When a traumatic event triggers our internal alarm system, the body goes into fight, flight, or freeze . . .
. . . but what happens in the brain during trauma?
According to Dan Siegel, MD, there are two key chemical reactions to trauma (and one can play a role in actually shrinking part of the brain).
Check out the video clip (below) for more – it’s just 4 minutes.
Knowing how trauma affects the brain can enhance our interventions for helping patients heal from a traumatic experience.
How have you used brain science in your work with traumatized clients? Please share your experience in the comments section below.
Something causes me pain… it comes and goes in sort of cycles… better in summer and worse as winter approaches. My doctor says it’s some kind of autoimmune thing going on… What usually works to relieve my rather intense pain, so I can cope with my day, is the use of an electric hand massager. I listened to your video because I was searching to find what chemical was released to relieve this pain when I deep tissue massaged. I know that something is released because I can actually feel the “letdown” of something in my stomach (causes a little nausea) whenever I massage a particularly painful area. What has alarmed me a little is that perhaps I could be releasing a toxin that might be damaging my memory as well? I do seem to have a recall problem and I do forget a lot of things. Should I be concerned? If so what could I do to get the relief from the pain with massage without damaging more brain cells?
Molto interessante e chiara. Grazie professore.
Spiegazione molto chiara ed esaustiva.Grazie
no
Molto bella questa spiegazione.Grazie
Molto interessante
now this is epic
My websearch question was: Can shock inhibit chemical releases in the brain?
Turns out that by releasing Cortisol this is actually an inhibitor, and can become a toxic agent. AMAZING…
I am an Emotional Research with the problems of Stress, Anxiety, Hysteria, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Anxiety Attacks, Depression and Suicidality at times. This is due to physical illness last decade which led to Grave’s Disease, Thyroid Burnout, with a severe case of Candida Overgrowth in the intestines and Leaky Gut Syndrome, my Cortisol Stress test was off the chart, backwards for each time of the day. This was from 2001 to 2007, but even after “healing”, the body, brain, and mind, were left in a total, utterly raw, state of shock. PTSD. I had 18-20 of the symptoms at the time.
So, I had emotional problems. I had studied some in the 70’s about the mind, and Psychosomatic Phenomena. In 2009, I discovered a technique that stops negative emotions, works well on shock, and for the first time in 7 years, I did not have the chronic 24/7 stress response. This is a simple, easy, 1,2,3 step technique anyone can do basically anywhere. I personally have been able to stop every negative emotion, enabling me to mitigate the symptoms of the conditions I mentioned, and more. Even some physical pain, has been helped and stopped with the technique. Pain is a type and level of Shock. The technique works well on shock.
If anyone is interested in my work, feel free to visit my blog…and learn more about the technique. Look at each section. Click VERSIONS on the top menu bar. Click My Depression Story to learn more.
The technique has brought me GOOD results… I can stop suicidal thoughts, flashbacks, panic attacks, sadness, grief, guilt, worthlessness, hopelessness, uselessness, and much more with the technique. Best Wishes from a researcher who has stood at the Abyss. Blessings…
Do a websearch for Happiness Is No Charge….have you ever heard of the term…”Emotional Charge”… well this is what is going on with Trauma… Trauma contains shock. Shock gets converted into other things. Physiological, as well as Emotional, and Psychological… The technique can help get at that. I hope you check out my work. Thanks for the video…
My trams which has not left me was abuse from my father. He had a bad temper and wanted me sexually. He beat me many times because I wanted to be a good girl. My mother lectured me often to be a good person and not give in to sex. She used me to clean the house and do all the ironing. They are dead and I am 70 years old but these memories haunt me still. The addrenalen was many years from 14 to 19. I left home and lived with my grandmother till she died.
I enjoyed this review of Peter Levine’s original interview.I have used brain science to help people develop a cognitive understanding. This helps people on a conscious level to realize that when something happens to us as humans (either as children or something out of our control as adults) that the release of both cortisol and adrenaline play a role in how our body/brain downloads and responds to information. Facilitating a good alliance, and helping the client to first become stable are critical in my practice working with people. Slowing clients down when I know that they are going to disclose information that may re-traumatize them so that they can disclose at a pace that we can regulate is paramount for me. Walking a fine line between regulation and disclosure it is my goal to act as a container for others so that they can learn to regulate themselves. I also use redefining experience using the felt body sensations as P. Levine has suggested, mindfulness practices to help anchor the senses, as well as the use of Narrative Therapy to help people re-write their story. My goal is to validate their past behaviours while helping them to make new connections to facilitate the appropriateness of body/brain(cognitions)/behaviours to present and future experiences.
Thank you
thank you,
more intereventions that help people decouple the current trigger from the original trauma are essential. knowledge of Brain physiology alone is limited.
thanks,
diane
As a post traumatic myself nearly my entire life and for the first half not even realizing it due to Amnesias, I believe you are correct. I notice I have sometimes either over reacted or not reacted at all to current stressors which ultimately brings me right back to my childhood. Of course in my case, it is also extra difficult to decouple because I suffer with phantom pains pretty much 24/7 essentially telling me what was done to her.
Very important and practically helpful to see this biochemical component to stress, as well as, the cognitive, psychological, etc. All systems are so interrelated and this is critical to understand to support health on all levels.
I establish a good working relationship that starts during the Assessment. I spend some time cultivating trust. When the tears flow I wait because tears wash away hurt. I begin treatment by working in the area of the body that was traumatized last the peripheral system. All trauma is held and contained in the body away from the brain and also away from the spine. I work backwards. I know this because a Kripalu instructor came to my home and we have done almost 3 years of yoga. At the end of two years 80% of the cascading traumas in my life were gone. In Illinois yoga is not a from of treatment. So I use mindfulness, DBT, and CBT. Though all of this I am not very far away from the work of Alfred Adler.
I use my two hands to provide simple model of the ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ brain to demonstrate how information can be processed up and down; side to side and back to front. This appears to help clients understand that they can have more control over their own information processing than is first thought. Other simple ‘experiments’ can demonstrate small do-able steps that can make a difference – for a start – by increasing self-confidence.
I have been working on a TBI/PTSD research project very intensively for two years. I’m deeply invested, and just a bit weary as I near the end. I had a writers block that I recognized as a part of a complex. Also stress at realizing that I was soon to be peer reviewed. I also sensed that here was an opportunity to break through that complex [largely inchoate]. It had been ten years since my last EMDR session, but I called my therapist and got a session. This clip, and your comments swept over me, because I recognized is as being “body-right”.
The real point here, is that the EMDR session broke into the complex, lowered all those stressor chemicals, and reversed what i suspect was a damaging neurotoxicity that was ongoing. It also was delivered like the proverbial Silver Bullet. Therapy CAN be quick and to the point.
I admire your work, and thank you for sharing it.
Dave
Thank you for this illuminating discussion.
It has lately come to my attention that pornography
affects the reward center in the brain (according to Norman Doidge).
It is causing a furor among couples and marriages are falling apart
because the males who become addicts form different sexual tastes
which gradually increase their taste for sadism and violence.
Now I don’t just mean a taste…they become violent to their wives and
models for their children, of wife beaters and in other cases, physically
dangerous to the children, as well.
this is a critical sharing. thanks.
I look forward to exploring more about the effects of these two chemicals on our brain. Thanks for sparking this interest.
I work with sex addiction which is rooted in trauma with a high incident of previous sexual abuse. The partners of the sex addict experience complex PTSD from the repeated incidents of acting out and then lying to cover. I have written the book Letters To A Sex Addict: The Journey Through Grief and Betrayal so that the partners have a mirror for their secret, non-spoken, isolated dilemma. I use somatic psychotherapy and BrainSpotting to help with the trauma as well as art therapy, journaling and having them share their stories in a group context.
Thanks for sharing what you do with sex addiction. I am eager to learn more. 🙂
Thanks for sharing thus informative information. I am eager to learn more about it. 🙂
I help my clients to tune into their inner world/body/somatic experiences and slowly learn the language of sensation, urges, feelings, images and memories, with a curious, non-judgmental stance. Of course, I’m describing my knowledge of mindfulness (awareness in the present moment without judgment). Once in touch, they can begin perceiving such as invaluable information vs. being on autopilot or fearfully reacting against this info. I think this begins the capacity to work at the edge of their consciousness by befriending defenses, which then relax and unfold unconscious material. I say all of this through the words and theory dearest to me, being Hakomi Experiential Therapy. Also, using the SE and the Window of Tolerance helps client’s track their own activation and deactivation (chemical nervous system changes), while striving for the “rest and digest” area where mammals best flourish (when not in actual danger).
In my work with clients, I ask them to notice the type of feeling they are sensing inside their bodies and where they are feeling the sensations. I ask them to connect that feeling to other times when that feeling was particularly noticeable. They begin to see their bodies as a source of information–a clue to pay attention. Calming the body helps them gain some sense of control over the thought and experience that they are trying to assimilate into their life stories.
I have experienced multiple traumas throughout my life (58), and suffered a traumatic brain injury at 18. All of your posts and articles are very interesting to me. However, being on disability and only teaching 1-2 nights per week does not give me the ability to pay for a membership. Thank you for any free information.
I work with people with Developmental Disabilities. I am the person who makes sure they get the services they need to be healthy and safe and have a good life. This population of people have a high percentage rate of being abused or neglected sometime in their lives and most have already been, whenever, I work with these people, my goal is to help them feel safe by using Emotional First Aid to build trust through decreasing fear and decreasing physical and emotional injury. The ways that emotional First Aid is provided is by calmly and respectfully providing Supportive Actions, Guided Choices, Emotional Support and Encouraging words.
I provide psychoeducation on how the brain works when traumatized, and how a person is affected by the brain response. This normalizes their experience which can reduce some of their anxiety regarding their effects of trauma.
Another aspect of trauma’s effect on the brain is the un-integration of previously integrated primitive reflexes (or incomplete maturation if the trauma is in a developing child), which then inhibits access to (or development of) higher brain functions. See the work of Harald Blomberg et al re Rhythmic Movement Training. I use this work with children and adults.
Healing the effects of trauma on the body during developmental periods takes consistent
mindful, patient and sustained intervention– from my experience.
How these chemicals combine to lay down memories would be an interesting study
I use movement to complete the stress cycle so that the adrenalin and cortisol released during a stress or trauma can be utilized and essentially ‘burned off’. I’ve found that low levels of chronic stress for people who sit can start exhibiting similar physiological symptoms of more severe trauma. There’s an article I wrote about how people who sit for long periods have been show to have higher levels of anxiety. It’s called “WHY SITTING MAKES US MORE ANXIOUS”
Basically, movement can be a way for the body to ‘complete’ the stress cycle instead of staying stuck in the reactivity and hypervigilance stage of stress or trauma.
Bringing up the emotional or thought areas that are blocks and then having that person re-state how they would llke to respond and providing the way for them to see the effectiveness of the change is very empowering.
Right on, my sickest clients are those who have office jobs, full of stress, especially those who face management mis management. HOpe
My cases mainly have future trauma, parents that believe they can predict something horrible happening to their kids if they leave for college. They heard stories and they re create that particular scenario in their heads to the point that they experience symptoms of trauma that hasn’t happened yet. So I’m assuming their levels of those chemicals are also damaging the brain, is that right?
My clientele is mostly severely abused adult survivors of childhood trauma. I use brain science everyday to help me and my clients understand the body sensations and the transference reactions to everyday life of these people. The more I can learn about it, the better I will be able to help my clients.
I provide all my traumatized clients a short, simplified overview of the impact trauma has to the brain. For almost every client, this information is validating and frees them of a lot of negative self talk about “why do I continue to over respond/ over react/ do a particular behavior?”
Lisy, can you explain how you use this information to help clients stop their negative self talk? I use it for other things successfully, but I would love to be able to help my most severely abused clients use this info to stop the negative self talk.
Onnie, I am a coach. I’ve used meditation extensively to help both myself and others with many issues, including negative self talk. Hope that helps. Best, Mitch
Very interesting!….the shrinking of the brain is possibly one of the reasons why some victims of ongoing domestic violence cannot make decisions to leave?
Thank you
Lisy
Does the memory come back after meditating for a couple of years ? Does it return to normal ?
When hypnosis is employed
It balances upsetting voids
It easily calms over-stimulation
And moves us toward neural integration.
Can the hippocampus grow back in size when trauma is more resolved?
I believe trauma impairs memory tremendously.
i have had a “Very bad memory” all my life and have always attributed it to blocking out my childhood life of trauma. Now that Ihave cleared most of it a whole new world of experiences is opening up for me. I was locked in my own world of darkness.
Very informative. Thank you.
Very interesting indeed.
I have been sharing the information about the impact of stress and trauma on the brain with many lay people in my community who would never have access to this information. It is being taken in with great enthusiasm and creating a cognitive shift that is visible.
Thank You,
Deborah
Thank you for the information about brain chemistry and the effects of trauma on the person and their development.
In 2013, I reviewed Lissa Rankin’s “Mind Over Medicine”. In 2015, I am reading Lissa Rankin’s “The Fear Cure.” Both books dive in deeply, re the stress response, & seek proactive solutions to the deleterious effects on our bodies & minds.
My exhaustive study, of The Stress Reaction, has gone on for many years (since 1980) as an Osteopathic Chiropractor. This has led me to prayer, meditation, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), walking, rebounding (I’ve tried, but hate with a vengeance, gym work) & yoga, to elicit Herbert Benson’s Relaxation Response.
I would advise any of my patients to do any functional activity they love doing, or have an urge to do but haven’t tried yet, to elicit The Relaxation Response.
We can all suffer the detrimental effects of Adrenaline & Cortisol, in our stress driven lives, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to proactively mitigate the effects of stress & promote The Relaxation Response.
Does the concept of “trauma” include the cumulative effects of microaggression?
At the time of trauma you and your brain do what you have to do to try to survive. Afterwards you can still get a jolt of recurrence when something reminds you of past danger, but it appears that you can gradually get used to the fact that those warnings are no longer necessary (if you have reached safe circumstances), and the comment from Teo indicates that your brain can recover.
Thank you Ruth & Dan, I regularly share with clients the effects of trauma on the brain. I supervise counsellors who work with victims of physical, and sexual abuse as well as refugees. Dan’s short video is very helpful and I find information like this useful win my work
I discuss with clients the effect of stress and cortisol on the brain especially the long term effects of continued high levels of stress. Thanks for the piece from Dan Siegel, great information.
About 30 years ago I had a brainscan made. The psychologist who was wondering how it was possible that I had made my university training in spite of such a small brain. I know I was truamatized in and after WWII. This year I had a new brainscan made (age 78). The MD who shared the results this time said: there is nothing wrong with your brain, it is normal for your age. So obviously the plasticity of the brain has been again proven. I can encourage worried clients what cortisol has done to their brains, even if they are older.
Dear Téo awesome to read that!! This is incredible encouraging!! Bless you!! Marianne
Thank you again.