Gestalt Institute
of the Rockies

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN THE SACRED AND THE PROFANE 

Dissociation and Trinity

by Duane Mullner, M.Th., LPC

I am challenged to integrate my two learned disciplines, psychotherapy and theology.

Theology exposes me to the multi-faceted dimensions of divine being, e.g., the Native American belief of Father Sky and Mother Earth, the eight-fold path of Buddha, the Trinity and the Christian God.  I am most familiar and most intrigued with the Triune God of Christianity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  After four years of theology, the mystery of Trinity remained vague, distant, and difficult to grasp.

Psychotherapy exposes me to the multi-faceted dimensions of surviving childhood and adult trauma.   It was in the role of pupil that the client taught me how he/she recovers from deep hurt and profound confusion.  I recall hearing from different parts of the same person striving to piece together fragments of the trauma puzzle.  I had a dialogue with a gruff, masculine personality who identified his “job” as protector I also felt my client’s vulnerability as a wounded child, living in speechless terror.  I heard from the inner persecutor invested in self-sabotage and self-harm in her struggle for control against utter helplessness.  As our relationship evolved, I also was taught that a healing spirit existed within my client in the form of an internal self-helper.

  I have been presented an answer to my questions.  “How does a child live with the harshness and brutality of abuse and neglect?”  “How does a six-year-old child reconcile Dad as protector and nurturer during the week and a betrayer of love and trust for two hours every Saturday afternoon?”  The response is dissociation.  By emotionally withdrawing from the scene of the crime, by creating a womb-like sanctuary, the self exists in a surreal world of internal comfort and self-soothing.  The child creates a cocoon of self-sufficiency where he/she escapes into the sunlight of an “inner grace.”  Meanwhile, the external world, the physical mind and body, may be manipulated into a carnal world of pleasure and pain, excitement and self-loathing, care-taking and shame.  Thus, dissociation creates a diverse consciousness, a state of being that supports the survivor in coping with his/her innate drive for wholeness and survival.

 I object to the therapeutic simplicity of demystifying dissociation as pathology, i.e., DSM-IV Diagnosis.  Trauma survivors consistently report phenomena in the biological system of time distortion, auditory distortion, and adrenal responses that serve as adaptation to support survival.  Is it so strange to expect a similar phenomenon of adaptation to support the survival of one’s wholeness -- body, mind and spirit?  Perhaps the challenge in theology is not to analyze the “nature of God,” but to surrender to the symphony of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a “subtle resource” for understanding the being of God as one Spirit. So, it was not in the theology classroom, but during a psychotherapy session with an abuse survivor, that I experienced a Gestalt “Aha!”  For the first time, I understood three persons in one God.  The various shifts in consciousness in dissociation and the multiple presentation of God as Trinity, embodies an energy of compassion for wholeness vs. fragmentation.  I continue to be mystified by this parallel.  The Christian perspective reflects God as Trinity: Father as Creator/Protector, Son as Incarnate Love, and Spirit as Counselor.  All are manifestations of one whole being, yet transcend the limits of mortal boundaries.  God is a process in Being.  With regards to dissociation, I propose that human spirit is also a process in being.  Dissociation is about the creation of parts to deal with overwhelming life experiences.  Perhaps the concept of “splitting the personality,” often referred to as dissociation, is the psychological community’s way of explaining the unexplainable.  

Perls postulates that one wouldn’t think of breaking down the ingredients of cake (flour, sugar and oil) in order to experience each separately.  Blended together they form a meaningful Gestalt—a cake.  Dissociation may be likened to one symphony with many players.  That the different instruments (roles) in timed coordination produce the quality of symphonic music.  That the traumatized child’s struggle towards dignity is actually a struggle toward wholeness, a meaningful Gestalt.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality) when experienced from the sacred and secular dimension, may be two realities, each supporting an explanation and understanding of the other.  Our awareness brings about a paradigm shift from seeing life as split to acceptance of our integrated wholeness—meaningful Gestalt!  Do we really desire a “mechanical understanding” of a person’s psyche so as to eliminate spontaneity, challenge, and mystery?  Whether we experience three persons in God or twelve personalities in symphonic response to trauma, the important quality is how their subtle coordination is in concert with the experience of living whole.  The mystery of soul and spirit are not meant to remain hidden in the supernatural closet.  I believe we are challenged as spiritual beings struggling to be human, to bring mystery (the transpersonal) into the pragmatic world of love and logic.

Trinity and the dissociative client may offer an opportunity to experience the multi-faceted dimension of both the sacred and the secular in daily life.  Might the sacred and the secular be two sides of the same coin?  I believe the best investment is to live and practice not only from my head, but also from my heart and soul.

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