For Adults
Periods of Transition, Crisis, and Change
There are periods in life that are experienced not as gradual change, but as the loss and dissolution of something that until then has been part of how we see ourselves. Transitions such as growing into maturity, leaving and returning, taking on new roles, encounters and partings leave their traces on our character and on the way we relate to others.
Crisis, Stress, Trauma
- Stress responses mobilise the body’s resources and, within certain limits, support our ability to meet challenges.
- Stress can arise both from specific events and from the conditions of our environment. Tension and dissatisfaction may emerge both from excessive stimulation and from prolonged monotony and lack of variety.
- Prolonged stress may lead to exhaustion, depletion of resources, changes in mood, and a sense of being trapped. When familiar ways of coping no longer provide enough support, a crisis may emerge.
- A prolonged mismatch between our needs and what the environment can provide deepens the crisis. Something good that did not happen; something bad that did. Our inner response to what was lived through may continue to reverberate and carve a lasting trace - trauma.
- Trauma as an inner wound and vulnerability, a profound estrangement from one’s own experience. A trace of suffering, absence, or an unmet need, remaining in mind and body as fear, numbness, and an inability to connect and make sense of what was lived through. An experience dissolved into fragments of memory and the sensitivity of imagination, which continues to find expression in feelings and the responses of the body.
Through the senses the soul resembles the earth; through imagination - water; through reason - air; and through intellect - fire.
Is stress a problem?
Stress is a natural response of the body to the demands of the environment. It is directed towards restoring a disrupted balance and adjusting to changed conditions. When stress is experienced as a positive challenge, it can sustain motivation and readiness for action (eustress). When a situation is perceived as a threat or loss, stress becomes distress and may manifest in difficulties fulfilling social roles, low mood, anxiety, exhaustion, anger, profound sadness, or a sense that something within has begun to crack.
There is also a particular sensitivity to what gives life meaning. A sense of disillusionment, boredom, and loneliness may signal a need to reconsider our relatedness to the world and to others, and may become a drive to rediscover our vitality and our capacity to desire once again.