The Neurobiology of Trauma – What’s Going On In the Brain When Someone Experiences Trauma?
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD;
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Ruth Lanius, MD; PhD Dan Siegel, MD; and Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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You mentioned psycho-education is crucial to help patients understand how Trauma affects the brain and why they behave the way they do. I am a pediatrician working in a neonatal unit. Infants might spend a few hours with us; some might be there for weeks, or even months. In that environment, families are subject to Traumas after Traumas. Thank you for this discussion.
Now, I can also start being more aware of what Trauma might look like when talking to families (updating them on the medical aspect of the baby’s health).
As a clinician, I tend to focus on the medical aspect of care. However, what can the medical team do early on to prevent or at least minimize parental PTSD, to allow the families to cope better, find their inner resources to cope integrate things better? Will you cover this later in this series?
Thank you all!
Gives much more solid backing to the work I do with clients with conscious and subconscious mind and body movement processes.
The standout was that 20% of the people that experience trauma develop PTSD and 80% don’t is related to disorganized attachment. I’m looking forward to the next talk on the Neurobiology of Attachment.
Thank you all for all your work.
Terrific overview – thank you! I work with elementary aged school children. I will value, even more, the importance of developing a strong caring connection with each child. I will definitely incorporate more mindfulness work and body work now that I have a better (if rudimentary) understanding of how presence can strengthen brain integration. When I see hyper and hypo arousal or dissociation in action I will have a better sense of what’s actually going on at a brain level for that child and this will help guide my practice in the moment.
Having myself over 50 years ago being impacted by what is now called mindfulness I have an experiential understanding of the limitless possibilities of even noticing what is occurring and intending to live in presence.
I don’t have the biological data you offer Altho I’ve also studied epigenetics since it’s inception. I’m a studious person
I am not a therapist.
But there are people I might be able to help find a therapist if I had more of this information available to me.
You see it’s because traumatized people are afraid they aren’t ok. So having an understanding of the biology etc of this can help me to speak in terms that wil calm a fearful person.
I seriously suggest you have a low fee for people like me who want to move this information on to family and friends who need it.
I am absolutely certain you’re in the right track.
I appreciate the info. But I do need it to refer back to. In writing would also be fine.
I hope you’ll consider my request.
Thanks
Sherry
I’ve written you quite a few times.
Very interesting. As a trainee TA student this really helped me to consider trauma in a different way and will no doubt inform my discussions and reading moving forward. Thank you.
I am not a therapist but I found all that very interesting and now have a greater understanding of what goes on in the brain as a result of trauma. I was looking for some tips I could use for myself and am very much encouraged to learn that Mindfullness and Presence can have such a restorative effect. Thank you
Integration is the answer. Big thanks to all who spoke today! We professionally need this ongoing integration as that is how the client gets healing and has throughout their life. When it goes awry that is our role to help them find what worked and what still needs to be done.
As usual this is exactly what was needed for me to hear to reinforce in my own work both professionally and personally. Isolation has made the nervous system go back to the ongoing fears I see in me and in my clients. You all are like a wonderful antidote to this fear for me.
I work in perinatal mental health in Northern Ireland( a place well known for its prolonged civil war where the ACE study becomes evident in suicide rates, addiction rates, and generational traumas.) Our goal is to educate parents of the symptoms of mental illness, the biology behind their current feelings, and also help them attain appropriate treatments. This can range from peer support (that social co regulation) to counselling or bonding support. Our primary goal is to support parents through difficult times. The results are that many parents are able to get help before their ill mental health has a lasting impact on their children’s attachment and brain development. We are beginning to use mindfulness focused body awareness in many of our sessions to help create an integrated self. I am so excited to utilise this session to provide more healing experiences for our parents .
Thank you for making this type of series available to non-subscribers. I am a new therapist, and during my internship I read The Body Keeps the Score. Very dense, but infinitely helpful to me to learn about the etiology of trauma, all of its different faces, the neurobiology behind it, and all the different and effective interventions for those with trauma. The more I learn about all the different aspects of trauma, the more fascinated I become and certain that I would like to specialize in this. When I become more income-stable I will become a gold member.
Gratefully,
I just watched the first episode. I am currently reading Dr. Bessel van der Kolk’s book. I am very interested in body/mind/spirit connection. I want to understand more about trauma, and it’s effects. It is a personal connection for me, as well as with family members. I found this presentation to be very informative and relatable. I am a massage therapy practitioner and educator.
Very helpful info for 1st of 5 segments…the interplay of adrenaline vs. cortisol was interesting…also the dual activation of both the SANS and PANS during the freeze response…also the correlation between disorganized attachment and PTSD…and the role of present-moment mindfulness to desensitize and reintegrate trauma. Hopefully, we’ll be learning more about how to better regulate these, not only w/mindfulness but other lifestyle changes. Wondering if HRV will be discussed. Looking forward to more. Ken Pataky, LCMHC/LMHC, Holistic Psychotherapist, EMDR Certified Trauma Therapist, Certified Integrative Mental Health Provider, Traditional Naturopath, Spiritual Interfaith Minister, Yoga & Tai Chi Teacher, Reiki Master
It was great class for free especially after reading the book Body keeps the score. I am not a psychologist or any mind related therapies, i am just curious how brain works and from time to time i like to read great writers in this field. I have personal history of mental disorders and mindfulness was the saviours for me.
I am thankful for this free webinar insight. I wish i can afford gold membership bit at this moment i am not qualified mind related study.
Very thankful for free information and i will surely use mindfulness more in life.
Many many thanks again
Fascinating research on neurobiology of trauma. It provides a logical and healthy framework for clients to better understand themselves and their behavior. It provides ideas to help clients begin to feel more in control of what was previously viewed as unchangeable.Thank you!
Thank you so much for this fabulous webinar. I’m using the information personally as I’m in therapy and getting EMDR treatment. I also speak for NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and this information helps me understand the challenges that so many of us face and how to address them.
That was awesome! Congratulations! Thank you all!!
Hi! Thank you for the event. I think your video is old because you said today 1/17 we would rejoin next week- but this event is 1/17-1/22… so we will see you tomorrow. I hope that is correct.
Brilliant first session thank you!
I will use this important information. So positive to know through your experience that we can change the stories we continue to tell ourselves, also to heal the integration breaches by suggested techniques including mindfulness
Thank you for this most helpful webinar.
It does support my conviction that dissociation is curable.
Others have already said what I felt like saying.
Neurosciences are such a powerful development. It gives meaning to what was a meaningless burden.
As a 60-year-old developmental trauma navigant, I cannot begin to tell you the profound benefits of the psychoeducation these courses provide. My life orientation has been shame, fear, distrust, addiction and attachment dysregulation from being born in an orphanage and resented by deeply emotionally dysregulated and addicted adoptive caregivers who ignored incest and abuse. The shame of incest and childhood sexual abuse in general is crippling if not deadly, not to mention the hormonal storm that is unleashed, and the consequences of that and the social rejection and further shaming that occur as a result. It has taken me a lifetime to extricate it from my “identity,”—or what feels more like my soul—in order to befriend it and behold it with compassion.
For someone who has been told for decades that they are inextricably and biologically flawed to finally have neuroscience and trauma research demonstrate that much of what is deemed “mental illness” is indeed a normal outcome of given inputs and conditions during brain/body development. Some part of me has been screaming this since I was two years old. It’s nice to finally feel understood, and nicer still to know there are tools to change these outcomes through training.
I understand the psychoeducation is not the intent here, and not for everyone, perhaps, but the number of therapists available who understand these concepts versus the need for understanding is insufficient for those of us navigating these outcomes. I appreciated a recent episode of “The Drive” in which Dr. Paul Conti, a psychiatrist with a personal experience of trauma, tells the host Dr. Peter Attia that if he could use only one treatment modality going forward, it would be psychoeducation. Absolute music to my ears. Namaste, good people.
Thank you for offering these webinars online. I understand they are designed for mental health professionals (I am not one), but as a continuing overcomer of childhood trauma personally, with 5 adult children that all suffered varying levels of ACE, I wanted to know if I could learn anything that could help us – especially for my youngest son and daughter, as they are at severe high risk addiction stages, one to heroin and the other to meth.
I was very encouraged to hear that dissociation is a curable condition, that mindfulness and being present increases integration and can actually influence the mind/body/emotional connection. I look forward to the rest of the series this week. Again, thank you for making this content available.
Heather Rainwater
Thanks for the opportunity to peak into the current research and application potentials towards improving victims of trauma. I’m a retired human physical therapist and now have ventured into training horses. I’ve seen traumatized humans and horses. Recognizing the human suffering I included mental health continuing education courses to assist me in the care of my patients. But now my main focus is on humans with horses. Other than a less developed frontal lobe and absent prefrontal cortex, horses and humans share primitive brain components. And this presentation sees great correlation between my previous search for attempts to improve the lives of humans with attempts to apply towards horses. Both species bring baggage to a training session, but horses are typically suffering from human interventions. Might any of your panel have suggestions of resources for rehabilitation of traumatized horses secondary to poor training and handling by humans?
Thank you,
Ricky
I am a social worker not a therapist but I’m so intrigued by the neurobiology of the brain that I am constantly learning as much as I can about it. I use my knowledge predominantly with foster carers and social workers to help build understanding of how past trauma (mainly developmental trauma) will have impacted a child’s brain and hence their behaviour. We use an animal analogy to explain the triune brain by Jane Evans which works really well and I have always connected body to any discussions about feeling safe and processing feelings. Things that stood out for me today:
Brain integration and understanding what this is
How the mixture of cortisol and adrenaline can decrease this integration
Dan’s connection between disassociation and disorganised attachment
“your mind can change your molecules”
The significance of a caregiver not giving security and the increase of disassociation
Ron’s comments about taking away self blame.
Clearly as a social worker this is my take on it- please do advise if I have misinterpreted the material.
Thanks
Yvonne
Wonderful to normalize the brain and body’s reaction to trauma. Removes self-blame so the client can relax more and begin to heal. This makes perfect sense to me in light of client and my own experience. I will use this information to help set clients more at ease.
About the occasional crawler at the bottom of the screen: My attention gets divided and I can neither absorb what the speaker is saying nor the content of the crawler. I have solved the problem by placing a folded sheet of paper over the bottom of the screen.
Thank you so much for todays information.
step by step
Anne
Thank you for these very useful teachings. I have been adapting some of Gendlin’s focusing exercises in my work with clients who have trauma histories and the clients are noticing shifts in their abilities to sit with, describe and process sensations. I am now reminded of more mindfulness approaches that I can use (the epigenetic discussion about telemeres is fascinating!). I have also been encouraging clients with complex trauma (due to ACEs) to do some inner child work in order to understand attachment, historical/caregiver context, needs, and the child brain in order to reduce self-blame. This training so far has encouraged me to talk to clients more about mindfulness and integrate more of that work. I appreciate what Pat Ogden said about the therapeutic relationship.
Good morning
I found all the information extremely useful. As an OT, our role is to understand neurobiology then translate that into strategies that can be implemented throughout a client’s natural routines in a day. My colleague and I developed a resource for children called FOCUS on Self-Regulation. The key strategy is a 4 step sequence: active movement, sustained movement, breathing and pausing or mindfulness practice. we found that this 4step sequence was not only appropriate for young children but all the teachers were using it as well. The information I have heard today places a lot of emphasis on mindfulness and I think when we teach this 4 step sequence I am going to apply the PRESENCE, MINDFULNESS piece throughout the sequence and more intentionally in the last step. I would like to learn more about how to support a client if they become “unraveled”. Breathing can make one anxious, so would it be safe to use movement, attending visually or drink/snack?
Hi Shamala,
I am an elementary school adjustment counselor. I am very interested in your FOCUS resource. Would you be wiling to share it? I have just begun working with movement with my children and would really like to have a more structure activity I can start with.
Catherine (Massachusetts)
What a fabulous opportunity to take this training. Many masters programs in counselling psych promote you working from one specific modality. I just finished my internship and am starting my residency hours as a provisional psychologist. This training reinforces my natural inclination that in order to integrate you need to approach the mind, emotions, and body. This will give me more confidence in the future when using an elcletic approach with clients. I also realized that the benefits I have often seen with using reauthoring were likely a result of assisting in the reintigration process. Very thankful for this training and I’m excited for the rest 🙏
I feel like this class is just the beginning. Ill have to attend the rest of classes to have a better informed opinion. So far I really liked today’s session. Took notes.
I am currently a first-year grad student so I’m not working with clients, yet. However, the information about dissociation, inflammation, and disorganized attachment are specific areas I’d like to explore and learn more about.
I do hope for future grad programs there is a bigger focus on trauma and how it affects the body AND what can be done to help heal. I’m more and more certain bringing the body back into the conversation (not just focusing on thoughts and changing those) is key in helping to heal from trauma.
Thank you for this free discussion that I could otherwise not have afforded at present. I work as a play therapist in a primary school in the UK and am struck by the relevance to many of my clients, young as they are. The pandemic has disrupted development in children that had affected their social and emotional well being and for those with development trauma there have been extra detrimental effects. The children I see who are in foster care or come from families of domestic abuse are the ones who will most easily benefit from the mindfulness activities suggested by today’s discussion.
Many thanks!
So exciting to hear that mindfulness, being present, and changing the way one thinks has been scientifically proven to change the body and emotional responses at a cellular level. Yay! Not just us woowoo folks making stuff up then! Thank you so much. I’ve worked with body and breath for years and know this works wonders. Appreciated Pat Ogden’s point about developing more ability and confidence in dealing directly with thoughts and emotions, just bringing the client/student’s awareness to this and considering the need to speak to someone else if progress seems too slow via body work or resistance to practice and movement is just too high and entrenched.
I really enjoyed all contributions so THANK YOU SO MUCH
I’ve been working for a long time with polyvagal theory and love it. And the most important for me (coming from a history of judgment/criticism is that in knowing and sharing this newish information with (myself and clients) takes the self blame, the judgment. I am 75 still working and due to this work will carry on for a long time to come
Thank you very much. The 20% figure was interesting. I suspect eventually we will learn another part of the physical etiology of PTSD, in addition to the brain changes you all aptly described, is MTHFR. That is the inability of the body to process B vitamins correctly, providing the insulation as it were for the nervous system. That 20% of people who will experience trauma curiously dovetails with the 20-30% of people thought to have MTHFR enzymatic insufficiency in the general population.
Adrenal research support:
The genetics of cortisol production, the epigenetics of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and the medical/psychological treatments for cortisol deficient patients depending on the causes of that deficiency.
As a long time practitioner, it’s fascinating to see that the science is confirming ways of working rather than the other way around.
I totally agree
Thanks for this excellent session. This background helps me to understand the processes that some of my patients who are refugees are going through.
To assist clients’ in working through trauma and release the dissossociation they are currently experiencing.
I am not a psychologist but have been following developments through your platform as I have been exposed to trauma. Unfortunately treatment in South Africa is expensive when one is not on medical aid. This is some brilliant and illuminating teaching. Thank you
Understanding how trauma impacts people will support my work as a practitioner in my Family Life Coaching business. I will be able to view their behavior through a trauma informed lens and better support children and their families. Thank you so much!
Thank you!
The importance of mindfulness in the treatment of trauma.
I missed most of it due to an appointment over-running.
Will you repeat it please?
While we’ll be airing one free session on a daily basis, we’ve scheduled a good number of broadcasts with the hope that people can find time to tune in wherever they are in the world, and with whatever they have going on.
We’ll air the daily broadcast at 11am, 2pm, and 6pm Eastern Time.
If you are not able to tune in to the replays at any of the above times but you still want to view the content again, you’ll need to purchase what we call a “Gold Package.” That’s the only way you’re able to access the content whenever you’d like, and however often you’d like.
Plus, when you purchase a Gold Package, not only will you have lifetime ownership of all five broadcasted sessions in the Treating Trauma Master Series, but you’ll also get lifelong access to all the additional learning tools from this program that offer further insights and applications for your practice (like transcripts, Talk Back Sessions, Next Week in Your Practice Sessions, and more).
I am a wellness practitioner, so I am actively integrating the mind-brain-body in my offerings as a teacher and student. It’s truly an honor as Ron Siegel said to 1) have significant research that positively impacts our offerings and 2) to continue learning more about the neurobiology and co-create spaces to all show up as whole, sentient beings.
Thank you. It reminded me to work on both vertical and and left-right integration in session and most importantly, build relationship.
This is an exceptional program. It should be marketed to non-practitioners as well. It provides clear and profound insight into the process of how trauma originates, evolves and how we can address it. I plan to integrate these insights into my mediation practice.
Totally agree Kevin Chroman! As a peacebuilder and mediator I found this session extremely useful!!! It contributes to my understanding of why so man peace agreements are so difficult to implement.The expectation that conflict resolution or transformation ( what is more traumatic than the ravages of war) can be successful without a truama -informed approach is why conflicts are cyclical. This course is most relevant to mediators , social and political change activists,humanitarian workers, leadership training etc.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING THIS AVAILABLE
To continue this thread:
As a “hitchhiker” taking advantage of these excellent and informative sessions, I have found them extremely useful personally. YOUR COMMENT is on the mark. NICABM needs a series of talks aimed at the “general public.” General public is in quotes because mediators , social and political change activists, humanitarian workers, leaders and followers are the general public in all types of communities beginning with families, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, faith communities, and so on.
I’ve taken a few trauma and the brain workshops, and it’s usually a good refresher, but I find I’m not learning anything new. But, I was pleasantly surprised with this webinar. I found I learned a lot of new material that was also broken down in ways that was easy to understand, which makes it even easier to convey to a client. I was furiously typing and saying “wow” or “no way” and…”well said…never thought of things that way” out loud. I ended up buying the webinars.
As a pastor working at the intersection of religious trauma and the LGBTQ+ community I intend to integrate what I learned here with my pastoral care. Rev. Dawn Bennett, Pastor Developer, The Table, Nashville, TN, USA
Thank you so much! It helps me understand my own response to childhood trauma and to be compassionate when dissociation occurs in client, and work on fostering a safe and trusting relationship with them.
Thank you very much. It is serious confirmation of the essential requires to put benevolence in the educational processes and in our lives in general.
Superb clarity and generosity of your clinical and humane experience. Dr. Gary Margolis Middlebury, VT
Thank you 🙏🏼🤍