Thu, 8 March 2007 I was recently having a discussion with a good friend of mine. He mentioned that people who have had trauma and have learned to detach to protect themselves would make great Buddhists. They may have spent their lives not attaching to things because things or events had hurt them in the past. A trauma survivor may have learned to "turn off" from arguing or painful situations. First, let's forget Buddhism and just talk about healthy detachment, which is what this person meant. Secondly, let's explore what detachment is and is not. Healthy detachment actually has a lot of attachment in it, it's just what we are attached to that counts. A detached person can shield themselves from pain and other things attachment leads to. So isn't detachment what some of the great traditions are teaching? Shouldn't we all not care about good and bad and learn to fully detach from the material world, etc.? In actuality, detaching at a certain point can be very detrimental to us. But true healthy detachment isn't the same as trauma induced detachment. True detachment is involved and aware. We are always somewhere, attached at some level to something, so we need to learn what attachment and detachment are. Moments arise, and they just keep arising. We are capable of accepting part of what is going on: a conversation, a bus coming at us, snow falling, whatever. A healthy brain functions in a state of deletion. There are always billions of things occurring while the present moment creates itself. So that healthy brain chooses what to attach, or pay attention, to in any moment. The thing is, we don't only have all that's actually going on in an objective sense to choose to attach to or be a part of, we also have our thoughts. We can leave being associated, or attached to this moment and go to an imaginary future, or a remembered past. A dysfunctional brain tends toward not being able to manage these attachments. Someone who has been severely traumatized may have a hard time choosing the things it attaches it's brain to in a way that society would deem appropriate. That said, many people who have been abused may learn the ability to detach from an abusive parent. They use their mind to manage a situation and separate from pain. But detaching from what is is not a blanket good or evolved thing to do. In fact, as necessary as that might be in situations of overwhelm, I'd suggest that it's much more healthy to stay attached to what is going on, and continually widen our capability to attach to more and more of what is going on. So if I'm saying we should attach to what's going on, why is the talk called Learning to be Detached? Because it's actually the opposite of what a trauma survivor might learn to do. We want to attach to what is, and detach from our own desires, expectations, and delusions. We want to learn to be more and more OK with what is, with this moment. A healthy happy person is in the moment, meaning attached to what is, they are not however attached to how it's supposed to be. This talk is not selling blind acceptance, and we should move toward our goals, but it is important to not be consumed by them. Accomplishing goals relies on attachment and discernment. In contrast, an unhealthy detachment is just disconnected. No attachment to things that can hurt us, but no attachment to things that bring joy either. No connection with isness. So the difference is in what we are attached to. We should try to be aware and attached to what is. If we're attached to a certain outcome, we're beginning to detach from what is. If we're completely disconnected, and not interacting with anything that is, then we're deeply unhealthy. But in contrast, if we detach from unhealthy attachments, which are usually our own beliefs and agendas, then we are tending toward being more awake. Show song: Satisfied Mind by Jeff Buckley Comments[1] |
In regards to detachment and dissociation, the way I've found helpful to think about the use of either is the level of consciousness that can be brought to the situation in question. So a person who has been through a trauma experience will generally have dissociated in an unconscious way in order to minimise the harm that is suffered to the primary personality. In an extreme case, and depending on the definition of 'trauma' used, the dissociation may lead into multiple personality disorder, where it becomes completely "real' for the person to function as either two or more dissociated personalities that have no conscious recognition of each other in real time. It's interesting because we all do this dissociation to some extent in our lives (and Integral theory takes this up and names it as the beginning of the formation of "shadow") where we stop being as conscious and present as the moment makes available to us and start functioning out of some other way of thinking/being. The levels of dissociation can quickly mount up (so I do obey the road rules irrespective of my instincts which I'm currently not fully aware of as I drive my car thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight – LOOKOUT! a child crossing the road ) Some level of dissociation is completely normal in our human functioning. A conscious choice can be made to be in the present moment a little more fully, and the stillness of meditation perhaps allows us to start to see where we can access this choice more easily and more often.
I'd separate detachment from dissociation by way of this consciousness choice – that the Buddhist choice to detach is a conscious choice to put aside the worldly distractions that would remove my attention from this moment's occurences and start paying as much attention as possible to the information available here, and here and here and here. So detaching to know where best to re-attach becomes some of the work that is undertaken in the Buddhist path of detachment. We put down the world to know best how to pick it up again – how to objectively best pick up our role within it. To be in it, but not of it. Which would be a little different from a subjectively experienced dissociation I'd say?
