problem of treating addictions of any kind, you must always remember that the weakening of any component immediately affects others.
If we strengthen some weakened component, it strengthens others.
- Physical problems in addiction treatment are alleviated first by stopping the use of the addictive chemical (be it alcohol, drugs, beer, tobacco, pills, etc.). Taking care of the body includes many aspects, including prevention, examination, nutrition, rest, and a friendly attitude towards yourself. A 12 Step Group (on the topic of your addiction) can provide significant help.
- Intellectual problems in the treatment of addictions are removed by realizing that knowledge, the intellectual reserves of our experience, are as worn out as our clothes. We cannot, without harm to ourselves, use our store of knowledge of beliefs, without taking an inventory of them. The 12 Step program also provides significant assistance in this regard. We learn to evaluate ourselves, see our dependence, and acquire knowledge to free our minds from slavery.
- Spiritual problems in the treatment of addictions can only be resolved through building a close, trusting personal relationship with God, through recognizing one’s complete dependence on one’s Creator. Spirituality affirms the direct responsibility of each person to himself, to God and to other people. Only in a relationship with God does a person finally find the courage to accept himself, to admit his weakness, to truly know his shadow side, to allow God to speak and act through us.
- Emotional problems in addiction treatment are addressed by uncovering the emotional pain within us. Many of us have experienced abuse in early childhood, in our parental families, or experience of abandonment and deprivation (deprivation). In our society, in our culture, for many centuries the experience of emotional deafness of not taking into account other people's experiences, feelings, and emotions has been instilled. Our parents often carried a huge sea of pain within themselves, which did not give them the strength to teach us the healthy expression of our feelings and emotions. It is there, in our parental families in our childhood, that the roots of our addictions are hidden. There, as children, we protected ourselves as best we could, practicing the behavior patterns of our parents, without knowing how to evaluate, analyze or compare. Gradually, our habits of unhealthy reactions to situations took on a mind of their own, and began to rule our lives, turning into our addictions, be it from chemicals or from relationships. When resolving emotional problems, only working on the 12 Step program is not enough, because... root problems, not resolved, result in switching from one addiction to another. This is how we switch from drugs to alcohol, from alcoholism to sexual addiction, from codependency to pills, gluttony or workaholism. It is very important to dig up the roots in order to gain not only sobriety (purity), but also a new quality of life. What is it like to be not only sober, but also healthy. Only by achieving BALANCE between all components of the personality - between body, soul and spirit, can we achieve our health. The human personality has needs that provide it with the opportunity to survive. There are five of them - these deep, essential needs, and they come before the needs for food, water, love and touch.
This is Security
Security
Stability
Constancy and
The feeling that I have the ability to control what surrounds me.
If there is something in our life that compromises our basic needs, then we have problems in life.
We need to begin to understand that any dispute, disagreement, aggression, terrorism, war begins because something of the basic needs, be it in a family or in a country, is violated.
We need to start understanding what is causing stress in our lives now. Which of our basic needs are not being met, and what we need to do to be healthy.
If I declare in my family that I want to be healthy, I want to grow spiritually, then I must become a model of self-care for others.
Topic: Becoming a healthy, balanced personality.
(physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually).
Let's start with the definition:
Shock is a pain filter built into the human consciousness by God.
Harm is damage to a person. If the shock were permanent, it would have devastating consequences for the individual. Pain is a signal that something in the body is broken, and if no measures are taken, the wound will fester, the infection will grow, and the harm to the person may be irreparable. Shock saves a person’s psyche from overstrain, but should not last forever.
If emotional impact is experienced without shock (pain filter), the personality can be destroyed (loss of self). Happens very often to victims of sexual violence. After the end of the shock, it is necessary to express all the feelings and emotions, pour out the pain, I need someone to listen, cry, understand that I am not to blame for what was done to me, I must have time and the opportunity to live through the pain.
If it is not customary in the family to sympathize, to empathize with others, and are not taught to express feelings (emotional depression), then the pain inside me resulting from emotional trauma does not leave me, the shock lasts constantly, I cannot assess the damage done to me, and this has far-reaching consequences for a person’s personality (like an infected wound that is not treated).
We need to begin to understand that emotional or intellectual trauma is the same damage that is done to our body through physical trauma, and we need to spend just as much time on healing.
In order to begin to restore ourselves as a healthy, balanced person, we need to learn to know our “I” and call it by its real name. It is very important to start looking at yourself both in depth and as if from the outside. Start thinking about yourself, seeing yourself. The way a person sees himself, lives with himself, determines his entire life.
It is always difficult to recognize yourself as you really are.
Both overestimation of our qualities (grandiosity) and underestimation of ourselves (low self-esteem) force us to live in illusions, self-deception, falseness, make us suffer, and that of all the people around us.
Only a real assessment of one’s qualities leads to happiness, tranquility, and growth of a person and those around him.
Let us return to our origin, the beginning of our lives, and see the “Natural Child” that God intended each of us to be. The personality of the “Natural Child” is holistic, he has innate intelligence, creative abilities, talents, features of appearance and personality, and is able to feel all feelings, both “appropriate” and “inappropriate.” The core of the “Natural Child” is our soul (true spirituality). Initially, each of us was precisely a “Natural Child” (NC).
However, we came into this imperfect world, and from the first hour of our lives we interact with other people, primarily with those closest to us - our parents. Our life (egg) begins to fill with events, and often not only joyful ones.
The negative feelings: “inappropriate” that the “Natural Child” experienced as a child created his “sea of pain.”
The “sea of pain” contains only painful feelings - sadness, fear, anger, loneliness, helplessness, etc., and precisely those feelings that the child was not allowed to express, pour out, have. This could happen due to family, cultural, ethnic and other customs, traditions, mores, rules, morals. Our “sea of pain” is our inner “Crying Offended Child” (CRC), which covers the “Natural Child”.
POR is the fruit of negative external influences of people, environment, and circumstances.
But POR teaches EP positive qualities.
Through suffering, trauma, pain, EP learns to understand the feelings of other people, learns compassion, care, empathy, tenderness. The innate defense mechanism that the “Natural Child” develops to protect the “Crying Resentful Child” is our inner “Controlling Child.” He uses everything he can, taking as a basis both his innate abilities and the various possibilities of the surrounding world in order to extinguish pain (the shock mechanism is turned on). The Controlling Child (CC) uses two types of defenses.
1. Suppression, pain relief (with food, sex, medications, alcohol, drugs, nicotine and other chemicals).
2. Distraction (relations with other people: school, sports, music, TV, computer, church)
The "controlling child" is a defense mechanism designed to provide temporary pain relief (pain and stress relief).
When defense mechanisms are built for long-term use, we get problems in life in the form of bad habits and addictions.
But KR teaches EP and positive qualities. It helps us be responsible and set healthy boundaries for ourselves (which prevents others from victimizing us and preventing us from treating others as our victims).
Unfortunately, defense mechanisms (DP) cannot selectively suppress only “inappropriate feelings”; we lose touch with all our feelings.
This is a bitter price to pay for our passion for protection. We begin to close ourselves off from everyone, building a system of denial.
“I’m okay,” “I have no problems,” etc.
In the process of life, when faced with various traumas, different personality structures may arise that will dominate and determine a person’s life.
1 Sometimes the offender is sometimes the victim.
In this version, the person does not have joy, satisfaction, cheerfulness, or natural expression of himself.
Very often in life there is a combination of options 2 and 3 in marriage.
However, there is another option for personality structure. This is when EP is naturally and healthily balanced with the positive qualities of POR and CR.
1. A balanced healthy personality is a newly integrated and balanced person who has learned the experience of life as a positive, responsible and mature person. A full-fledged personality, capable of behaving rationally, sensibly, judiciously, able to forgive, and all this in contact with feelings, i.e. in the “synthesis of the work of the head and heart”
Now let's write down the homework for the next lesson.
1. Draw an egg of injury (page no. 5,6). Life events (memorized traumas) up to the present day. Important life events and the feelings they experienced.
2. Draw POR. In the drawing with paints, symbols or words, try to express the feelings of POR.
End of the first day of the seminar.
Marilyn Abramovna Murray (b. 1936) was born and raised in a small village in Kansas (USA), most of the inhabitants of which were descendants of immigrant families from the Russian Volga region. At the age of 17, for health reasons, she moved from Arizona to the American West.
Marilyn succeeded in business and at the age of thirty-nine was already one of the most famous women in the country - owners of art exhibitions.
In 1980, she began her journey of emotional recovery by undergoing intensive therapy. As a result, upon her return, she went back to university and received a degree in psychology from California State University in Sonoma.
Marilyn Murray developed a psychological theory for the treatment of trauma, violence and deprivation, and is internationally recognized as a psychotherapist, theorist, author and lecturer. She is widely known as a lecturer at universities, conferences, churches, the general public, and in the press. A recognized authority on violence and its consequences, she specializes in intensive care therapy in her private practice and has taught Murray Method theory and training seminars since 1983.
Professor Murray was one of the first victims of violence to become a psychotherapist for prisoners convicted of committing violence, and worked in the Arizona prison system (USA) for six years.
The story of Marilyn Murray, the founder of the method
Murray method was designed by Marilyn Murray. For twenty-five years she was a successful businesswoman, but did not understand why she was experiencing depression and other mental changes. It was only after undergoing psychotherapy that she realized that these were the consequences of sexual abuse suffered in childhood.
Through my healing journey Marilyn Murray has gained awareness and understanding of the long-term effects of childhood trauma on the human psyche. Marilyn graduated with a Bachelor's degree from the University of Ottawa in 1983, received a Master's degree in Psychology from California State University, Sonoma in 1985, after which she developed and taught a specialization called Trauma Therapy to graduate students at the University of Ottawa in Phoenix, Arizona. violence and deprivation", which consisted of eight courses.
At the same university she received the title of professor. Marilyn Murray also taught her method at an international university in Hawaii, at the University of Holland, in Russia, Ukraine and other countries; her students are representatives of 45 countries.
Marilyn Murray is internationally recognized as an author, theorist, psychotherapist and teacher on the issues of trauma, violence and its consequences, and she is a well-known speaker at psychological conferences, universities, churches, radio and television. In private practice, she specializes in intensive care for the effects of trauma.
She has a special personal interest in Russia, both because her paternal grandparents were born in a village near Saratov and left Russia during the revolution, and because of the tragic history of their families. All of their relatives who remained in Russia were either killed during Stalin's times, starved to death during collectivization, or were exiled to Siberia. Those who survived the Gulag and their descendants now live in different regions of Russia. Thus, the long-term effects of trauma, violence and deprivation and coping mechanisms have become a prototype in generations of her family and instill in her heart empathy for the pain that Russians are experiencing today.
Marilyn Murray: "Success comes from suffering"
“People who know what suffering is, get to the very essence of everything: they drink this cup to the bottom, when others only skim the foam from the surface. A person cannot touch the stars if he has not plunged into the abyss of despair and has not found a way back ".
I have spent the last thirty years researching how people cope with traumatic events and how long they last for them and their families.
Since difficult times are inevitable for each of us, the question arises of how not only to survive them, but also to successfully move on, develop and, despite the pain, enjoy life. In 1980 I turned forty-four years old, and by this time I had accumulated considerable knowledge and experience, but I had little understanding of what was happening to me. I lacked wisdom.
I successfully sold works of art and was a co-founder of the organization “More Than Friends,” which provided support, in particular, to women who suffered in various life circumstances. In addition, the church community highly valued my organizational skills, I was married, had two beautiful daughters, a wonderful son-in-law and a grandson whom I simply adored.
My friends thought that my life was perfect. But most people didn't know that I suffered from acute physical pain all the time. They had no idea that I had been on the verge of suicide more than once. Fortunately, a close friend insisted that I see a doctor, and as a result, my life changed dramatically.
At the beginning of treatment, I was often irritated because I did not understand how it was progressing. I wanted to know what was happening in me and why. I needed practical guidance, but despite the many questions I asked, no one could give me explanations in a language I understood.
The desire to understand my own life prompted me to start studying. Soon I received a diploma in psychology. Using the knowledge and experience that I had acquired not only from my own treatment, but also from many years of working in the business world, I tried to understand why I did certain things. As a result, I developed a psychological theory that, as it seemed to me at the time, explained only my behavior, however, to my considerable surprise, I soon discovered that it perfectly described the conditions of other people.
Since the mid-1980s, I have not only practiced as a psychologist, but also taught my theory - the so-called Murray Method, which pays special attention to the consideration of scindosyndrome. I speak to psychotherapists, priests and all people interested in my method. Currently, it is used in many countries around the world.
Copied from the site "Self-knowledge.ru"
“People who know what suffering is, get to the very essence of everything: they drink this cup to the bottom, when others only skim the foam from the surface. A man cannot touch the stars unless he has plunged into the abyss of despair and found his way back.”
One family's history of trauma
In fact, this is my thirteenth year in Russia. In my small town in Kansas there were many families who came from Russia. My father didn’t tell me anything about his childhood; I only know the names of the villages near Saratov where his parents came from. My father died in 1984, and we tried many times to find out something about our relatives in Russia.
This happened only in 1996. It turned out that my father’s ancestors had lived in a village near Saratov since the middle of the 18th century.
One of my grandfather’s sisters died of starvation in 1922, and his brother was buried alive by commissars in 1931, after he, the village head, refused to hand over grain. My maternal grandmother and my mother’s older sister were killed by lightning, my mother believed all her life that she was the cause.
Two of my second cousins were exiled to the Gulag, I found them in the 1990s. For more than sixty years, they, once raised together, did not even know that they were both alive. Probably, the same fate could have befallen me if my parents had not left for America.
So, as you can see, I have a lot of experience dealing with trauma. And I was taught: you don’t need to pay attention to them. You just have to move on and work hard.
During the war we moved briefly to a town in Kansas where there was manufacturing. I was eight, walking home from school, got lost, ran into a patrol of soldiers, and was raped. As I was taught, I pushed this trauma deep inside and continued to live.
After school I developed asthma and had to move to another state. The asthma stopped, but wild headaches began. At the same time, everyone outside saw the always smiling mother of two beautiful daughters.
Birth of the Murray Method
In 1975, I was the coordinator of an already large network of support groups for women. We didn’t know the concept of “trauma”, “personal space” and so on. Women came to me, there was no education, my head hurt even more.
Luckily, one of my friends advised me to undergo psychotherapy. In 1980, they didn’t send me to psychotherapy without psychosis, I resisted. Then I went and thought that two weeks would be enough for me. The therapy lasted seven months.
All this time I was working through the violence that happened to me, as well as many other things. Before that, for example, I had never said “no” to anyone. And I never took care of myself. And only a psychotherapist taught me to live differently.
Sometimes during therapy I noticed that I was immersed in very distant, infantile memories that I had to work through.
After therapy, all the ailments that I suffered from then disappeared. The change in my condition is clearly visible in the photographs of those years; I felt much better. I was forty-five, but I felt better than at twenty.
Next September I will be eighty, I have four great-grandchildren. But in general, I’m going to live to be one hundred and five, and we already have a script for celebrating this anniversary of mine.
After therapy, I decided that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren would grow up to be mindful, talk freely about their emotions, and they would be healthy. After therapy, I decided to study to become a psychologist, although by that time I was a successful gallery owner.
I asked my teachers: “What happens to a person experiencing trauma?” They answered me: “We can only know approximately. We can’t replicate the injury in the laboratory, it’s not ethical.” I answered: “But I am such a person.”
During my seven months of therapy, I descended into the deep layers of the unconscious. And a lot of what I told my psychotherapist, I told in some childish terms. He also told me: “It will be nice if you write this down.”
I called my diploma “Syndo-syndrome”. Sindo is a Latin word meaning "splitting". At first the teachers thought I was talking about schizophrenia. But I was talking about ordinary impressions that every person experiences.
When I was finishing my diploma, I realized that the terms in it were not academic, but the teacher said: “Don’t change anything.” A good theory is easy to understand, easy to remember, and easy to teach to someone. My diploma looked like it was written by an eight-year-old girl undergoing psychotherapy.
The main provisions of the Murray Method
The main goal of the Murray Method is to be a healthy, balanced person. There is an original child living within each of us.
Primordial Child
The “original child” (hereinafter referred to as IR, editor’s note) is the child who was created by God at conception. The personality of such a child is not divided into parts, not fragmented. From birth, he has such qualities as intelligence, temperament, talent, creativity, personal and external characteristics. IR is able to experience any feelings - both “acceptable” and “unacceptable”.
IR is your soul, which strives for reunification with God. IR is you - the way God created you. The core of the IR is your soul, the part that strives for reunification with God.
Crying baby
Then the original child goes through a sea of pain. There will definitely be pain, even if you find ideal parents. Injuries, insults, neglect, illness, loss of loved ones, stress. I called this sea of pain “Crying Child” (hereinafter referred to as PR, editor’s note).
PR is created by traumas. Its content is sad feelings - fear, grief, loneliness. The positive part of PR is that it gives us the opportunity to sympathize and be compassionate, to be gentle, without it you will not become a psychotherapist and a good spouse.
Controlling child
It would be very good if we could suppress feelings selectively. But, unfortunately, what happens is that by suppressing unpleasant feelings, we suppress all the others.
As a reaction to the sea of pain, a “controlling child” arises (hereinafter - KR, editor's note). The CR is a defense mechanism created by the IR to protect the PR. This mechanism will use any defense methods to reduce your pain.
If the CD is a healthy part of your personality, its existence is very important - it is what allows you to be responsible and maintain healthy personal boundaries in relation to other people.
But IR and PR are not meant to live in a depressed state all the time. Often CR becomes a permanent mechanism, then it turns into an addiction. Then the CR must constantly come up with something to keep other parts of the personality under control.
Healthy balanced personality
The ideal of existence is a healthy balanced personality (hereinafter - HUL, editor's note) - an ideal combination of IR, PR and CR. ZUL is an effective synthesis of thoughts and inner worldview. ZUL is a balanced combination of IR and the strong, positive aspects of PR and CR. A mature person is able to experience all feelings in an acceptable way.
ZUL consists of protective mechanisms, healthy boundaries and responsibility of the CR, empathy and sensitivity of the PR and all the innate talents of the PR. The task of all these parts is to become mature.
Angry rebellious child
If the needs of the PR are not met, and the CR loses the patience to suppress it, an angry rebellious child is formed (hereinafter referred to as the RBR, editor's note). This is an unhealthy combination of PR and CR. This is a creature that explodes, regardless of the reaction of others, over-demanding. This is an open and aggressive education.
Stubborn selfish child
Another variant of an unhealthy combination is when the CR and PR merge with part of the IR. A stubborn, selfish child is formed (hereinafter - UER, editor's note) - passive, secretive, selfish, manipulator, intriguer.
Both of these options - RBR AND UER refuse to take responsibility for their actions, consider themselves victims even where they are attackers, will do what they want, even if they harm themselves.
Both of these schemes must be removed, erased, since they are the breeding ground for addictions. We just have to admit to ourselves that aggression or passive aggression are two means to which we often resort.
"Murray method" and its development
I first introduced this concept in 1981, and by that time I was the first person in the United States to openly talk about experiencing violence. After that, many patients and psychotherapists contacted me. An extensive practice has emerged. Gradually my method began to be taught throughout the United States.
Then I was approached by the Arizona corrections system, where I worked with rapists, and discovered that many rapists had once been victims themselves. The question arose why some people who have experienced violence become rapists themselves, while others use violence only against themselves.
Then the University of Arizona opened a specialty in “Helping Victims of Violence.” Then there was the International University, teaching in Ukraine. When I was invited to Russia in 2002, I went with joy.
After reading my family’s story, I realized that I was also half Russian. I must come to Russia to teach people to be balanced, calm, and happy.
In 2012, we compiled statistics on the effectiveness of the Murray method for ourselves.
The test involved 876 people who were asked to rate themselves before and after therapy. Before therapy, 76 percent gave themselves a two, after - 86 percent gave themselves a four.
We also asked to evaluate the emotional sphere, physical and intellectual health, and spiritual growth. All self-esteem indicators increased. Assessments of family relatives and their own social activity also improved.
Using the Murray method, a questionnaire was developed covering ten types of trauma that people may have encountered in childhood - from parental divorce to verbal and physical abuse. One of the large US companies put 17,000 people through this test. More than 20% of them noted three or more types of trauma in childhood. But such people are more susceptible to physical illness and are prone to any kind of violence. Based on the experience of my work in Russia, the situation here is even more critical.
We have this exercise in our classes - you need to try to remember and consistently draw all the events that traumatized you in childhood. In the USA, they often brought me strips of paper that stretched from floor to ceiling, but in Russia such a scroll can, having reached the floor, then reach the middle of the length of the classroom.
And in our classes we tell people: childhood is over, now you can become your own harmonious parents. You can change the world one child at a time, and that child is you.
Marilyn Murray method provides a clear and understandable explanation of how violence, neglect, lack of love, affection, participation, and satisfaction of basic basic needs in childhood leads to disruption of a person’s emotional sphere, his relationships, attitude toward himself, decreased self-esteem, and the formation of addictions and codependencies.
Application of the method
This method is used to treat people:
- survivors of physical, sexual and emotional violence
- who have experienced neglect and emotional deprivation
- having relationship problems
- with codependency
- with various types of dependencies.
Marilyn Murray's story
Marilyn Murray (b. 1936) was born and raised in a small village in Kansas (USA), most of the inhabitants of which were descendants of immigrant families from the Russian Volga region. At the age of 17, she moved from Arizona to the American West.
Marilyn succeeded in business and, at the age of thirty-nine, was already one of the most famous women in the country - the owner of art exhibitions.
For twenty-five years she was a successful businesswoman, but did not understand why she was experiencing depression and other mental changes. It was only after undergoing psychotherapy that she realized that these were the consequences of sexual abuse suffered in childhood. Through her healing journey, Marilyn Murray has gained awareness and understanding of the long-term effects of childhood trauma on the human psyche.
Marilyn graduated with a Bachelor's degree from the University of Ottawa in 1983, received a Master's degree in Psychology from California State University, Sonoma in 1985, after which she developed and taught a specialization in Trauma Management to graduate students at the University of Ottawa in Phoenix, Arizona. violence and deprivation”, which consisted of eight courses. At the same university she received the title of professor. Marilyn Murray also taught her method at an international university in Hawaii, at the University of Holland, in Russia, Ukraine and other countries; her students are from 45 countries.
Mrs. Murray was the first sexual assault survivor to provide free psychotherapy to incarcerated rapists and child molesters in the Arizona prison system for six years.
Marilyn Murray is internationally recognized as an author, theorist, psychotherapist and teacher on the issues of trauma, violence and its consequences, and she is a well-known speaker at psychological conferences, universities, churches, radio and television. In private practice, she specializes in intensive care for the effects of trauma.
Since 2002, Professor Murray has lived for more than six months in Moscow, where she teaches her method to psychologists, psychotherapists, health professionals and clergy in order to teach counseling to overcome the effects of trauma, violence, deprivation and their influence on the emergence of addictions and codependencies.
She has a special personal interest in Russia because her paternal grandparents were born in a village near Saratov and left Russia during the revolution, and because of their families' tragic history. All of their relatives who remained in Russia were either killed during Stalin's times, starved to death during collectivization, or were exiled to Siberia. Those who survived the Gulag and their descendants now live in different regions of Russia. Thus, the long-term effects of trauma, violence and deprivation and coping mechanisms have become a prototype in generations of her family and instill in her heart empathy for the pain that Russians are experiencing today.