Healing the Fractured Mind: A Revolutionary Method for Treating Addiction and Other Disorders offers the reader a journey into the human mind in search of an answer to the human paradox: how can we be both so loving and also so destructive, to ourselves and to others? The answer: there is no such thing as a human mind; there are in fact many different human mindsets. The way people feel and behave depends so much on how safe they felt in the hands of their parental figures and on the social context in which they are brought up in and live.
The human infant’s utter dependency on the mother in early development means that, should she become unavailable or threatening, the infant can neither fight nor flee but only freeze and thereby disconnect. It is at this point that the infant brain adopts an alternative developmental mode referred to as the “traumatic attachment” with the potential to develop different mindsets to ensure survival in a frightening world where others cannot be trusted.
For many, the cost of these ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving outweighs the benefit: they suffer from the effects of addiction, prolonged grief, domestic and other forms of violence, borderline personality disorder, developmental or complex trauma, and other ‘disorders’. Conventional treatment often fails to find a way out of these debilitating behaviours. Through years of research and clinical practice, Felicity de Zulueta has developed the Traumatic Attachment Induction Procedure (TAIP), a revolutionary method which can lead sufferers to full recovery. Through the TAIP, it is possible to gain access to the hitherto unconscious or implicit traumatic attachment and its accompanying internal working models.
Healing the Fractured Mind is an uplifting account of several clients’ therapeutic journeys from a past of chronic suffering and shame to the discovery of their true selves with the freedom to realise their long-hidden potential. It opens a new avenue of therapeutic practice and research in the field of early developmental trauma which could alleviate the suffering of so many. This book offers comfort and hope to therapists, the general public, and society as a whole by sharing the knowledge that these conditions are now treatable.
Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, developmental psychologist, and Honorary Fellow, University of Dundee, UK –
‘One of the most ingenious and exciting books to come out of the burgeoning literature on childhood trauma. Psychiatrist Felicity de Zulueta lives up to her reputation for diving into the research literature and showing us what should have been obvious but somehow wasn’t. The TAIP technique she has developed not only explains how adults can remain trapped in traumatic attachment dynamics from infancy, but also how therapists can help release them from these unconsciously ongoing, debilitating bonds with their parents. This theoretical voyage left me wondering why our culture finds it so difficult to take seriously the terror and trust that babies carry in their psyche.’
Sandra L. Bloom, Associate Professor, Health Management and Policy, Dornsife School of Public Health, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA –
‘If you are a therapist and you sincerely want your patients to heal from traumatic attachments, then read this book. Dr de Zulueta offers you a thorough understanding of the problems that exist and how to dissolve the internal splits that are making your patients’ lives a misery and interfering with their discovery of wholeness within.’
Giuseppe Craparo, psychologist, psychoanalyst, and Full Professor of Clinical Psychology, the Kore University of Enna, Italy –
‘Healing The Fractured Mind successfully enters the landscape of works on trauma. Felicity de Zulueta presents, thanks to an adept and competent combination of scientific research and extensive clinical experience, one of the most innovative procedures for exploring and treating childhood trauma-related disorders, the Traumatic Attachment Induction Procedure (TAIP). Readers will thus have the opportunity to discover the potential of this procedure, which makes this book a must-read for all those engaged in the research and treatment of developmental trauma as well as those who suffer from addictions and other difficult to treat disorders.’