Escaping the present – trauma’s frozen fight-or-flight legacy 13 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments Whenever I used to call my father, he always began the conversation with the same question: “What’s new?” It’s twenty years since he passed away, yet only now do I see the pain […]
Fear, shame, and irresponsibility – trauma’s three barriers 11 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Emotional principles , Generational trauma , No Comments When we recognise trauma in our own lives and choose to engage with healing, we’re immediately confronted by a seemingly unsurmountable obstacle: how do I do it? The trauma—if we […]
Are you and your family running on empty? 11 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments When I was growing up in the 1970s, the songwriter who spoke most powerfully to my sense of abandonment, depersonalisation and disaffection was Jackson Browne. His 1977 live album Running on Empty, recorded […]
You can’t heal a trauma until you learn its lesson 8 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments In my coaching work I encounter clients who want to ‘get rid’ of trauma. The assumption is that it’s much like going to the doctor to ‘get rid’ of an infection: […]
12-Step framework for trauma release 7 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Generational trauma , No Comments Trauma is mechanical. It forms under mechanical conditions and releases under mechanical conditions. The purpose of this 12-step framework is to understand the overarching mechanics of trauma so you can know and work with […]
Trauma-Informed Genitality: healing the sacral centre 6 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Generational trauma , Sexuality , No Comments Human sexuality, in its natural state, is not inherently conflicted, shameful, or fragmented. It is life energy—playful, relational, embodied. Yet if we look honestly at our lived experience, both individually and […]
Wilhelm Reich – visionary, liar, or lunatic? 5 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: History , Sexuality , No Comments In his brilliantly penetrating—pun intended—1942 book, The Function of the Orgasm, early psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich writes: “Man is the only biological species which has destroyed its own natural sex function, and that is […]
“When the dictatorships have come to naught” 1 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Patriarchy , No Comments “When the dictatorships have come to naught, human society will have need of truths, and precisely unpopular truths.” Early psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich wrote these words in The Function of the Orgasm (1942), a book that […]
Kill or be killed – the basic patriarchal equation 1 May 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Ancestral trauma , Patriarchy , No Comments In 2020, In a blog called The 3 laws of patriarchy, I suggested that the basic psychological laws governing patriarchal societies were these: The Law of Masculinity—the masculine rules the […]
Trauma-Informed Genealogy: where history and healing meet 29 April 2026 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments There is a quiet convergence happening that is, as yet, largely unrecognised. On one side are therapists, working with the symptoms of trauma as they appear in the present: anxiety, depression, addiction; stumped by […]