When Healing Traumatized Person

For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. 

The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love." ? Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning One of the key ideas-that is integral to the philosophy of naturopathic medicine-is the importance of treating the causes of disease and not just the symptoms.

 In the case of treating mental-health conditions like PTSD, depression, anxiety and addiction, we are forced as practitioners and patients to address trauma as a primary cause. 

Trauma is at the heart of much of what I treat. And in the case of someone in recovery from drug and or alcohol addiction, trauma is often one of the leading contributing factors in the progression of the disease. 

Consequently, in order for drug addiction recovery to be successful, we must first lay bare and acknowledge that it is always accompanied by profound pain of some sort or another. There are two physicians whose works inspired me when I began learning about addiction studies and recovery. The first was Dr. Victor Frankl, who authored Man's Search for Meaning, and the second is Carl Gustav Jung, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and an early contributor to many of the ideas that later came to influence Alcoholic Anonymous. 

I first learned about Victor Frankl when I was just 21 years old. I had been living in Europe at the time, and my Rabbi's wife had loaned me a copy of Man's Search for Meaning, Frankl's most famous work. I never forgot the book and I have read it several times and referenced it many times. Frankl, a holocaust survivor, wrote extensively on his theory that the primary drive in human beings was the drive to meaning. He believed that a human being could survive even the most heinous suffering if he felt his life had meaning and purpose.

 Frankl felt that the greatest meaning of all lie in our ability to be people capable of giving and receiving love, and credited the love he held for his wife Tilly, with helping him survive his time while an inmate at Aushwitz concentration camp. I wholeheartedly agree with Frankl's theory, and have found that those patients who come to see me-that have found some measure of meaning in their lives-are usually the most successful at maintaining sobriety.

 I have also found that when that meaning is lost, even briefly, their is a real risk of relapse, depression, and even suicide. In those instances, part of my approach is to gently help the person seeking treatment turn their attention back to what their core values are; so that they can begin to live a life driven by purpose and meaning.

 My introduction to Carl Jung (often referred to as C.G Jung) came much later. I had heard about how Jung's philosophies had influenced the early formation of Alcoholic Anonymous while a student in medical school. His general theory of alcoholism has remained very intriguing to me. Jung believed that alcoholism was a spiritual crises. And that sobriety could only be maintained in the presence of a type of spiritual awakening. Jung was not specific in how this spiritual transformation might take place. Rather, he believed there were many ways in which a person might become spiritually "awakened."

 And even proposed that the act of becoming educated might be a type of spiritual path. He also spoke about awakening as a process that might happen within the context of a deep friendship or other meaningful relationship. He did not propose how this process should happen, only that it was a necessary component of sobriety.

 Because much of the underlining cause of drug and alcohol abuse is due to trauma, our nations "war on drugs" has been a further assault on people that have already been deeply wounded. What I believe is that trauma can only be successfully treated when it is acknowledged and the primary drives and inherent "spiritual" natures of human beings are addressed and encouraged. 

You cannot put a band aid on an addicted person and call them "recovered". Granted, there are some medications that can help (because there are real things happening inside the brain of an addicted person that need to be addressed) and pharmaceutical, and or nutraceutical medications, can offer a great deal of relief. 

And I certainly prescribe those to people who come to me seeking relief from addiction. However, that is by no means the end of treatment. And I do not believe that-in the absence of the spiritual and or psychological components nherent in addiction-long-term recovery is likely.  

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