What’s Needed for CPTSD Recovery
When trauma is complex, comprehensive treatment is essential. CPTSD recovery requires support that is flexible enough for you to explore, discover what works, & is simple enough to put into practice. Consistently experimenting with & refining daily practices is key.
No single person, place, or framework is likely to offer everything you need. The suggestions I offer, are those that have helped me with my own personal recovery journey & I now share these with the other survivors I guide.
Key Elements of CPTSD Recovery
1. Inner Attachment Restoration
While the developmental period for receiving “good enough” or “optimal” caregiving may have passed, as an adult, you now have the ability to provide yourself with what your own system needs. This process begins by forming a compassionate relationship with the parts of yourself that have been forgotten, exiled, wounded, or burdened.
The key to healing is to develop a non-transactional connection with these parts—one that isn’t about trying to “fix” or “stop” or “change” those parts that we dislike. That’s the opposite of how we heal. Instead, we recognize that these parts have been waiting for someone to show up and offer the care they need, and YOU are that person.
Start by understanding and reclaiming these different parts of yourself. It’s not about pushing them away, rather, it’s about integrating them, so they can work in harmony within you.
As you bring compassion, curiosity, and consistency, you’ll help calm the internal chaos, conflicts, emotions, and energy that might feel overwhelming. Like any relationship, trust may need to be earned, but through this approach, you’ll gradually create a sense of peace and connection within.
Want to learn more about this powerful method of healing? Click here for deeper insights into inner attachment restoration.
2. IFS Parts Work: Connecting with Your Inner Self
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a therapeutic model that allows you to explore and connect with the various parts of yourself. These parts can hold beliefs, burdens, emotions, imprints, and energies that may distance you from your true Self and Source. Engaging in IFS Parts Work can help you uncover and assist these parts, leading to healing and integration.
As you embark on this journey, consider the following aspects of your inner landscape:
- Parts that carry hurt, pain, & suffering – Often around themes of relational betrayal.
- Parts that protect proactively – Often perceived as your identity, they can lead to burnout, fatigue, and illness by overshadowing your essential Self.
- Parts that protect reactively – When avoiding hurt and pain becomes impossible, these parts step in to create a state change. Unfortunately, their strategies can inadvertently cause the same hurt they aim to avoid.
- Understanding how your parts relate and interact. Take time to observe which parts work together and which are in conflict. Conflicted or polarized parts can create doubt, uncertainty, and challenges in decision-making.
Engaging with IFS Parts Work empowers you to recognize and harmonize these inner dynamics, helping you reclaim a more authentic connection to your Self and cultivate healing.
Want to learn more about this powerful method of healing? Click here for deeper insights into IFS Parts Work.
3. Nervous System Honoring and Restoration
Honoring and restoring your nervous system is vital in your healing journey from complex trauma.
This process involves understanding the 5F’s (flight, freeze, fight, fawn, and friend) & how your body responds to stress. Most folks with complex trauma have a go-to and cemented habit of responding to situations in order to keep you safe. Recognizing the frequencies of these states can help you identify your habitual reactions, and understand your natural responses better.
It also involves identifying your window of stress tolerance—which is your current capacity to absorb stress without feeling overwhelmed. The goal of this is to understand & widen this window & help you self-regulate without pushing or forcing.
For a deeper dive into these Honoring & Restoring your Nervous System, click here to learn more.
Here’s a streamlined version for the section on restoring a sense of connection and belonging:
4. Restoring Connection and Belonging to the Universe
Restoring a sense of connection and belonging to the universe is essential for healing. In the IFS model, this concept is referred to as Self Energy and Source Energy—your connection to your divine essence and greater consciousness. While both energies reside within you, experiences and distortions can weaken this connection.
With trauma, there is often a disconnection from Self, others, and the world at large. Finding your way home, both internally and externally, as well as to a larger collective, is a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.
Want to learn more about this powerful method of healing? Click here for deeper insights into restoring connection and belonging to the universe.
5. Full Permission to Curate Your Own Medicine
Many survivors have experienced gaslighting in the medical and mental health community, whether from loved ones or critical parts of themselves. This often leads to a disconnection from their own needs and healing paths.
While evidence-based treatments are prioritized in the mental health industrial complex – and can be helpful, it’s important to recognize that “out of the box” practices can also ignite or amplify healing.
I have explored various frameworks, such as Human Design, Gene Keys, Psychedelics, Breathwork, Energetic Stewardship, and Elemental Medicine.
What works for me may not necessarily work for you. By opening yourself to new information and experiences, you can discover the practices that resonate with you for self-care and recovery.
Want to learn more about this powerful method of healing? Click here for deeper insights into curating your own medicine.
6. Energetic Stewardship
CPTSD survivors often find themselves stewarding Big Energy and Big Emotions. Understanding how to work with this energy is crucial for your healing journey. Consider these questions related to energetic stewardship:
- What do you absorb, hold, or carry within you?
- What needs to be released or transformed?
- What energies or frequencies do you wish to invite more of into your life?
- What gives you energy & what depletes it?
- Is there any unfinished business that still needs to be addressed?
Learning to tune in and connect from your heart allows energy to flow through your body, & release what no longer serves you. This practice enhances your Self Energy.
Remember, if something is inside you, it’s for you to own and acknowledge. And if it exists in your ecosystem, you might just be THE ONE to answer the call and lead a new way.
Want to learn more about this powerful method of healing? Click here for deeper insights into energetic stewardship.
7. External Relationship Renegotiation
External relationship renegotiation involves holding and stewarding the outcomes of your past and present relationships and commitments while initiating changes for healthier connections in the future. This process includes:
- Discovering where you hold implicit contracts with others and taking steps to clean that up.
- Orienting towards generational cycle breaking as your legacy—considering partnerships, parenting, your community, or the collective.
Remember, you are planting seeds that you may or may not see harvested on your preferred timeline.
Want to learn more about this transformative process? Click here to explore relationship renegotiation further.
8. Lineage Healing
Turning towards themes of fear, shame, & power within your lineage and the collective can elevate your CPTSD recovery journey from Good to Great.
You carry both personal injuries from this lifetime AND inherited hurt from your ancestors that were passed on to you, along with their gifts. Lineage healing deepens your recovery work, helping to clear pervasive feelings, frequencies, and imprints from your inner world.
For many with a history of generational trauma, living in a disempowered state or exerting power over others can feel familiar. Reclaiming your personal power while restoring trust—both internally and externally—is foundational to the recovery process.
Want to learn more about this transformative healing approach? Click here to explore lineage healing in depth.
Recovery Is a Non-Linear Process
Understanding that recovery is non-linear is essential to navigating your healing journey. Complex Trauma is layered and unfolds across time and space.
CPTSD is complex in nature, rooted in relational wounding and betrayal, often stemming from neglect or abuse in childhood, which can lead to secondary adult traumas. Nothing about CPTSD is “one and done.”
Making decisions from a place of survival mode can result in misaligned outcomes in your present life. In order to navigate your healing journey, you must hold all of your hurts, protection strategies, and coping mechanisms while simultaneously opening up to new perspectives, possibilities, and skills. This requires ongoing energy stewardship and orienting to a recovery framework, again & again.
Wobbles, setbacks, and sudden “aha” moments all travel together, and the transition from “constraint” to “release” & “integration” to “embodiment” is a journey in itself.
Since there’s no manual on “how to human,” embracing new skills and experiences outside of traditional “talk therapy” can significantly aid your recovery journey.
This Is Bigger Than You
Relational traumas are more common than you might realize, and you are not alone in your experience. Our collective systems are often marked by fear, control, hierarchy, separation, shame, and the abuse of power and privilege. The strategies to perpetuate these dynamics and cope with them have been passed down from generation to generation.
While the scope of this issue extends far beyond individual experiences, every person who engages in healing contributes to a ripple effect within the collective. Your journey towards healing not only transforms your own life but also inspires change in those around you.
The Invitation
If what you’ve been doing is no longer working, it may be time to try something new. Start with one of these elements and gradually incorporating others into your practice.
Having a safe space to share, explore, experiment, learn, & unlearn can take your recovery to the next level. If you want this & a community for your recovery journey, add your name to the interest list for community support via the Reset Collective:
Reset Collective Interest List
For individual, family, or leadership coaching, or to design your own coaching program, contact: renee@resetwithrenee.com.
You are worthy of wholeness & loving connections. Invest in you.