FTSN - Terms

SURVIVOR IDENTIFIED TERMS

Abuse: Harm, degradation, or trauma caused to an individual by another person who is intent on control, self-aggrandizement, and defiling of the victim.

Abuser: An individual who abuses or traumatizes another person without a sense of remorse for those actions. (See also Perpetrator.)

Advocate: Someone who pleads the cause of another.

Alter: (1.) The place were rituals are performed. (2.) Also known to some as an "inner part" of a Multiple's system. (See also Inner Part, Part, and Personality.)

Authority: Someone recognized to have knowledge or preeminence in a situation based on his/her position or study of the area.

Barriers: The things that come between the ability of individuals to overcome their challenges.

Blending: The process of forming a more centralized self-identity through accepting all the diverse "parts" of one's inner self with ever increasing self-awareness, appreciation, and inner exchange of information. This centralized self-identity is accomplished through the contribution of all the parts of a Poly-Identity Framework toward building a life of choice. (See also Intergration.)

Challenge: Obstacles that we overcome in life; e.g. physical, mental, emotional, traumatic, addictive, financial, identity, and gender challenges are some of the larger challenges people often face in life.

Complex PTSR: Post Traumatic Stress Response to long term victimization, especially in early childhood. This is accompanied by a Poly-Identity Framework. (See also Post Traumatic Stress Response.)

Consumer: Someone who has challenges in life and utilizes community resources to meet the needs of those challenges, especially in the mental health field. Also a lay person.

Consumer Operated Program: A program run by lay persons. A peer service.

Developmental: The time period in which an individual is beginning to develop a sense of self and a method for interacting with the world around them.

Developmental Art: Art that combines Sensory Awareness with the completion of developmental milestones.

Developmental Tasks: Inner maturational concepts that lead to a secure sense of self and right human relationships with others. These are typically formed in early childhood.

Discovery Life Path: Having a life path based on growth and enrichment that benefits the individual and their relationship to others.

Dissociation: A state of consciousness in which the individual feels as if he/she is removed from the current surroundings and floating above them. This state is often described as dreamy or blissful. Dissociation may also include feeling detached from one's body and from other people.

Expert: An individual who is knowledgeable or skilled in a matter based on personal experience (see also authority). Individuals are generally considered experts in their own experiences.

Healthy: Those qualities that produce feelings of "health" for an individual.

Identity: The understanding of "who I am" on the part of the individual.

Individuation: The process by which an individual completes his/her developmental milestones and becomes self-actualizing in his/her own rights without enmeshment with others.

Inner Child: One's inner self, may also including the "Littles", "Bigs", "Teens", and "Protectors" in the system of a person with a Poly-Identity Framework.

Inner Parts: The internal components in the system of someone with a Poly-Identity Framework. (See also Alter, Part, Personality)

Integration: The process of getting rid of the parts in the "system" of a person with a "Poly-Identity Framework" by "integrating", combining, or dissolving them into each other. (See also Blending.)

Issues: The tasks one faces in overcoming one's own personal challenges in building a Discovery Life Pathway.

Memories: The recall of a previous event ~ usually without associated trauma. Also sometimes used to mean " virtual memories", "flashbacks" or "body memories". (See also Virtual Memories.)

Mono-Identity Framework: (MIF) having one unified sense of identity in one's identity set. (See also a Poly-Identity Framework.)

Normal: What an individual would consider routine or standard fare for them. A feeling of being level or in harmony with the world around you.

"Part": One component in the system of an individual with a Poly-Identity Framework. (See also "inner part", "alter", and "personality".)

Peer: A person who has equal standing with another or others, or has had similar experiences as another. Also the staff of a consumer-operated program.

Peer Advocate: A layperson who works other Survivors to help secure their needs, human rights, and treatment with human dignity.

Peer Support: Mutual support and encouragement provided between individual consumers or in groups run by and for consumers.

Perpetrator: A person who carries out an act of abuse toward another person without regard to the needs or feelings of the victim. (See also Abuser.)

Persistent PTSR: PTSR that continues unresolved for greater than 4 months. This may also be accompanied by dissociation or repressed memories.

Personalities: The "inner parts" in the system of someone with a Poly-Identity Framework. (See also Alter, Inner Part, Part)

Poly-Identity Framework: (PIF) having more than one sense of identity in one's identity set. (See also Mono-identity Framework.) This variable identity set may be based on primitive survival mechanisms still latent in early childhood that are called into play during life threatening situations.

Post Traumatic Stress Response: (PTSR) The natural biochemical response to a severe overwhelming trauma which requires the individual to focus all of his/her inner resources on a traumatic situation in order to survive the unthinkable. PTSR may be accompanied by repressed memories, dissociation, and a Poly-Identity Framework. (See also, Situational PTSR, Complex PTSR, and Persistent PTSR.)

Pro-survivor: A family, friend, or provider who supports and encourages a Trauma Survivor.

Provider: Someone who provides services to a Survivor.

Recovery: The process of healing from a major illness or "challenge", used esp. in substance abuse. (See also Discovery Life Path.)

Resource Coach: A peer coach who helps consumers find resources in the community to meet their goals/needs.

Right Human Relationships: Relationships that feel to the individuals as if there is mutual give and take, sharing, and interdependence without resentments or inequalities of power.

Self-actualization: The ability to express one's gifts without that expression being blocked by circumstance or by others.

Situational PTSR: A transient traumatized state based on a situation of victimization that will resolve over time with proper support.

Splitting: That process, caused by extreme trauma, that causes the individual to develop a sense of self that is separated into distinct "parts". This process is likely a primal mechanism that allows the individual to "wall off" certain memory information into distinct foci of neural ganglia in order to continue overall life processes.

Stipend: A small fee paid for someone's work or contribution to an activity.

Survivor: A person who's survived something on a large scale but esp. a Survivor of trauma or abuse. (See also Victim.)

Switching: The process that individuals with a Poly-Identity Framework experience when transitioning from one mode of operating into another mode of being.

System: The collection of "inner parts" that make up the "system" or whole configuration in the identity set of an individual with a Poly-Identity Framework.

Transformations : The ability to reframe our experiences so that they become not barriers but challenges that lead to self-actualization.

Trauma: An overwhelming experience in which a person's life feels threatened and leaves anxiety about one's safety and a disruption of one's usual way of life.

Triggered: The process of being thrown back into a "virtual memory" and perceiving oneself in a situation that is threatening or inconceivable to one's being following contact with certain evoking sensory stimuli.

Victim: An individual who's life has been threatened by another or someone who is at the mercy of another. A person who is helpless to escape being harmed by another and had their ability to be self-actualizing destroyed. (See also Survivor.)

Victim Advocate: An individual who advocates on behalf of victims, especially in the legal system.

Virtual Memories: Memories that are encoded in a pictorial form which replay automatically in response to certain traumatic clues. These memories may be converted to less traumatic ones by attaching words to the pictures. This conversion process is usually done in a therapeutic setting.

Winner: A person who struggles with something in order to overcome a large personal challenge.