The Imagination S4E34 | “Israel Sykes - From Trauma Fields to Healing Fields: Survivor Turns His Pain into Purpose”
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Today I’m honored to have back on the show: former guest, translator, former therapist, entrepreneur, survivor, overcomer, visionary, and another spectacular male survivor speaking up to share his story: Israel Sykes!
The first time Israel was on, he was joined by Israeli survivor, Nechama Te’ema and he was not only an incredible support system for Nechama, but he made that interview possible by also helping translate Nechama’s story so it could be heard in English. That episode was one of the most ground-breaking interviews I’ve had the opportunity to do as a podcast host and I can’t thank Israel enough for making that interview possible!
Born in Baltimore, Israel dealt with both bi-polar disorder and child sexual abuse in his life which resulted in him on the spectrum of dissociative disorders. After not finding therapists who were able to identify either of these issues and help him heal, and having been trained himself as a family therapist, I developed my own healing method based on automatic drawing and the deliberate taking back of projections - and through this process his unconscious shared with him many incidents of abuse. He has so far discovered that none of these instances were in his family, but has a range of other setting where abuse took place including a synagogue, Hebrew school, boat trip to Israel, and a summer camp in Israel. He believes he is being protected from uncovering additional layers.
In Israel’s training, there was no mention of dissociative disorders, and MPD was considered so rare that students were unlikely to meet such a client. After numerous MPD clients came his way, he found them to be amazing - and in meeting the challenges they posed, he went through numerous transformations of his own consciousness. It was in fact this work that opened the gates to the memories of his own childhood trauma. It also led to efforts to open a recovery center that would highlight the contributions of survivors to one another's healing. It would be many years before this vision would be implemented in Israel by another survivor.
For numerous reasons, Israel left the practice of therapy in 1996 and brought he insights to bear in social change work in the area of mental health and disabilities. These have been documented in numerous articles and books that he has co-authored. Over a period of over 20 years he has developed - together with a colleague named Victor Friedman, an approach to individual and social development called “Self-in-Field Action Research”. This work is grounded in the work on field theory initiated by the social science pioneer, Kurt Lewin, who died in 1947. Self-in-Field Actions Research is currently being implemented and developed in partnership with Dr. Alfredo Ortiz at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio Texas, and Israel and Dr. Ortiz are in the process of writing a book based on these efforts.
CONNECT WITH ISRAEL:
Email: israelsykes1@gmail.com
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