A Definition of Fictive Trauma
Jan. 29th, 2018 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
healing_liang As a fictive introject, that is, someone who was originally a character in a work of fiction, I came to this system with vivid and detailed memories of my own life, which is distinct from the life of the host and the system's body. Some of these memories are traumatic. That is what I call fictive trauma.
For the purposes of this blog, I apply the term broadly to any trauma experienced by a system member that is part of a subjective, personal or internal life and history distinct from the life of the body, that may not have necessarily been materially experienced by the system's body. The fictive trauma may be linked to a trauma history possessed by the body, or it may not. I have heard the term 'exotrauma' coined for this phenomenon, but I would prefer for this term to not be used for my trauma personally because of how sterile and impersonal it sounds to us.
We believe that the emotional mind makes no distinction between what materially happened and what didn't, to the emotional mind there is no distinction. And so the pain of fictive trauma is as real and valid to us, and worthy of healing, as any other pain -- whether or not something materially happened to the body to cause fictive trauma memories is not important for this purpose of recovery, and so we do not attempt to seek out an answer to this question.
For the purposes of this blog, I apply the term broadly to any trauma experienced by a system member that is part of a subjective, personal or internal life and history distinct from the life of the body, that may not have necessarily been materially experienced by the system's body. The fictive trauma may be linked to a trauma history possessed by the body, or it may not. I have heard the term 'exotrauma' coined for this phenomenon, but I would prefer for this term to not be used for my trauma personally because of how sterile and impersonal it sounds to us.
We believe that the emotional mind makes no distinction between what materially happened and what didn't, to the emotional mind there is no distinction. And so the pain of fictive trauma is as real and valid to us, and worthy of healing, as any other pain -- whether or not something materially happened to the body to cause fictive trauma memories is not important for this purpose of recovery, and so we do not attempt to seek out an answer to this question.
