Dissociation Examples: How Core Emotions Get Masked by Coping Emotions

Written by Roland Bal

Coping habits are varied and layered. They include an emotional part — a default emotion like anger, sadness or fear — and often include a habit that is acted out such as smoking, drinking, eating, excessive organizing, or overwork.

As a result of trauma, emotions tend to be layered. At the core of the overwhelming trauma, there will be a dominant emotion. When there is no resolution of that dominant emotion, you will, over time, develop a secondary "coping" emotion as a means of dealing with the overpowering core emotion.

Dissociation Examples and Its Layers

To put this in perspective, let me share three examples:

• Marie, who has lost her son in a motorcycle accident, has as a core emotion — loss, grief, bereavement (sadness). Because she is unable to contain her sadness, she starts having reactive thoughts such as "Why him? It is not fair!" and a certain edginess in dealing with anything, which is part of an anger response she uses to try to reestablish healthy boundaries and deal with her overwhelming sadness.
• Jane, who has been raped and abused, has a core emotion, fear, which is masked by rage and anger.
• In terms of developmental issues, when no space has been given to develop as an individual, there is, at the core, a sense of deep anger. This anger, due to fear (coping emotion) of consequences, is often repressed.

It is important to recognize and acknowledge the "layered" emotions; the core emotion, and the emotion that develops to deal with the traumatic overwhelming response. To work towards resolution is to be able to start containing and releasing the core emotion. It is the core emotion which is fueling the habitual coping emotion and reenactment.

Anxiety disorders, for example, often have their core rooted in developmental issues and suppressed anger. It is necessary for you to start to own the anger and be able to assert boundaries. When boundaries are established, anxiety and self-esteem issues can be addressed and changed.

The Identity of Trauma

However, when a coping habit has persisted for a long time, it becomes part of one's identity structure. Even if you work through the trauma that has created the coping mechanism, the default mechanisms might still be in place.

(Binge) eating, thoughts of "I am not good enough" or "I am never going to be normal," controlling behavior or anxiety can persist, even if there is an awareness that core emotions have been worked through.

Only when boundaries are established can anxiety and self-esteem issues be addressed and changed.

This is one of the crossroads in the therapeutic process. As long as the coping emotion and the habit persist, the danger is thinking that more work has to be done on the trauma issue and to unnecessarily keep digging up or revisiting past history. This can be frustrating for both therapist and client.

Recognizing the coping emotion, and bringing into awareness that the persistent coping emotion and coping habit are part of an identity structure, prevents confusion between past history and emotional reconstruction. Furthermore, in order to look at the identity structure, you must also address the sense of control (and safety) that the coping habits have had to deal with in the traumatic overspill, and to do a reality check to see if the need to control is still valid. This is a big one — to let go of control.

The Recovery Process and the Dissociation Examples

Once the latter is realized, the work must then begin to wean you away from control and attachment. Setting new intentions, designing a new lifestyle, and a change of environment contribute to change. Furthermore, creating a socially supportive network of friends can be necessary to curtail your mental references to past hurts. Additionally, as you adapt to a new routine, a certain amount of restraint during the initial phase might have to be put in place.

Lastly, persistent coping emotions and related thoughts must be negated in order for you to be able to move away and move on. Negation is to be aware of the coping emotion as a necessity of the past rather than of the present or the future, and not to give it further importance; neither suppress nor reject it. Eventually, it is negation that will make a coping emotion part of the past, rather than something that continues in the present.

Identifying Your Own Core and Coping Pattern

From what I have seen, even regarding complex trauma, there are often no more than two or three sets of core and coping emotion. Once those themes are identified, it gives you handles on constructively working through dissociation. It also means that you aren't just dealing with the addiction patterns or the coping emotions only — you are meeting the root.

The question to sit with: what emotion tends to show up first when you are activated? And what is underneath it that feels too overwhelming to go near? The first answer is usually your coping emotion. The second answer — if you can get to it — is closer to the core.

Can you identify a core emotion and a coping emotion as a pattern that you tend to repeat? Leave your comment below.