The Container Method for Processing Trauma, PTSD and Intense Emotions
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2024
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Do you tend to avoid thinking about difficult emotions or memories? Have you heard it’s unhealthy to just “stuff down” all the hard things? In this video, I’ll present a helpful strategy to use in order to slowly and deliberately work on distressing emotions and memories. And it’s a resource that trauma therapists use all the time to help people.
PTSD and Trauma can create overwhelming feelings. The container method is a way to slow down the processing of them until you are in a safe place. It's often used with other trauma-healing approaches like EMDR, CBT, or other forms of therapy.
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Therapy in a Nutshell and the information provided by Emma McAdam are solely intended for informational and entertainment purposes and are not a substitute for advice, diagnosis, or treatment regarding medical or mental health conditions. Although Emma McAdam is a licensed marriage and family therapist, the views expressed on this site or any related content should not be taken for medical or psychiatric advice. Always consult your physician before making any decisions related to your physical or mental health.
In therapy I use a combination of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Systems Theory, positive psychology, and a bio-psycho-social approach to treating mental illness and other challenges we all face in life. The ideas from my videos are frequently adapted from multiple sources. Many of them come from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially the work of Steven Hayes, Jason Luoma, and Russ Harris. The sections on stress and the mind-body connection derive from the work of Stephen Porges (the Polyvagal theory), Peter Levine (Somatic Experiencing) Francine Shapiro (EMDR), and Bessel Van Der Kolk. I also rely heavily on the work of the Arbinger institute for my overall understanding of our ability to choose our life's direction.
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I’m a licensed professional counselor who works predominantly with first responders, and this is probably the BEST description of the container method I’ve come across so far. Thank you for sharing this!
As soon as I click on one of Emmas videos, it feels like a hug. Always calming, straight to the point and easy to digest info. Thank you! !❤
I use an imaginary music building with a hallway full of practice rooms. The rooms are small, soundproof, and have glass doors - so I can peek in without fully re-experiencing the event.
Love this
You have a great teaching style. The clarity of how the info is delivered and the pace makes it easy to remember the whole lesson on the first try.
100%
7.25 timestamp start
Thx
😊 Thank you!
Tnks 🎉
7:25
I hid abuse from family for 40 years so I’m nervous but am willing to try. Thank you.
Praying for you you got this ❤
Binge watching the videos on your chanel rn, you are a gem 😭 as someone who can’t afford therapy these are so helpful
Hi There ! Oh you don’t know how much your short therapy sessions help people like myself to navigate through the trauma that affects daily living . The methods you give us are practical that we can practice on a conscious level . Thank you and I appreciate listening to your sessions on you tube . I’m so glad I found your site .
I love the idea of drawing something to represent the memory or trigger. Words can be really hard to access when triggered. When language center isn't accessible it's great to capture it in a sketch or image or shape or color. It can self validate that it was a thing and helps carve out space for it
Hello! Last vacation I got hit with my first ever anxiety attack and your videos saved me, in just under a month im going on vacation again and wanted to thank you for giving me the necessary tools to identify, bring me out of the evil circle and understand my bad habits that makes it worse. We have never met, but I owe you alot.
You are like a gift from God to us, didi. Thank you immensely for these videos. For someone who can't access a therapist, you are our main support. I wish that you always stay happy and healthy.
I wasn't expecting this, but turns out I was using this method during my breakup.
I was in a short but really emotionally chaotic relationship that I ended half a year ago and all the memories and emotions from this relationship didn't make any sense, they were already like unpacked boxes in my head. I just kind of left them here focusing on what's "open" and then the more time have passed, the more boxes started to open up sometimes by themselves. I did that, because I thought that hey, I don't have to process the whole relationship right away and my body will tell me when it's ready for the next memories. I think it's a great method :DD
I think I naturally do this in therapy, but it's nice to have a name for it and to practice it more!
,.
,😅😊😊😊
ong same here . as i was listening to this i realized it mirrored my own approach w my therapist!
I just realized that I have been too hard on myself for too long this video is letting me know that I need to slow down and take easy thank you so much your channel has helped me so much since losing my parents and getting sober for three years ❤
Thank you for teaching this. I've know young children who do this naturally when they've been traumatized and it did not bode well for them at all because they never unpacked those trauma boxes, they kept them locked and that early childhood terror is what they feel when they think of unlocking the (Pandora's) box. I think this is possibly healthier for adolescents and adults, as long as they get around to processing the trauma sooner (a few months) rather than later (4 months or long) after full blown PTSD develops.
I did this for a really long time (I'm 40 now), and I went to therapy a few years ago when I first got obsessed with the cultural phenomenon of the backrooms. I couldn't stop thinking about being a small child stuck in that maze of underground corridors. I realised with growing horror, that I was the one who put her there in the first place, in order to escape all the things she had to endure. But the place I stored her in was not safe, her needs were never acknowledged, and she wandered the endless space alone, pursued by monsters. It became a good conceptual framework for me to cling to as I attempted to pull her out of there. Turns out the Pandora's box metaphor was apt, because yes she was holding on to a lot of pain and discomfort, but she also was holding on to all the colours in the world, which for so long was flat and dull and grey.
There is a quote I like to think of sometimes that goes "you cannot protect yourself from sadness without also protecting yourself from joy." I try to think of it when I can feel her scratching on the walls of my head to get out. It's hard work, but also rewarding.
I love this idea! Great ideas!
It’s just like compartmentalizing.
Thank you for the bit of knowledge. When you visualize to you literally see the objects in your mind.
The method you are presenting seems to be similar to the methods of decluttering. In fact the issues and symptoms seem to be interconnected. Thank you for your tutorial. It helps me starting my day. ❤
Thank you for this! I was a bit late to the party unfortunately. The traumatic memories flooded LOL but I think there are things I can still pack. ATM I am reconnecting with my inner child
Great Emma. I learned this box tactic from Thomas Markle. Megan's Dad. He said to do it. So I got a small cardboard box and wrote on paper slips what was bothering me with anxieties and my fears. It does help quite a bit. When the thought enters your brain, I just said, No to it, its in the box and staying there, it gives you that breathing space to work on your thoughts gradually and helps your body to heal itself over time after trauma. So yes, it's a great idea to use.
Emma, so appreciative as this is something I hadn’t heard of. Overwhelmed and tearful atm as dealing with an estrangement which I saw coming but it’s the loss of my beautiful grandsons from my life which is the hardest thing at the moment. Emotional detachment simply not working so I think this is a wonderful tool which I can add into my toolkit as I try to process and heal. Invaluable and thank you 🙏
Iirc in the book Dr. Sleep, this is exactly what Danny Torrence does when the evil beings from Overlook Hotel come to bother him: he envisions a box or chest, puts a monster in there, then locks it. I think he has three total boxes by the end of the book, each with a different “thing” in there. Weird but a very vivid analogy to this technique
Finest lady on social media. This is sublime technique. If it helps you, viewer, pass it along to others.
im proud of you and how far you've come
proud of me and how far i've come
there's peace in you and there is in me
no pain no sad no rain or grief
just me in the end
that;s life be happy
this world floating
alone in a sea
and when surrounded
alone in a sea
i'm me and no one
can relate
nor i with the world nor it with me
i see what some can, many all fuzzy
i'm me, i'm okay, no need to be
anyone else
that's life i guess
always - always - always
me
a portrait
and some day
completely forgotten
in the sea
Thanks For this Message, I suffered from Avoiding my Trauma, everyday!
This is a really great video Emma, thanks heaps. I am in trauma therapy, and we are doing all sorts of useful things which are making positive changes for me, but this is something I can add to my tools for myself as well, to manage in between appointments.
I really appreciate the clear explanation, of it as a process..
because I did know if it, but yes it had sounded more like a long term more suppressive type of thing, and the way you explained it I can see it's usefulness and as a short intervention where its all about self empowerment, like when the trauma floods back in waves.
I can see that allowing it to exist, but by safely containing it, is much better than shoving it away long term to cope, and i really like the idea of something like a filing cabinet, or a treasure chest, where different crystals for example or different coloured filing folders could contain different types of memories or parts of the problem. It doesn't just have to be a massive tangled ball of wool that gets shoved away never to get untangled.
It's really helpful to visualise being able to organise the files, maybe without even opening each folder yet, but just getting them in alphabetical order or colour sequence or anything else that feels safe enough to come into contact with it yet, and to know that you are in charge yourself and can do it on your terms. And that you choose the timing, the amount opened, and can put it back at any time when you've had enough.
One of the worst things about trauma, that what was done to you or happened outside of you, is the feeling that you've lost part of yourself on the inside from being affected so deeply, or your inside ability to be in charge of your own feelings and being with your own willpower. I can see how this exercise brings back a sense of being in control, and you being the one who has the final say in what happens, what gets done and when it happens, and that is so great for anyone.
I think that I used this when grieving for my late husband. I put grieving aside and brought it out, bit by bit, when I was ready to.
I like this tool because it involves a lot of awareness. The issues are there, and I get to decide when I want to face them.
I find that my unconscious is willing to negotiate with me. “We can talk about this on Thursday at 7:00 pm for one-half hour.” Until then, I’m just going to leave it.
Hi 👋 pretty lady how are you doing today and the weather condition like
Great video on giving oneself grace through the healing process - beautiful video Emma!
I swear these videos come at the perfect time for me
Great information. I use journalling, but did not process that dumped pieces yet
If this works, the same thing could be done to any emotion: containing or awakening them. It was nice, the Freud quotation. He rarely gets to be mentioned nowadays.
Love your videos Emma, your videos have immensely helped me. God bless you.
you helped me long ago
and then i found myself
at a door
and now i'm free
Your explanations are Very helpful & much appreciated
Hello 👋 pretty lady how are you doing today and the weather condition like
Thank you. Great info.
Thanks for your support.
Just remember, if you were abused as a child, you are not the "bad guy", regardless of what your abuser told you. They are not "right about you".
If they victimized others as well, and you were still a child or were incapacitated by a mental health condition at the time, then it was not your duty or responsibility to help free the others; you were literally incapable.
Imagine yourself as a child, seeing yourself suffer from third person; would you, an adult, tell that child that anything that was going on was their fault, or tell them that they are a terrible person for not knowing how to, or being able to get the help they and the other children need?
Leave our kids alone
Right?
@@nikimethadonefreeiam1800 Right.
I love all of your videos. Thank you
Used to do the “write it down method” when your overthinking so you can get it out of your head, have peace about worrying you won’t mentally come back it, & only allow yourself to think about it again when you’re in front of the pad of paper or journal book…..
This would totally help me from feeling overwhelmed. Ty
You are a godsend Emma ❤
Thanks!
Thank you very much! Actually, i'm trying this exercise doing journaling.
Hi your video been help me with my PTSD! And sleep issues
That visual was great
my rumination and anxious and uncomfortable emotions are much like a flagpole next to me with a big curtain hanging on it. there's a wind, and it blows the curtain into the corner of my vision. it startles and makes me uncomfortable and it distracts me from things i'm doing. if look directly at the curtain, it disappears. like trying to look at an eye floater. I can't "Feel into the emotions" When I try to, I stop feeling bad for that moment. There is a wind that randomly blows. Sometimes the direction blows that curtain into the corner of my vision. It's bothersome.
What a great and insightful analogy. Much love to you
Thanks❣️
love from south africa
Much love
What happens if you put things in a container but they keep getting back out and coming up over and over?
Your brain has an instinctual fear that you aren't addressing a looming threat soon enough. Often I find ruminating is your brain trying to find patterns in the abuse so that you can predict when it might happen again. If we let our brain unconsciously choose the factors, the correlations are pretty silly, like taste in music, or hair color.
So, it helps to do some research about similar situations. Dr Ramani and Patrick Teahan are some of my favorite resources for sorting through trauma. Then you'll develop a helpful way to know you can protect yourself.
Watching from 🇨🇭
I mean with that emotion. And also being disappointed by people in general... it happens!
My big anxiety and overthinking couldn't find a safe place ...😞😞
I tried it, but it didn't really work for me. I kept getting flooded and going out of my window of tolerance. Unfortunately, my therapist didn't realize that. I like the idea about writing things down on scraps of paper and putting them in a jar to journal about later. I think I will try that. Thank you.
I’ve been keeping my container in my head. It’s complicated though.
Hi 👋
Hey Emma, can you please make a video about disappointment? I am thinking about being disappointed by loved ones. What is a person supposed to do about it?
Is it just my perception, or are we living at time when nearly every person in America needs mental health services on a very regular basis? From where I sit, it sure seems like most everyone is borderline, or over the line. I hope I am dead wrong, and most people are actually happy and trouble-free.
No.
In the times like these we definitely need more support systems than usual, yes.
People talk about their problems more than previous generations. And that is good!
Not just America; the world.
when my daughter was taken into care, I put the trauma on a shelf in my mind so that I could function in the rest of my life. Iam also a hoarder who is trying to get rid of stuff.
Container therapy. That sounds unique and helpful. Deal with one issue at a time. I was told to do journaling And that helps get the feelings and emotions down and makes you feel less burdened. Some relief.
I do have a question.
How do you find your references to free follow up resources on your site. I’m stymied.
Hi Emma, I have one humble request from you, can you please make a video how to deal with partner who takes alot of stuff bad personally? I am trying to get more close to one of female friend we are super close together and like girlfriend for me as a man so she can be my partner and marry her but she takes alot of stuff bad personally then she block me and start talking bad stuff and start to show that I am the one who start the issue wherase she start it, and I didn`t even tell her any bad words or insult her rather I do my best to take care of her and understand her, cause she had a very bad experience in the past and she is older than me, but that hurts me alot and I can`t express it properly with her, cause she doesn`t wanna listen, but I loves her so much.
can you please do a video about partner who takes alot of stuff personally and how to deal with her and what to do to talk to her, cause she doesn´t wanna let me see her and talk.
The whole container aspect hits me as a whole. Sounds like running a dock yard with trucks, boats, and trains coming in. I don't know how it all works out, but it gets the job done. Conveniently I have a fixation on specifically railroading and trucking, so those containers are being moved around still. Just be very careful about how you handle your containers, there may be containers that you do not know about that you are carrying.
Idk. Im starting to lose hope in therapy, even as I go to school to become a therapist. Memories dont really trigger me, it just feels like a neutral event, maybe slightly negative. It just, is. But my nervous system is so shot from being on high alert 24/7, so things like going to the store, going to church, being a 3rd party in an argument or confrontation, those things trigger me. But its all subconscious, its my body saying that it knows im not safe, even though in my spiritual mind I know I am.
Sum up: contain it it writing and drawing for example to process it later
Would something like this work if flashbacks are getting in the way of me finishing tasks or assignments? 😅I’ve been in a fog for 2h now just barely glancing at the half done work.
I always picture a huge box but it has a lock on it. The only problem is that i'm not able to find the key towards those stuffed emotions. It's like that for 4-5 years now.
I just learned I have borderline personality disorder… do you have any DBT tools or resources I could use to beat this thing. It is soooo hard 😭
Many many years ago I started putting my pain into the Borg ship (star trek) so it went into one of the little hubs in the ship and I would watch it zoom away. Its hard to stop. Not sure i would ever want the ship to slow down.
That's an excellent metaphor, but like Picard, you've got to face the borg sometime
@@TherapyinaNutshell thank you Emma
can you make a video about bipolar and bipolar partners
Did that client develop any disorders as a result of the chronic symptoms? Great session.
I can share what happened to a child who naturally did this repeatedly. She became a vulnerable narcissist and ended up being a very abusive mother to her 4 children, both golden child and scapegoat included, and a very status-seeking, manipulative wife who exploited her husbands to have a nicer house in a more esteemed neighborhood, every few years, and this pattern continued throughout her adolescence and adult life (7 decades of adulthood, 3 marriages, one spouse dying after 30 years, and divorcing two other spouses who refused to purchase her a nicer home, one of them at the desk in front of the loan officer when he pushed the contract away and said he was in his late 70s and didn't want to move again).
This is a woman who had her mother abandon her and her twin brother at five years old, along with two older siblings, only a few months later to then have their father abandon them in the family home, as he went off to pursue his Pentacostal religous zealotry, leaving the 14 year old child to then try to keep the eight year old and two five year old twins alive.
I think it is safe to say that being raised in an environment of religious zealotry and subsequent abandonment by both parents, one after the other, is what caused the personality disorder to develop it, but the woman claims that she "put these difficult memories in a box and put the on a shelf" in her mind in order to survive and keep going to kindergarden each day with no adult in the home to care for them. I'm not sure if she put them all in the same box, or if she kept opening the same box to put in a new difficult memory. Eventually, someone in the neighborhood called child protective services, and then all 4 minor children were separated (another extremely traumatic event after being abandoned twice by both parents), and this 5 year old female was then sent to a Catholic nunery where she was made to pick cotton after going to kindergarden half a day. She did not lose her belief in god, but she lost all faith in organized religion, as she saw these individuals as hypocrits, although she never used that word.
This is, of course, complex trauma during the developmental years when the brain is going through it's most critical foundational growth.
It is important to remember that personality psychopathology develops in those first five year of early childhood neurodevelopment, so if the child is loved and nurtured during those critical years, having their dependency needs met, and then *later* has trauma where they use the box method, there might be PTSD, but it's unlikely to be personality psychopathology that develops. A lovely, stable home where the child feels accepted and loved for who they are is unlikely to develop a personality disorder even if there are traumatic events. A loving, stable home where caregivers help a child to understand their feelings and terror after a traumatic event may still develop PTSD, if their survival was threatened, like a bad car accident or child predator, but because their parents are other wise protecting them and meeting their dependency needs, they are unlikely to develop a personality disorder.
Never underestimate the long recovery full blown PTSD demands, though. If allowed to progress unmitigated, it can upend the mental stability of an otherwise healthy adult with a mature brain. Thus, imagine what it does to an innocent, naive child's brain who is 8-12 years old.
I type all this out because it's necessary to look at the multiple factors that go into how people develop psychological disorders. Having their dependency neeed met in early childhood when their brain is developing it's foundation is salient above all else, and having the unconditional love and support of both parents is protective in dealing with the myriad of other things that are thrown at children as they grow up.
Things occuring between the age of 5-8 years old can also cause problems, sexually, as that is when the child's love map is developing. That is often something parents may not be aware has occurred, unless the child feels safe and loved enough to risk telling their parents. If the parents won't or don't believe the child, that is very harmful and usually has lasting results. Three years ago I had an good friend from high school finally tell me what happened to her in the 1st grade. Her father's friend mollested her repeatedly. 50 years later she decided to confront her parents about failing to protect her when they were all staying together during the pandemic, and her mother refused to admit it ever happened. Luckily, her father sided with her and told the mother it DID happen. This old friend of mine had been drinking to excess since her late teens and had become a daily drinking alcoholic. This woman's love map was developing when the mollestation (not a full blown SA) occurred, and it has left her hypersexual and numbing her anger and hurt for decades now. She did NOT use the box method. They moved across country and started over elsewhere after this occurred and never dealth with it. She started drinking at age 15, I think? It became problematic by about age 18, when I began to distance myself from her.
One way or another, if trauma isn't dealth with in a healthy manner, and if compassionate adults aren't surrounding the person who has been traumitized as a means of helping their brain feel safe and reminded that good people will help them, there is going to be fall-out, it just depends on when the trauma occurs, and if the family is loving, nuturing, and gets them the help they need to make sense of it.
I am 42 and failed to lose weight, and i need help," not a diet plan". Help but emotional support and healthy mindset 🙏
I think this is best left to do with a professional. Working through it alone might be re triggering and cause more distress depending on how trumatic the experience was.
I have this cartoon image of a little kid “cleaning” her room by stuffing everything into a closet. Mom comes in and says, “wow, everything looks great!” And then she opens that one door and they are buried in an avalanche of clutter …Yeah… that’s pretty much my psyche after being in medicine for 20+ years. (And what most of the literal closets in my house look like too, which I suspect is not a coincidence😂).
Do you do paid sessions?
Question: Is it better to work with a therapist who accepts your insurance, but doesn’t have training in trauma, or go it alone? I don’t have the money to pay for a therapist out of pocket.
❤
This is well-intentioned but I disagree with the idea of creating locked boxes doesn't sound natural at all maybe finding a safe place in the forest for some of your thoughts to process later
If I have a container filled with a gas, should I take the lid off and let the gas out?
Depends on what gas it contains and what it reacts to. So it is more about when.
@@thelordcommander5 Let's pick argon gas as an example.
@@JamesVestal-dz5qmGo on.
I love the idea, but I just can't make it work.
My "trauma" wasn't so much made up of events, but rather my entire state of being as a child and teenager. There's just too many things to count and keep track of. I was trying to engage in the exercise during the video, but I just couldn't fit all of "it" in the container (I used photographs as the stand in for my feelings/memories). First, I had a pile that was too much for a desk drawer. Then I mentally switched to a vault, but the pile became a truckload. I tried imagining a whole castle, but then the truckload became an apocalyptic number of photos falling out of of the sky and completely covering my field of view. . . there's just TOO F*CKING MUCH
How about giving it all to the infinite universe where only you have access to whenever you’re ready? 🌸
Resonates.
7:25
I really appreciate your videos. You have helped me with my anxiety, tremendously. However, I am developing a crush on you. Lol 😅
When you have anxiety attacks daily this sounds useless. I mean, is not that easy to choose what to do with overwhelming emotion
🤍🤍🤍
I hope that I've been able to forgive the past because I don't feel like I have anything to put in that box.
Hello 👋
0:46 Do not avoid
0:53 Do not have tools to slow down
1:09 Avoid and stuff down
1:22 But cannot heal
1:35 CONTAINER METHOD will help
2:22 Feelings buried alive never die - Freud
2:48 Feeling overwhelmed and stuck
3:11 Created an actual container in your mind
3:55 Purpose on container - savely store away till you feel safe
4:41 Time and space to develop skill set
4:59 Get away from the triggers for a time
5:48 Goal to hold till I am in a safe space
6:11 To much trauma - pull away one at I time
6:56 Don't try this at home - get expert advice - but if you can't get help or to expensive - you can selfhelp
7:30 Going to the priciples - check out other video for actual exercise
7:49 Get image of safe and secure space
7:57 Get concrete images of trauma - abstract or specific
7:57 If there are many items you can write a list snd put it in container for safe keeping
7:57 Visualize yourself putting memories into container
7:57 see yourself locking and securing the container
7:57 You are in control in the box and you decide when to open and closethe box because you hold the key
7:57 Be practical - draw box and put it physically into the file and into vault
7:57 You can use journal of sticky notes that you keep secure
7:57 Journal method - when I feel overwhelmed I write in specific journal - put it away, focus on work or studies and come back when I am safe and secure
7:57 Can do exercise in two ways : 1. Guided visualization 2. Through journal or make note or write letter and put in in physical safe place
7:57 Goal - not to avoid,but to store away till you are feeling safe and more in control
7:57 Repeat and conquer this excercize so that when trigger or bad memory or very stressful encounter happen, I will instantly know what to do.
7:57 Helps us to slow down and lessen the level of intense emotion
7:57 Will help you not to get overwhelmed or to shut down