The treatment of trauma can be some of the most complex work practitioners face.
And for years, this challenge was complicated by not having a clear picture of the impact that trauma has on the brain.
But scientific advances within just the past few years have opened the eyes of practitioners to what actually happens in the brain of someone who has experienced trauma.
And according to Bessel van der Kolk, MD, there are three major ways that the brain changes in response to trauma.
To find out what they are (and their impact on the body), take a look at the video below – it’s just 3 minutes.
Bessel is one of the world’s leading experts in trauma and PTSD. Because of his research, we have a deeper understanding of how trauma impacts both body and brain.
And this is crucial – it can help us target our interventions more effectively.
So now, we’d like to hear from you . . .
When it comes to the treatment of trauma, what do you want to know most? Please leave your comment below.
Undergoing EMDR ,counselling,yoga,mindfulness,Ear acupuncture at present. Is this enough to fully recover from PTSD
I would like to know if one of her fully recovers?
What can we do to rewire or change those three areas, so the individual can improve?
How to get back to normal. My body is experiencing a lot of pain
If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that the Corpus-Collusum (mid-section of the brain) and the Amygdala and Cerebellum are impacted by trauma. Is this correct? I would like to know specifically how these parts are affected? Also, explaining how these three areas interact differently and impact each other after trauma would be interesting.
Is it possible to recover from trauma or PTSD completely?
If so, can this be done without the use of medications?
If recovery can be made without medications, how can this be done? What ways can one achieve recovery?
That is or are the best way(s) to treat and cure oneself of trauma or PTSD?
Thank you for your help.
I suffer from complex PTSD and severe migraines
as well as from PNES seizures. Both conditions seem to intensify and even trigger the other. Sensory overload is another major factor. I absolutely hate going in stores that are brightly lit, play loud music, and are crowded so I don’t go out much for fear of triggering a seizure and/or migraine.
Also, despite providing my family with information–articles excerpts from books such as Bessel’s, I have no support. My mother, a nurse, has even stated that she believes I can control when I have the seizures and constantly makes comments that are invalidating or shame me. Please help.
Have you tried CBD oil for seizures. Lots of positive reactions on YT and the internet. I hope you are your own support, so quit saying you have no support or learn to be your own parent, when adult. I take a lot of supplements that regulate my stress, which work to keep me more or less stable but have not cured my CPTSD/DID. At this moment my pets are causing sensory overload, one of them a pup of 7 months. Don’t like myself much when i start screaming at them. I just sent this link to my daughter and daughter in law which both suffer from migraine.
On FB are several groups supporting trauma. I used to be a frequent visitor and some of them helped, otherwise start your own group.
Thank you, these short videos are so excellent in passing to clients. B V K explains in such a clear straightforward way. I am so grateful to have enlisted on your trauma course last year when in Kurdistan working with yezidi women who had been enslaved by Isis.
Why does my brain have constant anxiety. I was traumatized from before birth up until 2012.So far no matter what skills I do it seems like I must have meds that will take the anxiety away.
Is there a treatment that can change this? I have tried many.
I would like to know.
Thanks so much. Can I go and get treated by Dr Vessel Van Set Kolk?
Here’s a slightly different view of trauma & recovery …
I want to know how to simply explain the science behind the trauma work I do. Where do I send people to read up on the science?
How can I now feel and release that terror from my body. I do believe releasing old blocked emotions is essential for our souls growth and God created us as feeling beings. The greatest fear seems to be getting through my fear of utter overwhelm but I know it is the overwhelm that allows freedom and faith is needed to allow this , always of course in a safe environment with prayer for Love and support in the process. Please advise. Thank you so much Pamela Rosalynde
Maybe first learn how to keep yourself stable and not focus so much on releasing terror or other deep blocked emotions from the body. I used to do so and it made my conditions and healthissues worse as well as harmed my parentingqualities towards my children, when they still needed me. I use a lot of supplements, including those that regulate stress to do so and it improved my quality of living with CPTSD/DID. Mindfulness helped me to allow the emotions to be and often in time they then just pass.
Gertrude what kind of supplements did you find helpful?
As a believer in the power of prayer and our creator’s ability to heal, I have learned to “release” and “surrender” my trauma – all the need for control, tense muscles, clenched body parts, anxiety-provoking thoughts, and that feeling of panic and need to run. I relax and imagine myself resting, fully and completely, in the arms of Jesus – taking deep full breaths, focusing on the healing of my mind, body, and emotions. Those tendencies to hang-on to, struggle, and wrestle with the memories and sensations of trauma work against the healing process. God uses medical science, sometimes medication, support systems, and the healing power of touch, prayer, and knowing His words in restoring the years lost to traumatic experiences.
In my work as a psychotherapist I have trained in somatic approaches. I have also studied the work of the great neuro-science pioneers and am deeply grateful for their dedication.
In clinical work I would appreciate more support in the territory of extreme trauma.
Thank you
I suffered a physical traumatic injury and experienced a shift in my brain. For me, it’s very noticeable -neurological and psychology shifts. What types of treatment are best?
Skills to Re-Balance and Re-Wire Mind Body and Brain
How to move a client from a state of trauma to a calm state? Would you ever use EFT (tapping)?
Where to find the help. My doctors and therapists don’t have this specialised information and now my health is frightening.
Find a trauma therapist or someone who specializes in trauma. If you can’t find anyone in person, you could try online therapy like BetterHelp and TalkSpace. Or if your doctors and therapists don’t know but do want to learn more, you could direct them to resources like this video and website or books like The Body Keeps the Score.
I hope you feel better. Sending good wishes your way! <3
Or 7 Cups of Tea has online therapy too!
Thank you, very helpful.
A very helpful summary and I am so grateful for the developing scientific knowledge you are sharing with the world. Thank you all. Practitioners everywhere, working with people with traumatic experiences, need to learn and implement in their practise the new strategies out there that address this new understanding of the impact of trauma in the brain. I use EFT and I now understand why this works so well in many instances.
Bless you.
Many therapists want to help a patient “unblunt” feelings, but that should probably be avoided early in treatment for patients who suffered early childhood trauma (something that should be determined as early on in the treatment as possible). Some use hypnotism to get at this, but I used mindfulness, muscle reflex/response testing and visualization to discover what happened because I had no idea that I suffered early childhood trauma before I learned these techniques. We know that emotional trauma causes brain damage. We also know that the brain can heal this damage. But emotional damage can be very tricky to heal because remembering the trauma can make everything worse, too.
In fact, I discovered what happened to me when I started using these techniques to remove toxins, which I had discovered were causing my allergies. (There is a very tight connection between mind and body). I decided one day to use my protocol of questions to ask about how I got these toxins inside of me. Every time a toxin got released from the bones where they were sequestered, they would travel to my lungs. I would cough, feel variable resistance to breathing and taste an awful chemical flavor, among many symptoms.
My brainstem was suggesting to me that I needed to expand my questions to understand the circumstances under which I got the toxin exposed to me. At first, no images would come to mind as I asked these questions (in this strict order: when, where, who, what, and how), probably because baby memories were inaccessible until I found out how to find them. Then I started to get images that I would have to piece together with those questions to figure out what had happened.
It usually caused a great deal of distress in me. Oddly, I would break down and cry before all questions were asked, and before I figured out what happened. I discovered that emotion was triggered early in the question sequence, and probably because there were emotion centers all over the brain, and tied to every memory. But eventually, my brainstem seemed to figure out that doing this was very dangerous because using these emotion pathways seemed to cause more damage in the brain. Pretty soon it just stopped answering my questions. I then asked “do you know the answer?”
“Yes.”
“But you won’t tell me?”
“No.”
That one stopped me cold. Why? Because, it suddenly came to me, the questioning was causing more trauma and more physical damage. Bingo! I had trained the brain well enough to handle the damage tracking without making it enter my conscious awareness. I told my brainstem, out loud, to disconnect the synapses that linked emotion centers with the traumatic memory parts. From then on, it still used the emotion links to find the damage, triggering very brief episodes of grief, anger or rage, which was gone almost as soon as it was triggered, because it disconnected those synapses. I could talk about the trauma (into my voice recorder) later, without feeling any of the strong negative emotions that I knew were associated with the traumatic event. This achieved blunting the emotions without impairing recall, but did not cause me to turn off all feeling.
I figured out that the emotion centers were part of the circuitry that we all are supposed to develop to be able to recognize when a situation is too dangerous to enter, but those of us without good attachment with our caregivers never develop this ability and are more likely to get into a situation that will cause severe emotional damage. I suspect that therapists have decided that this likelihood is the result of “blunting” feelings, but it is not that at all. They have it backwards. It is just the lack of a circuitry for recognizing the danger, because mom never taught us how to do it. That baseline circuit is “step one” in the chain of events that help us make a decision. Thus, a baseline circuit was never formed and we have to learn every dangerous situation separately. It takes us a lot longer to do many things that people with healthy attachments can do very quickly. Most such people are completely unaware of this “step one.” I say this because no one ever talks about it, making it even more difficult for the “no attachment” kids to learn how to do it.
This is not to say that those of us with early childhood trauma do not “blunt” our feelings. The nervous system is out to protect us at all times. Blocking circuits that will trigger strong negative feelings, that will inevitably cause physical damage to neurons, is a tried and true way to prevent damage. We know that GABA is the neurotransmitter in neurons that block the action potential of other, connected neurons. Early childhood trauma victims will have a lot more of this blocking simply because every memory is associated with an earlier memory in some way in the brain.
When you experience trauma, every aspect of that trauma is linked with other earlier memories of similar aspects. As you grow older, you develop memories of memories of memories…., making the trauma accumulate. The need to block some circuits becomes necessary with every trauma you experience. I only recently discovered that there appears to be a center that forms in infants with good mother experiences that helps them to “forget” parts of the memory involving strong negative emotions so that this dangerous “memories of memories of memories…” circuitry can end early. Those of us without that mothering are doomed to continue to use that circuitry. Worse, every traumatic event develops a new circuit to function as the block. Because of this development of multiple circuits, it is so profuse that blocking it has to be individualized to the traumatic event, since there is no single baseline circuitry formed in us. There are millions of these circuits in our brains, but only one in the child with a good mother.
So learning how to form that baseline blocking circuit is pretty imperative for the child with poor mother attachment.
In some ways I can see your viewpoint, but I believe that when the healing starts the work can be trying. If one makes a committment to manage the work it will take to finally release the mind to stop the blocking, softening into those feelings in the parts of where the traumas lie can be helpful and enriching. I have found neurosculpting has been helpful, coupled with EMDR, Hypnosis, guided imagery and somatic experiencing that the mind opens up at a different level to bring back some of the good memories, in the senses, not just the memory. A sudden smell that triggers joy, or a sound or anything else in the mind shows the connections are changing. I guess I have waited all these years, to finally see and feel the healing. My clients state the same. They had not connected to any positives but now they get a whiff of it as the brain heals and opens up to the past healing properties. It is sad when the life was so downtrodden to the humans psyche but I have not met a client yet who does not start to catch a glimpse to someone in their past when they least expect it. I cue them to watch for it and this helps them and it has also helped me to see the positives. Wish there were more but as the psyche begins to open up, they come somewhat more often–so far for me, maybe one a month and lately that has increased.
Possibly, when looking at the science of how fast babies develop in those first few months/years, when in a healthy attachment environment, this can never be duplicated and healed. Possibly parts of our brainwiring changed, leaving permanent damage, parts of our brain atrophied, to strengthen other parts of our brains to learn to survive in such harsh circumstances, making us different then the rest for the rest of our lives, with sometimes amazing survivalskills, special qualities others lack. Yet possibly learning to appreciate more those differences then always focusing on this imprinted need to heal what was broken, damaged, atrophied.
This approach seems quite logical and reasonable, especially when the trauma begins at birth and intermittentingly continues throughout our lives. There is no safe place to return.
In my case, I was born in 1959 in Alabama with a birth defect. This necessitated multiple surgeries, the first, a few days after birth. At that time, infants were not given anesthesia but paralytics to keep them still. Nor were infants given proper pain medication as it was then believed that babies didn’t feel pain like adults. My illness involved my intestines, both large and small. Fortunately, (or not) there was a renegade neonatal surgeon there who told my parents he didn’t exactly know what was wrong but he would do his best. And so it begins…
Now, at age 59, I honestly do not know how many surgeries I have had. Not all of them have been related to the initial birth defect, but I do feel the majority have been related to the trauma and the effect it has had on my body.
Thank you for the video. As someone in the throes of PTSD myself, and trying to help others suffering trauma, I am trying to learn all I can. I would like to know whether this really can heal? I would also like to know the chances of healing when the PTSD has gone on for over a year and a half as it has in my case? And I suppose the big question is…what can heal the effects of PTSD? This is surely going to be different in each individual case. How can we find what works for us and where should we begin?
I think it really can heal. I’ve had PTSD for over 3 years and know of people who have had it for much longer, maybe 20+ years, and still been able to heal. From what I know (I wouldn’t say my PTSD is healed yet), things like EMDR and talking through your whole trauma with a trusted person while you feel the emotions but stay calm are ways to heal PTSD “once and for all.” In the meantime, things like breathing, grounding, journaling, thinking about my life before the trauma and how it was similar (how I’m still the same person), socializing, exercise, and drawing have helped me. And therapy!
To find what works for you, you could try out some different things and notice how they affect you. Maybe write it down. You could begin by doing something you already know you find relaxing or calming or enjoyable. There are also self help books that can take you through things like this and give you a structured plan of how to heal.
Good luck! I’m rooting for you!
How do I stop the fight or flight terror to a situation that may not call for it?
I had a shock to my system about 10 years ago and I have sent a lot of money trying to let this shock go and now I don’t have any money and at age 67 I am looking to find a job that I would be good at I feel I want to be a public speaker and help others who have had similar shocks. Where do I start. I have started to clean up my life and yet I feel afraid to move on I seem to be stuck in my own fear. Can you help me?
I have taken workshops and listened to Bessel for years. As a clinician, I respect his work so much. He has the most extensive understanding of trauma! So, as usual, he can pinpoint three things that happen to our brain under its influence. The good news is that Bessel doesn’t stop with describing the impact of it-he actually has research and evidence based treatment for it. as I said, I have attended his workshops over the years and have taken his advice on meditation, yoga and other inner calming practices to my clients because these things work in retraining the brain and calming the nervous system. As you can tell, I highly respect the work of this man and all the understanding he has brought to the treatment of all the aspects of trauma!
Does trauma impact short term memory? My thesis is if you are anxious and your mind is in a fear state, one is distracted from remembering ‘mundane’ information, such as your own phone number, etc.
So PTSD could ‘create’ or ‘look like’ ADHD? Or even Bi-Polar disorders? Are there ways to separate out and treat these related ‘conditions’?
Can one actually heal from trauma? What I mean is, when having learnt to deal with trauma responses so one is managing better, do these physiological symptoms lessen?
I find that clients adolescents and adults will acknowledge that trauma has occurred but to move them to committing to work through the trauma seems impossible. Consequently, continued sessions dance around the core. What are your thoughts on how to help a client process and work through the trauma.
In a word-trust.
Think of it as visiting an emergency Dr. You know you need a deep cut stitched (bleeding/pain) but having it done without anaesthetic is frightening (and facing trauma head-on is MUCH worse than that- I have experienced both)………the Dr needs to convince the patient he will use every tool available to make it as painless as possible and the patient’s welfare is his prime concern-not just hurrying them out the door in the least time possible.
I really like this analogy of visiting a doctor in the emergency room and trying to heal wounds without anesthesia! Thank you!
I would like to learn more about the treatment of CPTSD, especially when there are multiple triggering factors, some of which began in early childhood and continued for many years.
I want to understand why someone with severe trauma backgrounds only remembers certain childhood traumatic events at certain times of year — and when sharing the trauma with the therapist, & struggling with the symptoms of fear and/or suicidal ideation – believes year after year she is remembering OR telling someone about the horrifying events for the very first time?
She can be doing well, then suddenly a feeling gets triggered, dissociative symptoms arise, and eventually she loses touch with reality and will fear the ‘bad guys” are trying to get her or will hurt her.
Then withing a month or two – the memory is forgotten until the following year. If it is brought up she appears completely disconnected or may deny it being possible. “It couldn’t have happened. There is no such thing as that ever happening to anyone.”
I want to know how to heal fromPTSD so I can sleep, eat,ejoy life and feel hope nstead of fear.
Excellent
When you have the symptoms, but no memory of the traumatic event that is triggering them, what can be done to source the most traumatic event behind the dysfunction.
In the case where many different traumas have occurred since childhood. and the adult has been deeply impacted by them.
Thank you
Patrishe
Functioning as a professional with PTSD is difficult due to current employment environments. Clients are not the problem as they have taught me more regarding my own experiences. My self body response has been most responsive or regulated through proper use of EMDR. I have found difficulty accessing professionals that have long term experience administering EMDR. I have difficulty with the job interviewing process and obtaining security without long term employme. I remain underemployed and financially struggle for self sufficiency despite a history of success working with other professionals and individuals so have served.
I desperately need help! I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2013 due to back to back marriages with men suffering from narcissistic behavior disorder. The first one wasn’t diagnosed but was physically, emotionally and sexually abusive….broke my nose twice and during our third year of marriage choked me into unconsciousness the last night I spent with him. (He was a graduate student at UCONN studying in the Julian Rotter department.) He had married me for my family’s money. Moving forward, I did it again! Second time even more horrific. What saved me was my group of friends, colleagues at work and my family. I had an amazing career in broadcast/communications/marketing with amazing Fortune 100 organizations. I am now in counseling with my former clinician who I began seeing in 2000 in an attempt to try to work with my husband to get help. In 2002, she was able to get him an appt. with former OHSU head of psychiatry: on the third visit he was diagnosed with narcissistic behavior disorder who the doctor described as the most highly developed sense of superiority he had ever seen in his 40 years of counseling with murderers, millionaires who stole millions more. I have tried to start over and I cannot find anybody: I try but continue to fail. I received nothing from my divorce because nobody believed except for the people who had worked for my husband, banks and his business partner. My attorney did nothing include not interviewing/speaking with anyone nor hiring a forensic accountant..I worked the entire time of our marriage. My support was dropped when x claimed that both he and his company had gone bankrupt. The court hearing was the day my father passed away. (X knew this and didn’t care.) Thirty two days later my mother died. I spent the entire week instead of being with my dad trying to find an attorney to help me. Reading this/listening to your comments brings me to tears…..He did even worse things to our son…stealing his inheritance from my parents; taking out loans using his social security number. It has been a nightmare: homeless twice. In 2014, a forensic accountant was hired who discovered that my ex never filed for bankruptcy nor did his companies: one was sold to GoDaddy; one became an offshore bank…he has used four different social security numbers over the years and recently changed his ss number as well as his appearance according to a former sister-in-law. Like my first husband, he married me for my parents money (he asked me to marry him after his home in Florida went into foreclosure…..I found out afterwards and had him with the funds).
I came from an amazing family. My dad paid for college tuitions for friends; we ‘adopted’ families from Oregon’s department of human services over the holidays providing them trees, food, presents, etc. I loaned money to friends who needed help….I feel as if I wasted my life. Were it not for my son, I would no longer be here…Is there anyone in this region who can help? Writing this…I think I will contact the Department of Psychiatry at OHSU again to see if someone is available….Thank you for listening: just send an invoice….:-)
Dear Linda,
There is a lot I could share with you, but this is not the place. If you haven’t yet come across the work of Lundy Bancroft I strongly recommend that you look it up. He is not a trauma expert, he is an expert on working with narcissistic, dysfunctional and abusive men and supporting partners and ex-partners of such men to heal and reclaim their sanity for themselves.
Bancroft truly understands the debilitating effect on the partner of becoming isolated and traumatised exactly because she is not believed by the people around her, either in her private life or any professionals she gets into contact with in seeking support. A key element of these kinds of relationships is exactly the male partner often being a highly respected and highly functioning individual in his professional and public life, only the partner and any children ever experiencing the Jykyll and Hyde reality.
If you have even one person in your life who believes you, it is a life-saving blessing. If you research Lundy Bancroft’s work you will feel seen and understood, you sanity confirmed, and you will find resources for continuing your healing. I’m sorry you have had to suffer like this; you are not damage goods, you are a strong survivor, your wounds will become scars of wisdom you can bear with pride.
Linda, look up the work of Melanie Tonya Evans on narcissistic abuse; she has much free info, webinars, & training in a therapy she found healed her own; & good luck! I also can recommend Michael Allenbright & his iZone healing…try!
I have ptsd from being burned as a 6 year old child. The effects have been exacerbated by being raised by a neglectful and abusive mother who kicked me out after I was 13 because her husband tried to have sex with me then told my siblings I made it up driving them away from me too. She thought I was a problem child. My father committed suicide at that time as well. I married an abusive man naturally and have two wonderful children by him. Having children gave me the a reason to stay away from my family and heal and that’s exactly what I did. I’ve spent my entire life, I’m 55 now, and still trying to heal. As much as I’ve tried therapy, meditation, exercise, healthy foods, keeping away from those stimulaters that trigger anxiety, fear and anger, I still suffer from social anxieties. I even have a loving God that has helped me forgive them and myself but… I still go into detachment/unable to focus/concentrate/be in the moment mode whenever I’m in groups of people. I have lingering feelings of abonment and isolation from my family, have nightmares of people trying to kill me, have trust issues, feel like no one likes me when clearly I have loving and supportive friends, husband and children. I’ve been hiding from these feeling shameful all the while of all these inside me. As I mentioned, I’m 55 now and this stuff that I’ve worked on for so many years wanes and comes back. It’s back after working for an emotionally abusive boss for 10 years and my little sister attempting to commit suicide. In trying to be a loving a supportive person to people around me, I’ve learned I don’t know how to care for me. I should have quit my job years previously. I’m ineffective at helping others because my own emotional threshold is numb. When does it stop? I am open for suggestions. Please and thank you.
Hello, you have been through a lot.
Nassism is tricky business to heal from.
Have you tried – the Access Bars.
This helps you get into your body quickly.
I also facilitate emotional recovery online.
Learning emotional regulation is key.
Healing self worth and shame.
I want to know why in England there are so few professionals with real knowledge about working with trauma available for access through the NHS.
My husband has dissociative amnesia and a diagnosis of DID and he has been in the mental health system for 4 years with no real therapy, they say they are unable to work with him because of the high level of amnesia.
Hi Ann if you can afford neurofeedback, it may help. There is a device called ‘muse” that does the same thing and is much cheaper. I experience severe disassociation and personally it seems to be much more of brain dysfunction rather a personality disorder. Rewiring brain can definitely help, also finding different methods to rewire the brain just it takes a lot of research
i am wondering if this holds true for older adults whose trauma was experienced during childhood.
I read Body Keeps the Score and learned about some strategies for working with the body. How can it be determined which ones are likely to help?
When I read that book for myself I made a list of 16 of them that were likely accessible to me in my community. I proceeded to do whichever one felt right (safe was always my litmus test…still is), and was available at the time. For me, it was extremely key to have a safe other (therapist in the case in the form of anxiety group therapy) and to be with others so I was not isolated. She used somatic methods with me in particular. Then I attempted meditation (nope – too soon as it was terrifying), I engaged another individual therapist as well (who was completely non shaming). Then after that I found an amazing trauma sensitive yoga practitioner and that bottom up approach turns out to be the most healing for me. I then did yoga teacher training to force myself to immerse myself in yoga….now I could finally meditate. So the bottom line is that healing trauma requires all of it, within reason. I used medication too for awhile as well. So pharmaceutical, social engagement (vagus nerve work), body centred therapies and activities. Full meal deal. I have on my list, theatre, dance and model mugging or a martial art that teaches how to suspend fear enough to defend or avoid harm. It is a long process and some work is always needed. I am far better than I was…very few panic attacks…starting to find delight from time to time. All in all I would recommend the Trauma Sensitive Yoga first. Gets you back to the body as a resource and less of something experienced as a betrayer. My best to you…it gets better
I would like more training on BPD as most of my clients fall into this category.
My understanding is that BPD is an outdated diagnosis, and the current school of thought is that it is really complex trauma. The former left clinicians with not a lot to work with; the latter provides them with many more options (yoga, mindfulness, EMDR, to name a few).
I have my!share of trauma. !n 1984, I was in a horrific car accident.. where i received multiple trauma TBI and in a!deep coma for a very long time MY mom, father, and brother passed away.. within 2 yrs of each other, my 24 yr old son was murdered in 2006. His body was incinerated by the killer.. family and friends were never there for support. During and after his murder.. 2013- cancer, which i dealt with by myself. From the cancer treatment, i lost my smell and taste senses. And the icing on the cake was on my way to the hospital for my mammogram, in 2015. Christmas Eve day, husband of 32 yrs , told me he was divorcing me. A lot to take in and have to deal with.. How do you even know even to begin!!!
Hi Charly,
My heart goes out to you! See my response to Joan above. First I would find a trusted trauma therapist for you. You know when it doesn’t feel safe. Your body knows. And then somatic methods….trauma sensitive yoga, dance, singing…be gentle with yourself. Time others helped you with love and grace. Big hug to you. You are strong and there are so many people out there that will be there for you.
I lost my senses of smell and some taste in a car accident, too in 1974 (concussion). I regained some of it over the next 6 years. It happened logarithmically over that time (every 2 weeks a new smell, then every month, every few of months, then every year. The last smell I regained was broccoli after a long “dry” spell of 3 years). Then no more improvement. I could not taste cinnamon. It wasn’t until I found a naturopathic doctor in 2005, who taught me EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which included how to tap, that I was able to regain all smell and taste senses completely. My neurologist told me that it is possible to regrow bulbar neurons which grow into the olfactory epithelium in 1974, but no one ever mentioned that just tapping on acupressure points would cause complete healing.
I’m most interested in shame – what it can cause and how to work with it. Thank you for the videos! They’re very helpful.
Thank you Ruth and Bessel! I’m still needing more actual skills in which to work with trauma survivors in terms of resolution through body work that can be done in the office. I do recommend integrating experiences like yoga to my clients.
Besel Van Der Kolk’s presentations were THE most helpful of all the fascinating and useful contributions of your speakers – so valuable that I can hardly wait for his book to be delivered.
My question is: how does one motivate a client to endure the discomfort of therapy in order to reap the hoped-for relief of a successful outcome? Any helpful hints?
The DSM 5 won’t say that early childhood trauma causes PTSD. That is because it won’t recognize PTSD caused by something the person cannot consciously recall. And there is also the high probability that the victim has attachment problems, which can cloud the picture. But attachment styles may help us make the connection between PTSD and early childhood traumas.
Attachment styles pretty much depend upon what happens during the first 3 years of life, although later traumas can influence what develops later. For the most part, you have the attachment style your primary caregiver gave you. In the US, that is highly likely to be your mother. As a victim of neglect and rejection by my mother, at birth, I thought my attachment style was what everyone had. After all most of my brothers and sisters treated me similarly because my mother had taught them to treat me as she did. I thought that my attachment to members of my family was the way all of us felt toward siblings and parents. I thought that attachment meant that we never went very long without thinking about them, that we knew them so well that we thought about them constantly. We did not need to keep in touch very often because we thought of them so much of the time. We thought of them when we felt bad, and when we felt good. There was no difference. I thought of them as soon as I saw something that one or more of them would like, too.
I was amazed at how little they thought of me, so my attachment was certainly not mutual. But that was the way the world worked. Every time I was able to go visit them, it was almost like they had to relearn about me. I realized only recently that what I thought attachment meant was in reality a type of “hypervigilence.” I had to get to know my predators better than they knew me so that I could avoid their attacks or bolster up my inner defence (blunted feelings). I also figured out how rarely people with good attachment styles normally thought about their families but had developed a drive to “keep in touch” precisely because they did not think about their families ALL the time. In other words, exactly the opposite of what I would think attachment meant.
Another indication of PTSD may be tooth-chattering. I would always start to do this when I felt cold. I just thought that was a problem of temperature, but no one else seemed to do this. Again, I learned that feeling cold all over was a wave of failure in heat receptors, causing an enhancement in cold receptors. That could happen when one feels extreme fear. It wasn’t until then that I realized that tooth chattering was not just a normal response to cold, but was an indicator of fear. Once I realized this, it stopped. I have never had tooth chattering since, even when I felt cold.
I did not discover the fear connection until long after I learned how the smell of a much feared person I knew at work was sent though the air system in my building when he entered it. I had learned how to detect his presence using muscle reflex/response testing and mindfulness of the triggers.
Learning to use the unconscious brain connections to the sense of smell is a HUGE benefit since I could find my escaped rodent very fast, I could smell bad milk long before there was enough odor to smell it consciously, and the direction where I would find what I was looking for (e.g. keys, glasses). But unconscious smell is probably influencing everyone’s behavior toward people without telling them why. There was a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B several years ago showing how smell seems to affect people’s awareness of “fitness level” unconsciously. And, of course pheromones would be sensed only unconsciously.
Martha, Your response really spoke to me. I too, find myself preoccupied with figuring out others’ intentions and motives because I assume they will hurt me in some way. I have a history of C-PTSD and certainly that is the root of it. A therapist commented that it seems I make it all about me sometimes, esp when I assume others are thinking about me as much as I am thinking about them. I’ve wondered why I am being so “selfish” assuming it’s all about me. But it feels different than that. You have opened my eyes to the reality of how hypervigilence stays with us. I have been in fight or flight most of my life and see how I still am!!! Your quote about your view of attachment as, “in reality a type of “hypervigilence” feels spot on! You said, “I had to get to know my predators better than they knew me so that I could avoid their attacks or bolster up my inner defence.” Yes, me too! Great insight and thanks for sharing!
Thanks very much. I only figured that out because I have spent the last 10 years in self-reflection as I have trained my brain to use mindfulness and muscle reflex testing, along with visualization to figure out a lot of things. I rarely spent time going over and over the same thing. With this new kind of treatment I do not get bogged down constantly rethinking the same things. The answers to my questions get better and better over time, with that training. In fact, it got so that the brainstem supplies the words to me, one by one and they add up to a picture that is very profound, and as you put it, “spot on.”
If the trauma was recurring over along period of time how difficult does the healing become?
Yes my experience of trauma from my childhood is I have within me my inner abused child who is constantly replaying my early before 5 years old experiences of sexual and extremevphysical abuse. It is a reliving a holographic image within me…30 years ago primal brought it forth hallucinogens might have amplified it, recently as an older man 69 emdr has helped integrate it,,,but the only way I have been able to even begin to release it is through a workshop called Grief to Grace. Wa spiritual approach to sexual and violent abuse where I use biblical stories, prayer, healing of that inner child who is now feeling the love Of Christ a power larger than myself to help my little boy transform the holographic memory in to a manageable memory to begin to forgive and let go.
YES! They leave out the power of God in the healing process, in so many articles/reviews. I am not sure if they are being ‘politically correct’ or what, but I know when I went through healing and bringing God into the pictures, as to what would God say? He hurts too. People can poo poo it all they like, but I am so with you in the spiritual side and how God and the love of Jesus can help in the recovery of abuse. Thank you for sharing.
Hi and thank you.
I work with adolescents/young adults who’ve experienced trauma recently and in their younger years. It’s clear that it impacts the ability to focus on academic or any literacy related-tasks. Many cannot self-regulate their own behaviors of attention.
Are there any activities these individuals can engage in to help them incorporate the idea that they are now safe? How can they be supported so their nervous systems can calm down and they can focus on developing the basic literacy skills they need?
Thanks!
Meditation can be helpful. Different tyles of meditation affect different parts of the brain. You can google which type affects the amydala (fear center) to help with calming. Also, focusing on slow, rhythmic breathing (longer outbreath to regulate the vagus nerve) is also helpful.
Thank you,
I would like to attend another Trauma conference in Boston, or Maine (Portland?) Not, NYC
how to work with this as a partner of an injured soldier who now has PTSD attacks through the night..
For soldier: 1- Do NOT watch any news programs. 2-Regulate any visual shows (Black Hawk Down, American Sniper, etc) that might trigger attacks. 3-We used EMDR and it worked great. Also, there are many non-profits out there that might help send the soldier to a program such as the one in California that works with magnets. Also, getting a vagus nerve block – it is in the neck. This has success. Everyone is different, but for us, moving AWAY from everything, the unit, the town, the state, and starting fresh helped. As a partner, “how can I help you?”
For the partner: You can go to the local VA or American Legion and see if they have support groups. Read Once a Soldier Always a Solider by Charles Hoge. Having a person to vent to is SO important. I broke and finally called anyone in my phone and talked for 2 hours and felt 1000 better. I needed to just vent and not be alone.
Good luck, wife of 26 yrs of service soldier w/ PTSD.
Vagus nerve block? No! People with PTSD have low Vegas tone already, you don’t want to block the body from healing even further – mild stimulation of the vagus nerve helps alleviate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The vagus nerve controls the parasympathetic nervous system, which oversees a vast array of crucial bodily functions including digestion and slowing the heart rate, so blocking the vagus nerve is ludicrous! Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is already used as a treatment for disorders including epilepsy and depression, and it has been shown to enhance memory retention. Breathing with a longer exhale stimulates the vegas nerve and calms down the autonomic nervous system.
As a victim of early childhood trauma, it might be important NOT to help a patient “unblunt” feelings, until the early childhood trauma gets sorted out, even if the person does not consciously remember it because it happened before the age of 3. That doesn’t mean it is not connected to traumas or reactions to traumas that happen later, since it is all connected in the brain. As we go through any uncomfortable moment the brain relies on finding all associated events that happened previously in life. This is especially important for the unconscious memory circuits since it helps the brain to quickly react to protect us from danger. Thus, ALL parts of the brain, even the most “primitive” parts are connected in memory, regardless of whether the patient remembers the event. This is important to realize in order to help the patient unblunt the feelings at the correct time.
I learned how to disconnect emotions from the memories in order to be able to recall them using mindfulness, visualization and muscle reflex/response testing. The brain has no “internal eye” that can find all damage, and it has been shown that traumas cause brain damage. In order to repair enough to the point that you can help the patient lay down new pathways that never developed because of the early childhood trauma, you have to find the damage first. Recall of the events is necessary to achieving this because it is the only way the brain can be actively helped to find the damage.
But conscious recall can cause more damage, as most therapists have seen. Thus, it is important to tell the brain to disconnect the synapses between emotion centers (scattered all over the ENTIRE brain and the bad memories. I found that in the course of my own treatment, I did not need the emotions to heal, but I did need them for the first few seconds of tracking down the damage.
When I started out to treat myself using these techniques, I learned to ask a protocol of questions in a specific order (when, where, who, what, how) about the trauma, assuming that a particular memory was associated with a specific symptom that was triggered (at any time of day or night). However, I would start to cry and feel enormous emotion before I was able to put together a “picture” of what happened, before any words came to mind to describe the event.
At some point within the first 6 months of doing this, my brain figured out that this emotion caused more damage and refused to answer my questions. Because I had followed a specific order in my questions and had learned that some answer led to other questions, it had learned how to track down most damage “on its own,” e.g. in the background, restricted to the unconscious brain parts. When I realized what it was doing, I just told it to disconnect the synapses between emotion centers and the centers which stored the parts of the traumatic event it had found associated with it.
Thereafter, when it found something, it started to track down all associated centers. It had to find the associated emotion centers first, so some emotion was triggered, but it stopped within seconds or minutes later. Mindfulness allowed me to get fleeting images, or words describing the associations it found. So I always knew when it was repairing damage. I just did not know until later what the event was until the repairs were made. Disconnecting the emotions helped me reach the point where I could describe what happened without feeling the intense emotion that stopped my speech. I still felt sadness on recall, just not the intense, damaging emotions.
Psych intervention isn’t enough though deep transpersonal hypnotx or other r brain interventions can undo the trauma, energy blocks may persist. NES Health (Bioenergetics ) supplies info and methods to resolve those blocks.
Thanks for the opportunity to provide my comments and questions. Is it more beneficial to revisit the trauma? In other words, to re-experience that which has resulted in a psychological “damage”, is to familiarize ones self with that which is now a part of you. Instead of distancing, why not embrace? I have a personal investment in this topic-I have been touched by trauma, the most recent has manifested itself with unwelcome symptoms. And my final question; is trauma a living entity, feeding itself off it’s chosen host?
It is beneficial if it does not retraumatize you. Search for “lifespan integration”.