The Double Arrow Effect

This is a blog that I’ve wanted to write for ages, as it’s the thing that comes up so often in therapy sessions that gives people a lot of pain. I learned about this principle when I was doing my PTSD training but actually it doesn’t just apply to trauma, it applies to the whole range of psychological distress.

The Double Arrow effect takes its name from a Buddhist parable the Tale of Two Arrows and its used widely in Mindfulness to describe how we judge ourselves for feeling a certain way.

Put simply, the first arrow is the unavoidable distress of being human – so a loss, a relationship breaking up, a traumatic event – but the second arrow is the self-inflicted judgement about why we might have experienced this event or how we should be feeling about it. And that bit is important - all my clients know that I hate that word ‘should’ especially when it’s applied to feelings.

So, in practice, the second arrow can look like “he was just a pet, I shouldn’t be this upset” or “we were only together for three months, it shouldn’t hurt this much” or “this happened so long ago, I shouldn’t be this triggered every time it comes up” or “I’m being so silly, the pregnancy was only six weeks along.” It’s the really really judgey story we tell ourselves about how we’re feeling. It’s often made up of internalised messages from the world or people around us who might be saying stuff like “it’s time to move on” or “get over it. " Or it might be coming from our own deeply held, patterns of self-blame if we have a history of adverse childhood experiences or traumatic relationships. These might be the same messages that we keep telling ourself along the lines of "I don't deserve happiness anyway" or "this always happens to me."

And my key message here is – it’s the second arrow that keeps the wound open. Read it again – it’s the second arrow that keeps the wound open. We all need to feel it to heal it, whatever has hurt us. Invalidating our own feelings never ever works as a strategy and what we push down as emotions will inevitably pop up later as symptoms.

So work with your therapist to help you let the blood out. See how deep the wound is. Acknowledge the size of it. Let therapy clean it all out and for it to start to heal.

Or practice mindfulness to help you to sit with your feelings without judging them.

Next time you feel upset, give yourself permission to just feel it and let go of ‘should’. Most importantly, don’t let anybody (including yourself) tell you how you should be feeling.

#mindfulness #feelittohealit #trauma #healing

Dr Jo Leather is a Psychotherapist and EMDR practitioner working in Manchester, UK and online.