“When innocence has been deprived of its entitlement, it becomes a diabolical spirit.”
Humans have an in-built automatic mechanism that will split the psyche of an infant if there is unbearable traumatic experience/s, especially where the mother-baby transpersonal bond is broken in the pre-verbal years before a coherent ego is formed.
One part of the psyche splits off the essence of the infant (the true self- the soul) a “spore-self” which falls into the archetypal world (numinous-fantasy-dreams) for safe keeping by a “guardian angel”, whose job is to ensure the spore-self will NEVER suffer the life threatening, disintegrating trauma ever again.
Another part of the split psyche progresses a false self/survival self to cope with the harsh outer world, quickly adapting to ensure the physical survival of the body in it’s new strange and potentially life threatening environment. This ideally is a temporary measure until the traumatized infant has found safety, stability and “good enough” caregivers that can provide the space and nurturing to enable reintegration and become whole again.
If the growing child is subject to continual emotional neglect, physical abuse or it’s just not safe for reintegration, the guardian angel turns into a diabolical caretaker who will then screen all experiences with the outside world to ensure there is no further unbearable trauma. This defense mechanism becomes a self sabotaging prison, the child survives but cannot live creatively. In adulthood the diabolical caretaker’s job is to soothe the false self with drugs, alcohol or other means. Ultimately if reintegration is impossible it will set about killing the host body (suicide). Possibly as it has knowledge that the spore-self will be released back into the Universal self for reincarnation?
The progressed survival self develops abilities to scan for and avoid potentially further emotional or physical abuse that will cause a reliving of the original catastrophic traumatic event. The body will be pumped full of adrenaline and cortisol it ishas radar like hyper-vigilance and is primed and ready to react. Psychic skills, mental telepathy, clairvoyance and/or heightened awareness, the ability to read the subtle subtext, body language and emotions of the abusive caregivers however benign, behavior can be adjusted to either avoid or disconnect from verbal or physical threats. Increase adrenaline and cortisol will lead to sleep disorders, constant anxiety, eating disorders and digestions problems. Disassociation becomes normal, it is easy for them to flip flop between the psyches and large chunks of memory where there is vague or no recall of events is common.
Breaking of the mother-baby transpersonal bond will lead to abandonment, attachment and co dependency issues, the desperate need to bond will lead the false self to attach to people even if this is against their best interests. Then if the diabolical caretaker assumes the attachment may lead to another traumatic abandonment it will push back the new partner, resulting in broken, unfulfilling, stressful relationships, isolation, social anxieties and loneliness. It can also leave them vulnerable to sexual abuse – abusers are able to identify needy, willing to please children and if they can easily disassociate, not being able to recall the actual sexual abuse but rather a “screen memory” of it, all the better for the abuser.
This split psyche and split persona starts before the infant has developed any coherent sense of ego, the child and grown adult knows nothing else, it’s always been this way – they blame the only thing that could be wrong – themselves and grow with an ingrained sense of “I’m unlovable, I’m not worthy, there’s something wrong with me, you’re better off without me, I’m broken” etc. Even with good environments, loving families and supportive friends a child will unconsciously listen to the diabolical caretaker that tells them, “it’s all a joke, they are only tolerating you, they will just abandon you as soon as you let down your guard, just like before…” They can deny the rational obvious evidence in front of them living whole lives completely unaware of this secret sabater living within hold on tight to the true essence of their self, while they live out their life believing the outer broken, unlovable flase self is their true being.
The diabolical caretaker is absolute, it developed as part primitive responses of the ID, the automatic mechanism of living, it can’t be reasoned with, it doesn’t learn. It will becomes a self sabotaging godlike diabolical prison guard, undermining attempts of the outer false self to improve its situation, it sees integration and wholeness as it’s own death and will do anything to prevent this.
If the outer false self can experience and tolerate more events that previously triggered the diabolical caretaker to take over (dissociate) the closer the diabolical caretaker can come to integrating the trauma that originally broke the transpersonal bond. At a certain point the conflicting personas can both enter the same transpersonal space, begrudgingly acknowledge each other and the wonderful job each has done for the other then agree terms of the prisoner exchange!
As capacity grows on each side, the energies can be turned over to integration. “Nobody leaves this dyad without a fight with a truly demonic spirit,” there will be failures and setbacks along the way, if after each unsuccessful attempt the survival self returns to find itself further along the path and in a better place the closer integration will be. This path must be walked alone, mentoring and coaching allowed, but no one can carry you over the finish line. To give up is to hand back the keys to the diabolical jailer and a life of self-destructing evil.
Advertisements Share this:This is my summary of Donald Kalshed’s Inner World of Trauma and other interviews I have found online. His work is aimed at other professionals using terms not in everyday parlance. My intention is to provide a more accessible summary to help people who have suffered pre-verbal trauma and have not found easy to digest material.
