When we’re working with clients who have experienced trauma, targeting the limbic system can make our interventions more effective.
But what is the limbic system, and why is limbic system therapy so useful in treating trauma?
In the video below, Bessel van der Kolk, MD answers these questions and explains why he uses this kind of approach with his patients.
Take a look – it’s just under 5 minutes.
Dr. van der Kolk: There’s a metaphor I like to use in that so much of trauma is in the limbic system, or what people used to call the limbic system. And that all these areas of the brain have to do with danger, safety, perception of the world get changed. Basically most of the therapies that I’m advocating here is limbic system therapy. It’s all about understanding or figuring things out, because that’s not really where the trauma sits. Trauma sits in your automatic reactions and your dispositions and how you interpret the world. In order to really rewire those automatic perceptions, you need to have deep experiences that for your survival brain contradicts how you are now disposed to think.
Dr. Buczynski: Bessel just mentioned the limbic system. Broadly speaking, it’s the emotional part of the brain. It contains both the hippocampus and the amygdala, the hippocampus is associated with memory, and the amygdala is involved in detecting threat. Now you might have noticed that he said, “what people used to call the limbic system. ” That’s because there’s some question about whether or not it’s still useful to think of all the parts of the brain that make up the limbic system as a unified system. However, what’s important to take away here is this. Trauma doesn’t necessarily live in the part of the brain that’s concerned with reason and insight. It inhabits the parts that shape our temperament, the way we understand the world, and our automatic reactions. So when we target the part of the brain that’s feeling and reacting automatically, when we create a new experience that contradicts the lesson that that part of the brain has learned from trauma, that can change the way a person with a trauma history is wired to respond. So what does it look like to have an experience like that, an experience that re-wires the brain?
Dr. van der Kolk: For example, if you grow up thinking that you’re helpless and that anybody can do anything to you unless you yell at them, that becomes your disposition. But now if you take a martial arts course and you get to deeply feel like wow, I can kick anybody in the groin at any time because I feel like it, and I can protect myself. If you have experienced this, of becoming a martial artist, then that feeling of I’m always helpless will dramatically change. You cannot do that abstractly, and so you need to have experiences that directly contradict how your body is disposed. Who understands this best is the us army, who learned it from the Dutch army, that learned it from the Roman army over 2000 years. And that if you want to take a bunch of young recruits, the best way to get them to do things is to do basic training. In basic training you march, and you climb, and you crawl through the mud, and every night you go to bed and say, “Oh my god, I’m amazing, I survived this. I thought I could never do this, but I can.” By the end of 12 weeks, these kids are transformed because they have experiences that have brought them to the max of new challenges. We should have experiences like that in every mental health center. That is limbic system therapy.
Dr. Buczynski: So to change the way a client’s body reacts after trauma, we need physical experiences that directly contradict what the body has learned. Now I’d like to hear from you. How will you use this idea in your work with your patients? Please leave a comment below and thanks for watching.
For more on how to work with the limbic system to reverse the physiological imprint of trauma, please check out the Treating Trauma Master Series.
You’ll get insights from: Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Peter Levine, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; and Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD.
Now we’d like to hear from you. How will you use this idea in your work? Please leave a comment below.
I would have loved either of you to give more specific examples of “basic training”, for example with a person (under the influence of alcohol) jumps off of a roof to get away from two men that she believes will rape her.
Or, after a boyfriend pushes a girlfriend down the stairs during a fight.
I work with two females who experience extreme trauma from each of these events.
Many thanks…
I agree. Would have been interesting to hear responses to these situations. Telling my clients the military and going through basic training doesn’t really fill this gap for me with my clients. Especially when some of my clients are vets and went through basic training and are recovering from that.
If trauma is center in the not reasoning part of the brain such as limbic system and amygdala. I would work with the body .. I would work with mindfulness, and exposure ( maybe to encourage client to take more risks.).
I had a severe Traumatic Brain Injury in 1986 that left me n a coma for 7-months. After I studied and realized the complexity of issues my late-mother faced in arranging my recovery, I asked her how she managed to do it? Especially as she was a music teacher”
She said she prayed for guidance and when she woke up she arranged different types of physical treatments e.g physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. It must have worked because it gave me meaning in my life – including a distinction for Logotherapy.
Frankl was asked how a victim finds meaning? He said its essential for a victim to be able to set a future goal for themselves that they believe they can achieve.
Mindfulness can be particularly difficult for people with dissociative disorders like ptsd/cptsd. I used to feel extremely panicked at even the idea of being more in tune with my body/breathing/surroundings: I’d spent my whole adult life NOT doing that as a means to protect myself and even concentrating on breathing could cause a panic attack. Over time I was more able to do It but it is one of my less effective ‘tools’ in my box, even now, and needs to be done with a lot of caution for people who have experienced trauma. Especially at first.
I don’t know could use some guidance as to what training might be useful for this in the room with a client?
THanks
Terry
Such a good and appropriate comment to make – thank you for pcking up on that and taking the time to do so.
Thank you, Peter. I appreciate that.
I shall continue to use humour and loving kindness in the face of verbal abuse and thoughtless behaviour from the teenagers in the residential care home where I work. This video has confirmed for me that this is the right way to rewrite their expected responses from others, who have rejected them and neglected them when they were little so they no longer trust adults. I shall encourage the staff team to replicate my calm and loving behaviour so that these children, who feel they are unlovable and worthless, begin to react to the world differently because they will begin to believe that they are lovable and worthwhile individuals who have a future that doesn’t have to be in another institution or worse. Although their responses can be very hurtful and upsetting to those who are caring for them, I am now closer to understanding their projected venomous invective as being their protective shell, that tries to prevent further hurt to that young person. Thank you for this wisdom!
Beautiful, Mandy! Thank you for sharing.
Very Helpful to be reminded of these very important points, in such a cohernt and useful way,
I’m looking forward to this week’s seminar about working with the Limbic system. I’ve already begun to encourage clients who have survived trauma to participate in physically integrative experiences such as yoga, walking, dancing and martial arts. I’m hoping to find more of these type of approaches to work with my more elderly clients and other clients who have physical challenges that make it difficult for them to participate in these physical activities.
Barbara, you could look for a Hanna Somatic Educator or Feldenkrais teacher in your area. Both these somatic movement practices are gentle and client centred in terms of abilities and work with safely re-engaging with sensory awareness and interoception. I teach Somatic Education in the tradition of Thomas Hanna and it links in wonderfully with psychotherapy.
Limbic System Therapy is a practice that I am becoming more familiar with. I had been previously trained in drama and movement therapy but the last few years I had been using more top down therapy programs which were mandated by the agency I worked in. I now have a renewed interest in integrating Pat Ogdens sensory motor psychotherapy, epressive arts therapy and concepts and exercises found in yoga and meditation practises in my work with children and youth. Bessel van der Kolk has provided validation for this bottom up direction in therapy.
I work with cancer patients and so much of their experience of treatment is in their bodies. I believe if they were walking with mild exercise the week following their treatment, they may experience a better sense of wellness. I often use mantras with my patients and one that fosters a belief via imagery of their bodies becoming stronger. It would be helpful for them to know that their brain is working in tandem with them to come to wellness.
The information supports the work done by Marion Rosen. I am a Rosen Method Movement Teacher and Bodywork Intern. We meet the truth that is held in the muscles and allow for the possibility of something different through gentle touch.
traumatised combat veterans appear to response very well to healing through working with horses from programmes I have seen about this
Foreign people of color are lured into the US army by promse of US citizenship. But that does not negate the many young white people, and sure some of those good for nothing, but also those where being in the military is hereditary pride, are lured into the US army by financial promises, where they will earn more then they possibly could in civil society or simply at least have a job as opposed to being jobless. Very saddened that Bessel apparently did not watch the docu about US soldiers suffering PTSD, sharing how they were mindprogrammed into maiming, raping and killing the enemy but never unprogrammed when they got home to their families, where it proves that PTSD is contagious and not only damages wives but also children. But then again i seem to remember that the referred docu was made by french and banned in the USA. So much for freedom of speech.I also remember one of Bessel’s lectures where he says that all veterans suffer braindamage when having gone on a mission. Bessel clearly also did not watch the docu, shown on dutch tv, proving how wars are now perpetual for the financial gain of the 1 % elite, with Chris Hedges as one of the speakers. Personnally my trauma got fully triggered when trying to take a women’s defense class and i simply could not proceed to the second lesson. Should we learn violence to counter the powerlessness we suffered when up against strong fathers attempting to murder us in a violent fit of rage? Rage already a symptom when chronic stress is topped up with acute stress,damaging our children or pets? There must be better ways to strengthen becoming empowered. Sadly in my case it comes with again deep sadness and grief. Having to acknowledge that the powers in our world have destroyed our families and sabotaged my efforts in creating one. Even with all my CPTSD/DID symptoms having their families destroyed, children neglecting their elderly parents, is common in my dutch neighbourhood, including for people who did not suffer any trauma as children.
Thank you for this. We seem to see the choices as either someone who gets what they want, whether 1% or President or school bully by using any means necessary- and some people see the stance and use of that kind of power as the best protection from attack. Or you see people being thoughtful, kind, and respectful derided as weak, ineffective, and stupid. So I see my options To gain power ie safety? as either be a bully Ruler or be ineffective. I long for an alternative model. I’m not sure I could or would want to kill or maim someone, even if self-defense. Power to stop, prevent, restrain, hold off abuse of power and violence- is that possible?
Yes. I also commented on this “good for nothing” comment. 🙁 I am so sorry. It sounds like the remark hit you deeply, as it did me. Sending warmth to you, Gertrude.
Basic training? Is that the best example you can think of?
That is the most callous and rediculous suggestion and traumatizing in itself.
Send the most vulnerable and underserved, mostly people of color, to the military and then
off to brutalize and kill people overseas? I hope we can do better than that.
You are underestimating the resiliency in people Elena. This is why people are becoming weaker today. Granted, people who have experienced physical and emotiional trauma are already in a vulnerable state. However, it’s not “straight” basic training. It was given as an example and needs to be taken in context, don’t you think?
I left a long detailed analysis of what van der Kolk actually said on this clip but because my computer was not connected to Wi-Fi when I hit the return button I lost it. This time I use another method short and sweet. I think the wave of the future is the way of the Dalai Lama not George Patton.
Like your point. This is been true since the countries beginning. The American revolution started in Boston and most of the leaders had some experience in the Massachusetts state militia. Without that experience they could never have pulled off Lexington and Concorde.
how many people have been traumatised just because of the training and pressure that has been put upon the young soldiers also. I think that telling it the way Bessel does is not only helpful, because people can have the idea that pressuring a kid will help to overcome trauma….
Sometimes we do not have any verbal abilities to process early abuse. It is imperative to know the history of a client as we are trying to help them solve their puzzle. Due to my personal issues regarding trauma history from early childhood, how it affected me later in life is why I find this information quite helpful in professional and personal life. In 2006 I had a motor planning stroke in the right hemisphere that caused paralysis of the left side. Had to learn to walk again as if I was a toddler once the paralysis lessened. It took months to get back part of that motor planning ability. My history was full of traumas from early on but I think it helped me persevere to walk again. The early abuse taught me how to survive and thrive on my own. I continue to thrive with not only research knowledge, schooling and but my own personal research. I have found that all the traumas have taught me something about coping through trauma. I never fully recovered from the stroke as I fell early in the healing process, breaking tibia and fibula. If I had been honored to heal traumas of past and the hospital fiasco, I might have not broken more bones thereafter. Not enough time is given to the healing process and it is imperative to do it correctly. The reason I write this today I realized we are all talking about the negative aspects of brain trauma, but this article came today on my stroke forum of which I participate:
Jon Stone, a consultant neurologist and honorary senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, replies:
Strokes are areas of damage in the brain caused by blocked blood vessels or bleeding. They can set off a host of problems, including paralysis or impaired vision. Cognitive and behavioral changes after stroke are common yet often overlooked because the effects may be subtle.
Friends and relatives may report a personality change that is hard to pin down. Some of these changes, such as low mood and anxiety, are more likely to be related to a person’s feelings about having a stroke than to any harm to the brain. A genuine shift may occur, however, when the frontal lobes sustain damage. The frontal lobes play an essential role in regulating emotion, decision making and judgment. Strokes that affect the frontal lobes can lead to a range of problems, such as apathy or emotionalism (an overflow of emotion without necessarily feeling that emotion).
A stroke that hits the cerebellum can also trigger a personality shift. This brain region is vital to many aspects of executive function. Damage here can bring about disinhibition, which often manifests as inappropriate behavior. Other “negative” personality changes include poor decision making, aggression and irritability.
Less common are cases of “positive” personality changes, in which people reportedly become happier and even nicer. Surveys suggest such changes occur rarely, but the frequency may be underreported. They might arise if a person has experienced a mild frontal lobe impairment that has led to a small increase in apathy and less anxiety. A slight loss of inhibition may also explain why a stroke victim might begin to experience more positive emotions.
Yet personality changes after a stroke could have nothing to do with afflicted brain areas. Serious illness often leads people to reevaluate their priorities in life and change their attitudes toward others. For example, British television broadcaster Andrew Marr, who suffered a stroke, said that his stroke made him a “nicer and happier person” and less “self-absorbed.”
Clinicians understandably tend to focus on the negative aspects of stroke and other brain diseases, but positive personality change is a reality for some patients and deserves further study.
I hope this training shows us the upside of learning about our brain and nervous system as it is what has kept me going since I was a young child. I used to watch people and wonder if they had thoughts in their head before I knew the meaning of that word “thoughts.”
Sometimes even the military find out that their trauma in the war are only part of the hidden brain malfunction. I find this over and over again with vets. The military provides a family that some of these soldiers never had. It can be a great healing advantage when they come home from service. The work once started can provide them hope and not just a bandaid on their physical scars. My brain inside has scars that will never go away but I need to work around the area and walk again. The brain is so versatile but needs the direction.
Thanks, Marcia, for your insightful sharing. You have inspired me to continue focusing on encouragement (whichever intervention I may be using) with two of my current stroke champions who felt so abandoned in previous treatments.
G
It’s great if clients wanted to do and could do activities like those in basic training and then feel that sense of achievement. And I agree with Jeanne Teleia that you don’t want the dehumanising aspects of the military. It is about what the client is ready and able to do.
I take umbrage with this one. I have spent 28 years in the Canadian military. Please explain to me what you mean when stating “ you don’t want the dehumanizing aspects of the military.”
I was in the infantry,then I received my M.D. then Ph,d. Now I am an Author.
Not once have I heard anything as absurd as your comment.
There is a significant percentage of rape and bullying in the US military that is covered up by the military.
I think I had a misconception that a patient could just take a martial arts course, or do theatre and that in itself would rewire the brain. But I’m sensing that the rewiring experiences are better if they start where the person felt the same point of fear, high alert, high sense of danger that they felt at the time of the trauma. For instance, that moment before a person walks on-stage, they feel their heart pounding, sweaty palms, huge fright and realize those are the same feelings they had when they had to testify against their dad in court. And when they are experiencing that fright and still walk on stage, that’s the different experience /outcome that could contradict the automatic expectations the brain carries. And afterwards, they can know “I did it. I was terrified and I did it and it was ok. I can do that again.” Or if they re in a model mugging session, and see a man coming toward them. Yes, they feel the chest tighten, the drop in the stomach, but, then, in the midst of starting to experiencing that terror/paralysis, they still raise their leg to kick, then they do have a different outcome. Then their new experience, even with the intense feelings of fear, is a success. Perhaps there is fear of intimacy and a client, tho terrified of betrayal, trusts and opens up to their therapist, and it works. They feel better. Or perhaps they argue back, although in the past, that resulted in a terrible beating. There is a moment when a client is facing a familiar and paralyzing fear within a new situation -similar to the trauma -and then they can have an experience that is a game changer. Would it work as well with a “cold” experience, one that doesn’t connect a client’s powerful fear reaction to what happened before to what is different this time? If a client’s terror is dying in a car wreck, and the new experience is one of playing in a band, synchronizing with others, would it speak to the brain and rewire the old trauma response? Does the new experience of playing in a band rewire the brain’s expected response that occurred when the client nearly died in the wreck, or does one limbic experience have to be mirrored/related to another limbic experience? Would experiencing the terror of what happened before and contradicting that with a related but different experience, with a different outcome, be necessary? I understand the client’s needing to experience with their body that they won, they succeeded, they survived, and can do it again.
Dear Bessel,
The US Army learned basic training from the Dutch Army???
Doesn’t every army in the world do basic training, and hasn’t it always been that way, since long before the Romans?
I suppose van der Kolb was jesting about Dutch influence on American martial skills. Obviously Americans were British before they were Americans and learned their trade from the British. George Washington‘s Continental Army actually reversed the colors of the redcoats as their uniform’s design. There is something to the fact that Washington was denied an officers position in the British army while lesser Colonials were accepted that spurred him on to a learn his craft in a most deadly manner.
Actually in Afghanistan the US army did adopt dutch style, because it worked better.
I don’t want to get into a text argument with you. I simply was giving the good doctor the benefit of the doubt because he said that Americans learned their martial abilities from the Ducth. I think it is self evident he means the colonialists and since he is obviously of Dutch origin he was being facetious stating that the Dutcht taught the colonists to fight in a military fashion. The Dutch did help us with a generous loan when Washington started to become successful only because the French joined the cause but before that they turned down John Adams when he begged them for a loan at the beginning of the revolution. Now I need to check my intentions and motivations and discontinue responding to this thread because it’s now becoming more about me than about progressing the discussion forward. I wish everyone blessings and a non-traumatized life.
I think of this with phobic patients who, when able over time to better tolerate the exposure to their fear through exposure, have a new sense of freedom.
Interesting concept…
Experiential therapy has always been my go-to therapy. Having clients do something they are slightly afraid of, very slightly at first, like running fast down a long set of stairs, builds resilience and a new experience in the body. But ‘basic training’ in the military is also often dehumanizing and we must be careful NOT to recommend anything to clients that also includes elements of shaming or that is overly hyper masculine in focus. Gentleness works better.
i became addicted to ballet as a young adult. this explains why.
Twelve weeks basic training, now that’s different psychotherapy!
I am wondering how this affects the “window of tolerance.” In other words, as our self conception changes to one of someone more powerful, does this almost automatically enlarge the window of tolerance?
So far I am not hearing reference to the claim of a cutting edge psycho-spiritual neurological discovery, that it is the heart that knows, full five seconds before the brain.My understanding is that the brain is the projector, the heart the film, so to speak!!??
Like to hear your comments.
Yes, I too find the focus on the brain in the head as limited, (but still very helpful as a piece of the puzzle). The HeartMath institute provides visuals of the toric energy field produced by the heart and how that field can modify what is perceived by the brain. HeartMath argues that due to axonial connections between the heart and frontal cortex, the heart should be considered part of the brain. In other cultures, the gut is also considered a brain providing intuitional data. And of course, the work of Rupert Sheldrake, Dean Radin, etc. supports the hypothesis that the term ‘brain’ is the label given to an organ in the head, but ‘mind’ is an electro-magnetic field that extends beyond the body. Like the toric field of the heart, the ‘mind field’ interprets data prior to head brain analysis (which is subject to interpretation based on the influence of cultural conditioning.) An example of cultural conditioning influencing limbic action: a North American woman might be gripped with fear when the clothing size she usually wears is deemed too small. In other less weight-phobic societies, the woman would simply choose a larger size.
I look forward to the day when quantum physics principles are understood well enough to provide a complete re-imagining of all other fields of human endeavour. Our reality is not constructed from the building blocks of particulate matter which is the Newtonian concept. Prior to matter emerging as particulate form, it exists as electro-magnetic potentials. It is the intention of the observer the causes a collapse of the wave function in the quantum field to form particulate matter – sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules etc. Once it is understood that everything begins as a vibration or frequency in the quantum field we can embrace “quantum healing” – working with wave frequencies to heal. For example, sound healing is a rapidly growing healing modality. The congruent frequencies of tuning forks, resonant bowls, and voice, can correct, through resonance, the incongruent frequencies produced by fear. We have already crossed into a new frontier in healing. Now we have only to recognize it’s validity.
I thought Bessel might mention how effective for trauma it was when returning warriors were greeted with drum playing and dancing.
I meant overfunctioning, not obstructionist
Thank you very much. I have a client survivor of severe trauma who needs to do things beyond her endurance so she knows in her gut that she can still survive. She does endurance swimming and also does this at work. The swimming is therapeutic to her, while obstructionist at work is more of a reenactment of the trauma. The information in this film is very affirming of the work we are doing, while putting a clear framework around it for me!
Thanks Bessel and Ruth! For me, it depends on the client and the complexity of their trauma. In some cases, I rely on the arts–music, drama, painting. For others, a more physically demanding approach like martial arts, runnjing, gymnastics, skating works best. Still others prefer things like yoga and meditation and tai lkchi.
I’d be curious to hear how this can be applied to elite soldiers, for whom their training has become overlearned or no longer adaptive. I work with individuals who cannot turn off their aggressive reflexes, and don’t appear to benefit from any martial art engagement. So what do we offer the person for whom the temperament reflects “to stay alive I must be ready to fight at all times?” What is the ‘message’ that dance or yoga conveys to contradict that belief?
Thank you Ruth and Bessel for your fascinating and nice short insights. They have helped me to more or less complete a nagging jig-saw! I should explain that many years ago I discovered, as it were by chance, how to relax and ultimately cure my years of persistent lower back pain (apparently untreatable without risky surgery). Needless to say my quest for an explanation was treated with ridicule, in the absence of ‘proper’ statistical analysis, by many medical researchers, osteopaths, chiropractors and regular doctors. And worse, for those professionals, when I casually demonstrated my simple relaxation protocol to anyone who would listen, it often led on to immediate relief and apparent cure for a wide variety of so-called incurable musculoskeletal cases, as well as phobias and infertility. I should add that I am in fact an engineer-physicist and I have gradually put together a theory comprising loss of a loved one, or a loved situation, into a mind-body-brain jig-saw — thanks to many free NICABM reports and parallels with my own observations. Now, Bessel’s insights today re trauma memory replacement confirms a lot of what I suspected but could not prove. So, as ever, thank you dear Ruth and Bessel again. Tom Lucas, London, England.
I’d love to hear your theory, Tom! I have a chronic pain condition due to neck vertebrae damage, and have also had lymphoma affecting my neck, thyroid and optic nerve. I have always been interested in the fact that a lot of my pain is in my neck region and wondered what the psychological root of that might be. Not having a voice, for example, or feeling like I can’t “stand tall” in the world. I am also currently working with a group of people who have experienced a lot of grief/loss in a short period of time group of time (family deaths). Of course I have also experienced my own fair share of grief and loss in life. I would love to hear what conclusions you have come to and your mind-body-brain jigsaw 🙂 If you care to make contact: julia.rainsford@hotmail.com
I think you are right to see a metaphoric connection, Julia. I am dealing with daily pain while healing from Late Stage Lyme Disease that went undiagnosed/misdiagnosed for over twenty five years. While my healing team and I have made enormous progress, the area of pain that is still holding out is one of the spots where I was traumatized and hit most frequently as a child. The other area is also where I was repeatedly hit for speaking up against the injustice of my existence. Thus, I am approaching it from this standpoint and working for release on multiple levels. I hope you will find relief as well!
Hi Anya, My sister sounds like she has a similar story to yours. I am looking for help everywhere for her and I wondered if you might share some information about who your team has been and what has helped you.
Hello, Karen,
Sure, I would be willing to share what has helped me. I am not a professional Lyme expert, so it is intended only as information, not diagnosis or anything official. Healing from Lyme is not an off-the-rack kind of thing, so it requires taking what resonates and working with that, then tweaking as you make progress. Healing IS possible, not just “management of symptoms” or “remission.” I am in the small minority who believes that, but we ARE out here! I say that because I know hearing those words spoken casually during one of the talks given by a Lyme expert gave me hope in a powerful way.
I am thinking that in this forum is probably not the best place, but I would be happy to email you if you wish to share an address.
Hi Anya,
I’d be interested too in your experience with Lyme. I also believe it can be healed. I’m curious as to your thoughts. My email is jan@jankingston.net (You suggested Karen email you). Not sure if they blank out emails like Google can sometimes do.
Best wishes,
Jan
Is your simple relaxation protocol proprietary? Or is it something available for everyone to look into?
Your research sounds similar to German New Medicine, a body-mind approach to healing created by a German allopathic physician. There are now trainings offered world-wide.
Also, Lyme has been effectively treated by homeopathic physicians. Homeopathy is a form of quantum healing, (see my comment above). People do not realize that homeopathy is the dominant healing modality in some countries and is considered as effective as allopathic medicine in many countries. The recent tele-summit “Remedy”, disclosed a campaign led by Rockefeller and Carnegie to discredit homeopathy and herbal medicine in the U.S. in order to maximize their investments in drug therapy. Their campaign was successful. Unlike Europe which continues to develop all three modalities, the U.S. and Canada, (an unfortunate idealogical import), discredit herbal and homeopathic healing thereby reducing options available to citizens. Due to an extremely painful medical condition, (vulvadinnia), for which I was told allopathic medicine has no understanding of cause or cure, I started working with a homeopathic physician and the LIFE biofeedback method, (another quantum healing modality). I was “cured”. Unlike drugs, which typically suppress symptoms, these modalities support the restoration of health in bodily systems by providing stimulus that creates coherent wave (frequency) patterns in the body’s electro-magnetic field. Although this sounds like medicine of the future, it’s actually what shamans have been doing all along, (albeit with different tools). One thing pain does – it humbles some of us enough to open our minds.
As some of the comments here have noted, using military tactics to heal trauma really does work. Granted, not for everyone, but there have been many cases where abuse victims have pushed themselves to the limits, and have seen excellent results. These are essentially approaches without actual communication. It works.
In my practice, i utilize yoga with clients as a way to establishing healthy connections between the brain and the body through the breath. Yoga also assist clients who tend to dissociate, integrate or come back into the body. Long term sus stance abuse have exacerbated women’s self loathing and self harm and they appear to be completely disconnected from their bodies. It has proven extremely helpful for those women who adopt yoga as a daily practice.
Daniela Riccelli, LCSW, MCAP, Eng, dancer, yoga trainer
Enjoyed hearing about your approach to embody through yoga.
Is there any form of yoga that could work for someone who isn’t able to get down on the floor and has knee issues?
This isn’t yoga, Anya, but you might try Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais is very calming and integrating to the nervous system and, in my experience (15 years Feldenkrais teacher), has the benefits of yoga, but can be more able to be approached in a graduated way with what a person’s body is ready to tolerate than yoga which can be a lot of pushing ones’ self into certain postures. I’m sure not all yoga is that way. A great yoga teacher may not be pushy. But I know Feldenkrais specifically has an exploratory and self-accepting view. I went from having fibromyalgia (much later diagnosed as Lyme) with a lot of pain and unable to use my body, to becoming a runner, on no medications for pain (only thyroid and hormones) and running half-marathons and a marathon. I know not everyone wants to run, and that is not necessary. The idea is to incrementally expand your capacity at a pace that your brain wants to allow. Where people go with that is different. For some it’s being able to be in business. For some it’s physical activity. For some it’s getting on the floor with their grandkids. That’s kind of the cool thing about Feldenkrais. Nervous system benefits and flexibility of what you do with it. And a Feldenkrais teacher could help you find ways to get to the floor without hurting your knees. Lessons can also be done in sitting. Best wishes!
I️ utilize yoga with my clients as a way to establishing healthy connections between the brain and the body through the breath. Yoga also assist clients who tend to dissociate, integrate or come back into the body. Long term sus stance abuse have exacerbated women’s self loathing and self harm and they appear to be completely disconnected from their bodies. It has proven extremely helpful for those women who adopt yoga as a daily practice.
Daniela Riccelli, LCSW, MCAP, Eng, dancer, yoga trainer
This is my work also…
This is so true! Many of my sexual abuse survivor clients have gone on to enter Spartan races where they are pushed to their maximum and have maintained miraculous recovery. It makes me wonder how many of the sexually acting out clients or workaholic clients are striving to master what a grueling physical competition might change…..
This is how the military trains people for combat. The problem I saw in my work with the USMC is that it is the only means of training for trauma they glorify (physical). When this meets real trauma, combat is out of control, the shame of responding to something previously believed to be mastered is devastating in its shame. The work on men and shame is vital to helping our military heal. This is particularly true when they leave the military, the glue that held the belief system together. That combined with loss of meaning and often loss/ threatened loss of marriage/relationship is the predictor of suicide I most commonly see. We must find ways to reprogram these people is a way that speaks to their skills! Thank you for your work, making a huge difference.
Very succinct and informative observation Gail, thank you! I wrote a comment a little before yours and I question whether idealizing Roman soldiers can in anyway be a useful example of how to heal the limbic system. I would agree as a first step, especially for those inclined to like physical contact, physical conditioning is one source or relieving the stress of frozen trauma. On the other hand, it is a temporary release and not corrective solution. This is why I disagree with Dr. van der Kolb.
We’ll said.
You better watch some docus on how soldiers are trained in the USA for combat. Bootcamps for young people training them in similar ways have already been met with courtcases with accusations of serious abuse. Also watch a french docu, banned in the USA, about US veterans speaking about their PTSD. Mindprogrammed to maim, kill and rape the enemy to never be unprogrammed when one gets home to one’s family is one of the comments that most stuck in my mind.
I have used these ideas for many years now. I understand the unifying force in music and dance, for soldiers, it’s marching together. I choreograph dance through active imagination in movement. A dance that is empowering is Flamenco. It empowered Roma to express their power against oppression. I wrote about these ideas in my book, Dance of Psyche, copyright 2002. See christinacampbell.com under publication link.
Sounds very healing Dr. Campbell.
Thank you. Vanderkolk, however, made more clear the rational or the why important to change.
I encourage all of the people I see to use alternative practitioners for their health needs.
I really like the way Bessel talks about resetting the body after trauma. having just seen “Goodbye Christopher Robin , I think there are some very good examples in this movie of just that as ‘the young child of AA Milne without any idea of what is father is carrying, helps to reset his father’s brain as they create and play and deal with bursting balloons together.
It also makes clear why summer camps for children that focus on ‘outdoor adventure and challenge can be so good for our developing children.
This ties in with Frankl’s ‘ecce homo’ technique i.e. if a ‘new victim’ can identify with someone who’s undergone a similar experience to them and has overcome it, it will give the new victim inner strength to overcome their own problem.
If the new victim gets other forms of support as well, he/she can give meaning to their experience.
I am an advocate for parents & grandparents attempting to regain their children out of Iowa’s gigantic CPS CINA program, rated near the worst in the US by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual report. Many of these parents & grandparents have been listed on Iowa’s Child Abuse Registry (now numbering 30,000) & thereby have lost their jobs, their status in their own communities, and their rights to have anything to do with children. Iowa’s primary Perpetrators are Sen. Charles Grassley, Tom Miller (posing as Iowa’s AG but acting against Iowa’s Constitution), and Chief Justice (Court of Appeals) Mary Tabor. Gov. Branstad (who began working with Miller in 1982 to change Iowa’s laws & legislature) now has gone to his punishment as AG Ambassador to China.
Iowa has just lost our DHS Insurance with AmeriHealth which leaves dependent Iowans in DHS (children in CPS, Elder, & Handicapped) without coverage, as well as the 4800 workers in DHS if they were relying on their DHS policy. Iowa is in “failed state” conditions with all safety-net and environmental & business systems defunct or contaminated. SOS -SOS -SOS
Oh, what a mess, I commiserate with you! I work for a non-profit in Central PA that has designed an attachment/relational protocol at our Therapeutic Visitation Program. We run up against the brutality of the system in CPS every day! They have now hired us. We work to alleviate increased trauma to bio parents and their children in foster care by creating nurturing and supportive environments for visitations. We also designed and teach a curriculum for parent education that is based on the knowledge that most of the parents have trauma themselves, and therefore it begins with building trust through safety and relationship with them. This year, we are being trained in the NMT model by Bruce Perry of the Child Trauma Academy. Slowly we are learning and educating others in the system about how to treat people with trauma. It is certainly an uphill battle, but it is working! We are seeing families reunited with healthy behaviors AND those unable to parent recognize it and are more willing to TPR, instead of fighting through the courts and their kids languishing in the system. This compresses time, saves money for the county, and, most importantly, is better for the children, who are tomorrow’s parents. We have learned that change takes time, is not linear and applies to people, families, and systems, too! The “business model” does not work for this, so funding needs to become a priority to politicians, academics, and donors. Blessings on Iowa. (Congrats, Buckeyes☺)
Thank you ,as always for your succinct ,helpful tools and understanding on the brain and body knowledge and connections..it is reinforcing and of such merit the work you disseminate .
I am new to this work. I am not a therapist. I am a court specialist working to bring understanding of trauma into the operations of drug courts and mental health courts and veterans courts. I advocate (and provide consultation and training) to help judges and other members of the court team understand the often profound histories of trauma of the participants in these problem-solving courts. While we try to obtain actual trauma specific treatments for our participants as part of the overall treatment plan they are engaged in, I am working to change some of the direct practices and approaches employed in the court interactions with participants.
I am wondering if changes in the experiences that our participants have with the justice system and with particular members of that system, who are persons of authority and power, can be a part of the new experiences that can rewire the brain, impact the predispositions from the limbic system. My efforts are specifically directed at improving the retention rate of participants to the point of completion of the drug or other problem-solving court program, which in turn has a positive impact on their future offending behavior.
In addition, I am working with a program called Phoenix Multisport that works with persons with substance use disorders through sober physical or other creative recreational activity, to sustain recovery. Perhaps a means of limbic system treatment?
Norma, your work is very important.
I know of one young man in particular struggling with mental health issues who routinely experienced violence from police officers upon arrest as a young offender and later an adult causing a lot of confusion for him as he grew up with respect to the concept of respecting authority. He moved out of the area in which he once lived and has experienced more respectful interactions with other police services under a variety of circumstances and has developed the perspective that not all police officers view him the same way. He has though never returned to his home city as he is terrified of the same abuse of authority and harm to his body.
Dr. Van Der Kolk idealizes and romanticizes military and martial arts as a way to heal trauma and to make an individual stronger and more resilient. I wonder how much military and martial arts trauma this man has experienced? The best way is the a warrior of the heart not a warrior of the body. I once told him personally about having a Kundlini experience that fills me with white soothing and healing energy. He basically said my cerebellum was screwed up.
I have achieved belts in Krav Magra and Tae Kwon Do. I’ve run hundreds of long distance races including five marathons. For a two year period I trained six out of seven days a week doing par-course. From the ages of 12 to 18 I was intensely trained by college all stars and professionals learning the fundamentals of basketball I can tell you unequivocally this is not the way to heal the limbic system because I still suffered from clinical depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.
While physical training was important and helped me to better understand “how the body keeps the score” it wasn’t until I achieved and broke through to a level of energy work that has almost completely dissipated any residue of not only my former disorders but every day physical energy knots that I can now unhesitantly say I’m becoming calmer and more serene every day. I thought this fellow was supposed to be the foremost expert on PTSD? Who are the people who suffer most from PTSD? I think that’s a self-evident answer.
Interesting viewpoint. Thanks for sharing.
Yes. I agree. Crises First Responder Therapist. Awareness, consciousness and allowing Flow The energy heals. Thank you for your response. I encourage clients who had child abuse to surf. I recently saw there is a program encouraging PTSD and wounded veterans to surf.
Surfing would seem an incredible way of responding to the natural forces of nature while having enough physical challenge to unknot energy knots. I would think anything requiring some physical challenge but more importantly emotional and intellectual mindfulness is the way to most efficiently encourage and to strengthen subtle energy in the body. I still find the analogy of using a Roman soldier troubling because training to be a killer sooner or later if implemented in real life will damage the psyche. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know how to lethally destroy a person. This knowledge in itself is enough to lie heavily on my mind. Thanks for your thoughtful response!
Another potential helper for healing PTSD/CPTSD is a form of scalp acupuncture. That technique, taught by Drs Jason and Linds Hao in New Mexico, has been used successfully on combat veterans to reduce or eliminate symptoms, even on phantom leg pain of amputees. I’ve had PTSD symptoms since I was a toddler, though I was not diagnosed for many years. I’ve worked on the PTSD through a number of therapies, but the strongest and most effective have been the scalp acupuncture and EMDR. Acupuncture in general reduced the nightmares substantially over a decade ago, and the scalp acupuncture helped more layers come up to be released. Triggers were reduced as well as symptoms.
As there is no possibility of my running a triathlon or becoming a ninja any time soon, I am glad these energy work methods are so powerful! I’d also add gratefulness as a re-wiring technique. For more on that, check out the TEDtalk by Dr. Amit Sood on working around the brain’s predisposition to look for danger and what is “wrong.”
I think it’s important to keep in mind that the brain can’t tell the difference between real and imagined experiences. So, even visualizing oneself as strong and capable can lead to changes in how we see ourselves.
Yes!!!!
Thank you for sharing this useful re-understandingof trauma and our perception of the world, events we experience, our place in it, and how to act to survive.
So helpful with the clients who have alcohol and drug addictions that the PTSD client has often used to escape those traumas. The limbic system wants to party and avoid the seriousness of life, to avoid those painful memories they have numbed those feelings with substances oftentimes. We send children out to the military and possibly war when they are already aroused from past traumas or poor attachment early on. This can be harmful in treatment as they begin to see their choice was not necessarily what they would have chosen had they understood that it numbs them further to the healing from which they actually could benefit. Using the phrase “window of tolerance” can be a duality for a window into the actual brain for that tolerance and understanding. You are all giving us that window to help them learn about their brain reactions. We all need refreshers and new brain technology from our early education on the brain. I found one of those avenues back in the day was spect imaging by Daniel Amen when I worked with children labeled ADD, ADHD and the Autism spectrum. So many of these children were often damaged early in life for a variety of reasons.
I would like to talk with you and show you a movie trailer of humanitarian clowning with combat vets and dr Patch Adams
I have been engaged with combat vets clowning in Guatemala that is powerful
Please contact me. Many of these vets have experienced EMDR, Yoga, Ecotheraphy and strong trauma group work
with Moral healing
Hi Mark,
Spending time clowning with Patch has been among the most amazing experiences of my life. Every safe, intimate connection that we form, even if it’s for a short time, has undoubtedly been a process of mutual healing. If you are interested in getting in touch, I would love to meet another person who has an experiential understanding of humanitarian clowning. It would be interesting to explore how we can bring these experiences into our daily lives and our professional contexts (btw, I’m a psychotherapist).
I’ve found that coaching mindful strength training with a focus on decoupling physiological activation from affect has been remarkably resourcing for my clients. A great way to expand the window of tolerance and provide small yet tangible and embodied moments of victory. Then taking moments to install these feelings of strength and efficacy immediately after the movement is an important neuroplasticity component.
Rapid Resolution Therapy, created and developed by Dr. Jon Connelly, targets the subconscious automatic patterns and learnings from the very first minute of treatment.
Dr. Jon Connelly speaks the language of the emotional brain, a topic I’d love to hear more about. I wish there were more discussion about his work in particular.
VERY interesting. thanks for posting
Good stuff. Thanks for tips.
I have been using, as many other bodyworkers, this “lymbic system” regulation through very precise osteopathic approaches, for a decade. I’m glad that the field of psychology is recognizing, finally, the importance and inevitability of non-verbal approaches. I’m thankful for your series.
I would agree with an earlier comment that reference to military training is not an appropriate metaphor for our clients. Many military recruits join because of a sense of disconnection from their own families of origin. They become brain washed and numbed to the nature of the “killing machine” they have joined.
I have developed a much more humane way of encouraging the limbic system to come out of the shell shock imposed by complex trauma. This is Sensorimotor Focused EMDR: A new Paradigm for Psychotherapy and Peak Performance. It is available to preorder from Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group).