Heather Bellamy spoke with Psychotherapist Peter Mockford to find out how abandonment can affect relationships and how to deal with it.

Heather: How?

Peter: Because it affects the DNA. Trauma can be passed down from generation to generation irrespective of whether that generation underwent the trauma or not. If it happened in the past, it can still be passed down.

Heather: Does that cause any physical problems, or is it just emotional and psychological problems?

Peter: Emotional and psychological problems are also physical, because we're physical and biological beings. The answer is yes. If there's been severe abandonment in early life, then the research has shown that one would be more susceptible to certain kinds of mental illnesses and distress later in life.

Heather: So how can you stop your fear of abandonment being triggered when you're not actually being abandoned?

Peter: One of the most critical things is being aware of who one is and being aware that one carries these fears and actually validating them. The truth is we're genuinely afraid of abandonment for very good reasons, because if we're abandoned very young that would be the end of us. You start with recognising the validity.

One of the most astonishing things, is when you recognise the validity of something and the truth about it, something starts to happen in the brain and it becomes much easier to process. Jesus does say that the truth will set you free in the Bible and that's got a very good psychological base. Recognising truth and affirming it, is very different from trying to shut it away. One of the biggest ways forward in terms of abandonment, is to say to people and say to myself, "Look Peter, you've got it. The reality is I'm terrified of being abandoned and that's okay." It's important to understand that the capacity to accept it, actually starts to mitigate the effects.

Heather: Is that along the lines of what a Christian author says about needing to befriend your brokenness?

Peter: Absolutely.

Heather: What principles can we live by, to try and overcome that fear of abandonment, to mend the damage done?

Peter: The first principle is acceptance and that's the business God is in, in any case. The other thing is that we have to be very real with one another. The more I see that I'm accepted by others, the easier it becomes to accept myself. One of the difficulties about abandonment, is that when you're terrified of it, you don't engage in relationships because you're scared of being abandoned. The fact that you don't engage in them means you will be abandoned though, so it's a nasty catch-22.

Heather: Is it possible to be healed of the effects of your past?

Peter: How we deal with emotions and emotional healing is different from physical healing. In physical healing, if I break my arm, then I can go to the doctor and get treated. Then when the bones knit together, I'm healed. In emotional healing it's a bit like a spiral. We grow into emotional healing. We can often approach the same vertical place time and time again, but next time we approach it, we're slightly more accepting of ourselves and we know slightly more of the love of others. For those who have faith in God, that also empowers the healing to take place.

It's quite important that that process of emotional healing is slow, because if it wasn't slow, it would be disastrous. Imagine if I had great issues with abandonment and suddenly got healed, my wife wouldn't recognise me; my kids would think I'd gone weird and that would have a traumatic effect on all my relationships. Emotional healing is generally a slow process. So whether I'm ever going to be totally healed - I doubt it.