Anna-Lena and the Knife Attack: Part 1

by Cynthia C. Doll
www.eft-ccd.de
Maintal (near Frankfurt), Germany

I’m a healing practitioner in Germany and have dedicated myself to working with trauma. During my own Personal Peace Procedure I became more and more aware of the impact of World War II (and issues connected) on generations living in Germany, first on the generation which now in a process of passing and who were young adults or youngsters in times of war (80-90 years old or older). Secondly, on the generation which spent the early childhood being confronted with whatever had to do with war (generation of those born approximately 1935-49). These experiences may have included being bombed and/or having lost homes, parents and/or families, being on the run for weeks, months, even years, watching victims or being victim of severe attacks on sexual integrity or life, nearly starving or freezing, being bullied in the new homes, etc. Thirdly, the impact on the daughters and sons of that generation (the generation I personally belong to as daughter of a German mother and an American father, approx. late 1950s-late 60s to mid 70s).

In my work with traumatised people, I experience that knowing about trauma and the effects on the body-mind-system plays a critical role for those who were traumatised. I discovered that reframing lies in the knowing how trauma affects us. You can so wonderfully weave into the Setup statements what is obviously not their fault because it’s only natural to protect oneself. You can explain in a simple way principles of how the body-mind system works in order to protect ourselves and what we can do now that the time is right to deal with it, once we’ve understood how dissociation works and how it drives people to act in certain ways. I’d love to encourage everybody who works with EFT to dive deeper into the issue of trauma. Please contact me for literature recommendations in German and English.

Anna-Lena

Anna-Lena (name was changed) found her way to me, referred by a friend of mine who had occasionally mentioned a patient with neck-shoulder problems, a survivor of a knife attack in a subway station in Berlin. Anna-Lena was born in 1937 in Germany and lived part of her life in the US and for many years in the Netherlands. Now, during a visit to Germany, she decided to give EFT a try — specifically for the knife attack which had occurred several months before.

One of the first things Anna-Lena said at the beginning of our session was: “I’ve seen some things as a child in times of war already…“ which I kept in mind as an important hint referring to possible deeper lying traumas. She was born in 1937 and had been 8 years old at the end of World War II. I also preframed for her that new events could trigger older events with possible traumatic impacts which have not been resolved. I told her she could stay totally calm if she felt something, a sign that her body was probably pointing out something it would love to solve and heal now finally. I told her she should just notice and check what she felt and perceived — to prepare for possible further work in a perfect way.

Anna-Lena had been attending an organised sightseeing tour through the Berlin Reichstag. The tour had extended over the originally planned time. She had been a bit annoyed about this making her late for an appointment. At last she found herself in the subway station, in a long tunnel heading for two opposite exits.

I started asking her about her physical intensities while she was thinking about what had happened:

pain and neck ache was — SUD 8
pain area a bit larger than her hand
dark colour, bad sleep, waking up several times at night,
cramping and thinking about the attack,
being highly nervous, etc.

After addressing possible nervousness about working on the case, she quickly was ok and eager to get working. We first worked with the Movie Technique, “Even though I had this knife attack, etc.” and then we started using the Tell The Story technique, working slowly and methodically through aspect after aspect, periodically working with and emphasizing the information that she was “safe now“ and “that was then and now is now.”

For example:

Even though I start getting a feeling of danger from behind … I choose to know that I am safe now …
Even though I feel this fear in my neck
Even though my inner voice tells me I should run
Even though I can’t run
Even though I feel like being frozen
Even though I go on walking but cannot run, etc.
Even though part of me wants to run and the other part of me feels like being frozen
Even though this is a totally natural process … part of me dissociates thinking it can protect me from danger
Even though … when animals freeze they can virtually be unable to move and this can save their lives because …
Even though part of me could not run and I kept on going towards the exits in front of me, I forgive myself for everything I have done or not have done … because I have done my best under given circumstances …

During this process of tapping, talking and weaving in 9-Gamut occasionally she reported several cognitive shifts like:

“I really believe that I’m safe now. This is surprising…”
She also had severe yawning onsets which literally forced us to take several longer breaks until she could go on.

We also addressed accepting the pain in the neck and accepting the messages her neck had for us:

fear and anger about this “weird … (crackbrained) … knife-attack … man … this a___ole who had once power over me but will not keep it!“

We ridiculed this man and laughed and reframed this, and she had another cognitive shift — claiming that this was very good, she was feeling so much better now.

When we came to the section of the attacker coming closer and nearly touching her with his knife, she initially reported feeling dissociated — like being “cut-off.” Re-integrating the principles of the Movie Technique we only addressed very generally “him coming closer… this dissociated feeling… knife on left shoulder“ each one for at least 2-3 or even more rounds, weaving 9-gamut, emphasizing her being safe now. We acknowledged the value of not being able to feel something as a normal physiological reaction during trauma. Her SUDs level then dropped, and she finally wanted to move on to “his voice on my left ear: ‘Don’t cry out!’“

With this we had several rounds as well and I also integrated testing by using different tones, accentuation and emphasis to make sure to reach every aspect possible belonging to the attacker’s sentence. I also checked smell, but there was no such perception.

In the next section of her “movie,” the attacker cut through the left band of her rucksack (which she had been carrying the other way round on her belly — apparently following official transit warnings). Next, her attacker jumped in front of her to snatch the rucksack, and she saw he wore a black mask. In that moment she awakened from her freeze and started pulling back on her rucksack. She finally let it loose and the offender ran away and upwards through one of the exits. We dealt with the aspects as they unfolded one after the other. I also took the chance to contribute to strengthening her resources and we pointed out that she, on one hand, woke up from her freeze, came into action and showed him that she wouldn’t make it too easy for him. However, on the other hand it was probably the best that she had not provoked him further and this protected her life. She was doing the best she could under the given circumstances.

The following aspects:

running on the street and shouting… nobody there first… then somebody coming out of a restaurant who called the police… endless waiting for the police . Our next reframe was that she was lucky her accounts were blocked in time and so she had no additional financial losses. Where are the police?! Stop-police! Where are you?! This was a perfect opportunity for playing with words according to a 20 year old German cartoon (Plop! Stolizei!! instead of: Stop! Polizei!!) which made her laugh…

She also had an inner talk with the offender in which she wished that he would realise what he had done to her. She committed him to search for healing for himself and help others to get over the effects of trauma.

Close to the end of the session, I asked her for the intensity of her neck pain: SUDs was down to a 4, the colour had become green. At the end of the session she reported being very relaxed and tired and it was obvious that she was too tired to go on for this day. We made an appointment for 4 days later. Although the neck pain didn’t come down completely, the improvement was obvious and she besides reported tremendous relaxation several times during the session.

4 days later : Anna-Lena indicated that the previous session had been very good for her. She also reported that the first night after our session had not been too good “because of all the pictures standing before my eyes,” but the second and third night were “much better than the nights before.”

(end of Part 1)

Cynthia Doll

Coming Soon: Anna-Lena goes into a deeper underlying trauma in “These Russian Tanks in My Neck.“