In some cases the traumas spring up in front of us, like targets created long ago that cannot be ignored. In many cases, however, we will have to do some groundwork, we will have to clear the way, to dis-mantle obstacles blocking our path, or to build, to create supports and bridges to open up the way to the trauma and to healing. A balanced person is a healthy person and a state of dynamic equilibrium is a healthy state to be in. Whatever upsets the balance, however deep down in the darkness of the unconscious it may be, will show signs of life. The longer we turn down the invitation to confront the trauma, the more formidable the challenge of taking a fresh look at a case we thought had closed will seem. Once, our tendency to flee as quickly as we could from the pain of the trauma was the right response, and indeed may even have saved us. Now, however, we have different capabilities and more choices. We hang on like survivors of a shipwreck to the old, rickety raft battered by the stormy 'seas' of our childhood and fail to see the calm waters we are now heading towards. The tried-and-tested for-mula that once saved us is no longer essential or the right method to use when both we and the world around us have changed. When we refuse to recognise a simple feeling of malaise as a harbinger of something else, we can expect other less persistent but clearly more effective states to follow: panic attacks with sudden bolts from the blue, the depression that deprives us of the joy of living, the phobias that restrict our living space, and other physical illnesses that desperately try, before the final embrace of death, to let us know what is happening in the depths of our being… These are the things that restrict us and inspire fear in us, yet these are also the things that speak to us of new pathways and possibilities. Will we remain in the familiar 'security' that the child clings to or will we, as adults, take the frightened child by the hand and, with the therapy we offer, lead it out into the light of day?
