Reconciling circumcision trauma can be different for every man.
In the same way that some people are psychologically unaffected and others are profoundly affected, the scale is one of extremes. Some people find it intensely difficult and instead mask the issue with addictive behaviour, whereas others can critically reflect upon their own situation and move forward, and others find coping methods that lessen the burden. This should not trivialise the difficult path that many men walk. Instead, it shows that there is hope for some men.
The following reflection was written by one of our members who is willing to share his perspectives on trauma and resilience. Having attended a webinar recently, we found some useful and interesting concepts for people who have experienced circumcision trauma. These techniques for handling trauma may help some men regardless of the origins of their struggle.
15 Square works to encourage public and professional recognition of the traumatising effects that circumcision can have, but we also hope to help men process and come to terms with their experiences.
We want to thank the author for this great summary.
Trauma Attachment & Resilience Summit
The free summit set out to change how you look at trauma. It was organised by Quantum Way, and their mission was to bring together the worlds best resources in psychology, personal growth, and mindfulness, in order to help survivors on their path to recovery.
“We want to discuss trauma and it’s causes and effects, disseminate new ways of addressing it, give a voice to trauma survivors, and de-stigmatize mental health by generally raising awareness of this issue which constitutes a very real societal challenge.” – Quantum Way
The event was attended by 35+ professionals (all of which were experts in their fields) as they discussed several techniques, exercises and tools to help the audience understand trauma and insecure attachment.
With over 40 hours of content, I only managed to listen to half of the speakers over the 7 days.
This is a personal summary that I hope will generate new possibilities & helpful curiosity for some. Circumcision was not dealt with directly as trauma, in general, was the focus, however, I have shared some of my perspectives on circumcision and the psychological impacts that it has had on me that were highlighted in the summit.
I am not a trained psychologist, so if something rings true for you, then I encourage you to further research these concepts and speakers.
About Trauma
What I personally gleaned from these talks was that most people have been traumatised during their life either by an event or by being raised by traumatised parents and the impacts can affect our ability to live our lives without the sense of permanent threat and anxiety. The world can appear to be threatening rather than supportive, which can often be reinforced through conditioning.
To cope with the trauma we develop methods to avoid the memories and triggers that consciously or unconsciously ignite the fears experienced earlier in our lives where we felt our basic survival was threatened, putting us into defensive reactive states of mind and body. Our minds develop avoidance habits such as addictions or reduced social interaction. Most of us aren’t even conscious of where these moments of disproportionate reaction stem from. We want the feelings to stop as quickly as possible. We blame the external trigger rather than see the unresolved trauma that these emotions and reactions stem from.
My Experiences of Circumcision Trauma
I always knew I wasn’t happy to have a circumcision performed on me. Whatever medical reason I was told made no difference to me as a 5 year old. I wasn’t given the choice to decide, and as a child I believed at that my parents would always protect me from harm. Yet I somehow didn’t associate the emotions and thoughts I had back then with my circumcision, and later in life I didn’t see myself as someone with trauma symptoms. My mind did its best to cope and protect me from the emotions and thoughts that would follow my circumcision. Feeling unloved, a low self-worth, a fear of rejection, needing to be independent and support myself, fear of something being taken away from me, fear of authority, anxiety, anger, rage, depression, shame, guilt, suicidal thoughts, and impulses to run away from home. All at the age of 5 years old. Back then it was just who I became.
Gabor Maté, (who was also one of the speakers at the summit) had previously introduced me to the idea that I may be traumatised after I had heard him talking in an interview on YouTube some years ago. Before then, (even after receiving many types of therapy and medication for depression) I hadn’t seriously considered that my circumcision had created trauma symptoms, nor had the professionals that had been treating me. Only a counsellor at a Dutch university pointed out that in her opinion what had been done to me was (in her words) mutilation. This was back in 1993. My mind struggled to process this as she had hit a nerve and my mind filed it away under “avoid at all costs for the next 20 years”.
Its taken many years for me to realise this by removing the crutches of addictions that masked the cause of my symptoms. I used meditation and techniques that I had discovered through people like Dr Joe Dispenza (author of Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself) who offered a new approach for me to start connecting the dots and question my habitual behaviours.
What I Learned about how to process Circumcision Trauma
As I listened to the descriptions from these experts on trauma and how the mind copes and dissociates, I began to piece together my behaviour towards the outside world and understand the internal mental processes of a traumatised person. These people were not only offering me an explanation of my personal reality, but they were also showing me a way out and a means to heal. These scientifically proven new methods don’t require medication to reset the body chemistry from the fight, flight or freeze state.
A traumatic event sets up a survival state in our bodies that can get stuck in a cycle of fight or flight. With circumcision we experience our carers, the ones who we solely relied upon as our first source of protection and survival as children, to actually instigate or allow us to be harmed. Therefore, we learn early on that love can also be a threat to our existence. This can affect our relationship with our parents, as our only means to survive at an early age can also be a threat.
I’m not sure anyone at an early age would realise this on a conscious level, instead we just feel physical and emotional pain and where it came from. For those where circumcision is performed even earlier so much more is unconscious.
Our ability to make deep loving connections with others is halted when we experience feelings of love and support from people, we now unconsciously see this as a threat. We may keep people or situations at a distance to avoid these feelings. We feel threatened by the very thing that can give us a sense of worth and a sense of belonging, love of ourselves and love of others.
How can we allow ourselves to love and appreciate ourselves when it’s a learned threat to us?
There is an internal conflict around love created through an event implemented by our carers. How can we trust others (even when they show their genuine affections and support) when that is being experienced as a threat from an emotionally charged past event?
Topics Discussed
The speakers talked of the effects that war or natural disasters can have on people and how they become stuck in the fight, flight or freeze response, unable to turn off neural feedback loops.
According to the speakers on Polyvagal Theory, the aspects of the personality that exist for a child to learn and explore through play suddenly take on the burden of survival, a role that it wasn’t meant to take on and it struggles to drop this role as the person grows into adult life. This aspect of the personality continues to struggle with this role never feeling it can drop it. Other aspects of the personality take on protective roles to shore it up. The pain and its reason can become buried deep, so, like in my own situation, it can be difficult to link the triggered reactions to the circumcision event, even though the physical evidence is there plain to see every day.
Heart Math approach uses regulating the heart through breath at the same time as generating feelings of gratitude or neutrality to reset the nervous system to a balanced neutral state and through regular practice, a person can make this their dominant state.
EFT – emotional freedom technique (Tapping) is the most active way to treat trauma symptoms by associating a memory with a new emotion. This has been proven to have an immediate effect on traumatised children and adults in war zones or natural disasters, and lasting benefits have been proven.
Some of the speakers were asked to show a live example of their techniques and the ones that I have mentioned did so with members of the zoom call. It was incredible to see these in action.
Some of the speakers were asked to show a live example of their techniques and the ones that I have mentioned did so with members of the zoom call. It was incredible to see these in action. Turning off this Fight, Flight or Freeze response, when it isn’t needed, seems to be a dominant factor to look at when dealing with trauma.
Most of us don’t realise we live in a permanent state of threat because that’s all we have had as a state of experience since an early age. There isn’t anything we can do to change an event that happened in the past or to predict a future, but we can it seems train our bodies and minds to choose to see the present moment as a none threatening place and to feel safe, without the fear of the emotions and thoughts that come from the triggers. We can also train our bodies and minds to expect what will be a less threatening experience in the future.
After a sense of danger has passed, animals can return to grazing without their anxiety levels remaining. Conversely, humans have the capacity to relive through our thoughts and imaginations a threatening situation internally, regardless of what else is happening in the external environment. Even when there isn’t a threat in our external environment we create one in our minds, either consciously or unconsciously. This alone can turn on the fight or flight mechanisms of the brain with the release of all the chemistry that puts the body into a defence state. We can actually choose to see a world through the filter of threat using our thoughts.
A traumatised person can develop a habit of anxious thoughts that, if repeated enough, can become part of the brain’s automatic thought process, creating a constant state of background anxiety. The mind can be trained out of this pattern of survival thinking though, and new neural pathways can replace the ones that were once used for anxious thinking. Dr Joe Dispenza’s work is a testament to this process and I have had some great and amazing results from his processes.
Main Takeaways
With all of these helpful techniques mentioned in the summit, we must first understand what trauma does to the mind so that we can recognise symptoms. We can then become aware of what is potentially driving our lives without our conscious awareness.
Gabor Maté shows us that most of us (including political leaders) are traumatised people living reactive lives rather than active lives. We can take back the power of choice which may have been taken from us by the events surrounding our circumcision.
Secondly, we need to understand there are ways to heal the psychological effects created by trauma out there and professional people who have a greater understanding and want to help.
The summit outlined many new approaches that have scientific research backing them that show that trauma effects can be healed, the nervous system brought back to balance and in many cases very quickly. We can begin to feel more empowered and live more active lives rather than reactive lives haunted by the triggers and emotions of the past.
The recordings from the summit will be available to purchase in the near future but the information is also available on these individuals and their techniques.
Below is a list of the speakers, and the subjects that they spoke on. Readers may find this information helpful. Some information is also available here.
Useful Links
Poly Vagal Theory
https://www.stephenporges.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVVpa_-pLkE
https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org
Heart Math
https://www.heartmath.com/science/
EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique
https://eftuniverse.com/
Energy Psychology
https://www.energypsych.org/energy-psychology
Topics Presented at the Summit
HEART-BRAIN SYNCHRONY: A KEY TO EMOTIONAL BALANCE AND RESILIENCE
Rollin McCraty
THE HUNGRY GHOST: A BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE ON ADDICTION, FROM HEROIN TO WORKAHOLISM
Gabor Maté
SUPPRESSING CRYING: AN EARLY RELATIONAL TRAUMA
Eric Binet
GRAND CRIMINALS AND THEIR TRAUMATIC PAST
Daniel Zagury
PAST TRAUMA AND MORAL INJURY: THE IMPACT ON A COUPLE’S RELATIONSHIP
Esther Perel
Jack Saul
NO BAD PARTS : HEALING TRAUMA & RESTORING WHOLENESS WITH IFS
Richard Schwartz
TRAUMA, SHAME, AND THE POWER OF SELF-COMPASSION
Chris Germer
AN UPDATE ON ENERGY PSYCHOLOGY IN THE WORLD IN 2022
Jean-Michel Gurret
ATTACHMENT & DISSOCIATION: AT-RISK PARENTING BEHAVIORS
François Louboff
HEALING THROUGH DRAMATHERAPY
Ravindra Ranasinha
CHALLENGING TIMES FOR OUR NERVOUS SYSTEM
Stephen Porges
HEALING CONNECTIONS AND CULTIVATING GROWTH THROUGH GRIEF
Dan Siegel
SACRED MEDICINE – MIGHT TREATING TRAUMA REVERSE CHRONIC DISEASE?
Lissa Rankin
THE THERAPIST AS A SECURE ATTACHMENT FIGURE AT THE CORE OF THE IR MODEL (RELATIONAL INTELLIGENCE)
François Le Doze
TRUTH & RECONCILIATION: THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF NAVIGATING MINDFULNESS AND TRAUMA IN SOUTH AFRICA
Simon Whitesman
PSYCHOTRAUMA AND NEUROSCIENCE
Laurence Carluer
WRITING TRAUMA AND THE BODY
Margeaux Feldman
SUBSTANCES AND ADDICTIONS : HEALING WOUNDS OR STOPPING USE OR THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF PTSD AND DISSOCIATION
Frank Anderson
‘BEING WITH’ OR ‘WORKING WITH’: TRAUMA-SENSITIVE MINDFULNESS PRACTICES FOR 2022
David Treleaven
MEETING A CLIENT IS MEETING ONESELF / WHEN THE THERAPIST’S OWN ATTACHMENT ISSUES INFLUENCE HOW THEIR WORK
Olivier Piedfort-Marin
TRAUMATIC MEMORY
Muriel Salmona
WORKING WITH RACIAL TRAUMA. TOOLS TO RESET, RESTORE AND REGAIN PEACE
Melissa Watson-Clark
INSECURE ATTACHMENT VS RESTORING RESILIENCE THROUGH THE HAPTIC PERCEPTION HUMAN SYSTEM
Sonia Gomes
BRAIN-CHANGING STRATEGIES TO TRAUMA-PROOF OUR SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES
Maggie Kline
LIFE BLOOMS IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING
Trudy Goodman
TBC
Bruno Humbeeck
TRAUMA AS A MODERN DAY BODHISATTVA TRAINING: THE POWER OF PSYCHO-SPIRITUAL HEALING
Deirdre Fay
FAR FROM HOME… SURVIVING FAR FROM HOME. SUFFERING AND RESILIENCE AT THE HEART OF EXILE
Menes La Plume
EMBODIED HEALING: THE PRACTICE OF TRAUMA-SENSITIVE YOGA
Jenn Turner
THE TRANSGENERATIONAL IMPACT OF FORCED MIGRATION
Linda Thaï
REPLAY OF THE PRE-LAUNCH SUMMIT FOLLOWED BY A LIVE Q&A SESSION WITH DAWSON CHURCH
Dr Joe Dispenza
Dawson Church
MOVEMENT RESOURCES & RESILIENCE: EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP
Lucie Nérot
SHE’S GREAT YOUR SISTER – WHEN TRISOMIE UPSETS AND TRANSCENDS SIBLINGS.
Magali Zambetti
THE CHILDHOOD OF CRIMINALS
Agnès Grossmann
NEW FAMILIES: HOW TO BUILD SECURE ATTACHMENT IN FAMILY RECOMBINATION.
Boris Cyrulnik