How to Work with the Limbic System to Reverse the Physiological Imprint of Trauma
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with Pat Ogden, PhD ;
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with Pat Ogden, PhD; Peter Levine, PhD; Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; and Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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Thankyou, this has been such a gift..
I am interested in the learning about the limbic system and midbrain, where in one case, a young person is so very ready to react in aggression/ defense. In this case,over time, the young person very gradually learned to moderate. ( He became aware of the societal response also ) If in extreme stress this young person reacts to hurt others , and visualises this, as in a default position ( and remember a sense of satisfaction and enjoyment/ triumph in this)
Thank you for allowing lay people to participate. So informative and helpful. Also makes me want to work with my therapist again to dig deeper. Relieved to affirm that doing breathwork was following the guide of my body vs my brain, so cool.
I’m a client using SE to treat depression (PDD) with a talented therapist for the past 2 years. I find that I need more knowledge of how these techniques are supposed to help me in order to have the hope and commitment to continue the work. Thursday’s video on hypoaroused clients was ok, though I had hoped to learn about more new interventions. So much of the literature does not address hypoarousal and I appreciate your efforts. Friday’s video was very useful for me to understand the concept of vertical integration. I also appreciated the examples of interventions that convince the mid-brain/limbic system that what it thinks is unsafe (from trauma) is really safe. The analogy to military basic training and other examples were very helpful.
These are excellent programs, packed with confirmation of the underlying reasons for people’s behavior and what could help. They validate every bit of the intuitive and counterintuitive stuff we encounter in life. That makes them invaluable to my own confidence as an adoptive parent trying to understand the complexities of my child’s behavior. Any professional simply telling a parent to ‘be the behavior detective’ without giving them this information is not enough. Also giving parents theory without providing practice toward appropriate response automaticity is also not providing enough support.
While these program are NOT built/translated for parents, parenting, children, adoption, etc. I am adding the word YET to this statement. I expect they will be – but how soon? And how widely available?
This was a wonderful week of inspirational knowledge and practical ways to inform the work we translate in attentions to real people. In my community work for the moment as part of an official program that aims to educate vulnerable people in Mexico City (PILARES program). The content of my workshops (the modality of our interventions in the area of Emotional Abilities and Education for Peace) taps in many of the areas that this course has elicited. Poverty, segregation delinquency… all these conditions affect the population we attend and even if we cannot officially offer therapeutic sessions (we depend on Education Bureau and not Health Bureau), all of our activities can be backed up and can tend to create the consciousness of what can be happening in respect to trauma, and of course this by itself, can have a therapeutic effect in our beneficiaries.
Blessing to you all!
It was very interesting and frustrating because you did not complete the intervention; for instance how did reporting to another Diamond exercise assist ? was its purpose just to integrate brain systems in a general way? I understand better the importance of integration, find pillow beating interesting and would add the reporting feature to the exercise as opposed to throwing it out. As a side note I find most abusers cannot do this pillow exercise AT ALL. I now will be able to understand the reaction better and work on completing the integration.
I would like to know how you do this with telehealth? The pandemic forced us all into practice that insurance and other providers government and private are asking us to maintain
PS why don’t you have LCSW as a profession?
Thanks for all you do
Love these programs. Keep them coming. My profession is: Adoptive parent
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Practitioners… Here’s some food for thought – how would you apply what you know or have learned to this situation which is not uncommon?
Scaffolded example/case study to think about or use in some way.
1. Layer 1: (stuck movement) How would you help rewire an aggressive ‘grabbing’ action in a person? Say you are handing something to this person and they always grab it unsafely before you are ready. The movement is procedural memory to the person.
2. Layer 2: (adolescent with complex trauma) How would you respectfully work with an adoptive teen (now age 15) who aggressively grabs from parents after 7 years of being in a ‘safe’ environment?
3. Layer 3: (helping caregiver support the therapeutic work) How would you work with the parent/caregiver to help their child with this one movement (out of hundreds of other grooved stuck movements they deal with continually throughout the day) when the child reacts even more aggressively to any correction since it brings up shame? How can you help a parent to effectively encourage the child (who is likely being highly obnoxious – also procedurally) to bring the thinking brain on when working a client like this? As a clinician. As a clinician helping a parent.
4. Layer 4: (extreme attachment injury) The teen is completely shut down to at least one parent due to lack of felt safety from early complex trauma with their first family (tremendous projection/transference), internal polarization, teen brain, and does the opposite of what either parent asks. How would that affect or change your approach? The teen also has refused to authentically participate in any therapy in the past.
Most important question: [this is the way my thinking is going – to introduce somatic therapy early even before talk therapy]
5.When working with children especially with complex trauma – {who also may refuse talk therapies, have a fear of all doctors, are ‘allergic’ to their own bodily sensations, and have continuous somatic symptoms} – should therapists MOSTLY be working with Somatic therapies to move the trauma? What information or studies are available on this?
6. (follow up questions) As a somatic therapist, after rapport building, where would you start? IF the parents can get the teen to the appointment at all, how would you prepare the client and parents for the weekly aftermath of somatic tension release (and all that it brings up) likely to show up in the home that can result in a high level of survival activation or escalation?
7. (recommendation) What somatic approach (SE, SPM, Hakomi, other) would you recommend for this case? Why? How long do you think it would take to make any progress toward integration? Keep in mind, the teen is also shut down to all forms of extra physical activity like yoga, martial arts, etc. Especially due since Covid they have become more sedentary and disconnected from their body.
8. Any other therapies for the therapy avoidant young person?
Yes! Group Therapy with similar-aged also-resistant Teens led by skilled specialized Clinicians.
Thanks. I totally agree. Not sure where to resource that for outpatient considering the therapy resistance piece so a live-in Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare program is also something to consider in my opinion.
Paraphrasing BVDKolk:
In order to rewire your automatic reactions, you need to have deep experiences that contradict how your survival brain interprets and is currently disposed to think otherwise you are just continually re-enacting/re-living and not rewiring.
Quit a list, nice case. Creative therapy working on all levels and aproaches seems working. Can be done individually and groupsessions. Works quick deeep and is easy to access
I am intrigued by this information as a trauma survivor who has been in therapy in and if for over 10 years. My trauma was partially preverbal which has made it very challenging. I’ve got PTSD and gave tried doing EMDR but that wasn’t successful. It did stir up body memory but I was never able to access more. Still hoping!
I’m a disability pensioner with multiple physical and mental health issues. I’ve been in therapy on and off for 31 years, and this has been a great refresher on why some things worked and why other things didn’t work in the past, and issues that still occur and how I can use my “inner therapist” to recognise when things are happening, and how to integrate them with my therapists help. To be honest, I found it very reassuring that I don’t have to re-live trauma to have healing from it or the stress of trying to remember that which is forgotten, and I will be looking at doing some free movement courses to help out. It has been essential that this was free for me, as I have almost no discretionary income – and it has also given me some new areas to research. This will contribute positively to my ongoing improvement in quality of life. Thank-you.
You are all heroes! I am a survivor of multiple complex traumas since childhood, who has spent the last 16 years or so recovering. I have a recognised psychodynamic counselling qualification and plan to incorporate some of this information in future peer support groups which I started two years ago. The presentations all made sense to me. I hope to introduce techniques that provide what Bessel calls ‘limbic system therapy’ and Pat’s ‘Somatic Narrative’ in my work.
Well, thank you, today was certainly much better that yesterday. Yesterday I had great difficulties with hearing you out, to the end, I disagreed at so many points. Today I was happy to find Bessel van der Kolk just as clever as i remember him from years back. Describing trauma so accurately. It is important.
But still I am very confused at the mixture of responses. I shall never forget documentary about a group of veterans from the Afghan war who stood in a circle on one leg, eyes closed, breathing. This was supposed to help them overcome war trauma. I felt ashamed and scandalized on behalf of the soldiers. I have certainly done the same exercise to absolutely no avail. It certainly feels like an offense, worse than having to beat pillows. And of course I love nature and walking in the forest – that´s what Finns do – but although it is soothing it does not resolve my trauma.
Also I think I wish that my therapist listens to me and not to my nervous system. I don´t want to be scrutinized like an animal in a cage when I am trying to put words to my suffering. I remember on therapist doing just that. When I was fully occupied with finding the right words to express my true feelings, he leaned forward and, interrupting my thoughts and making my words sound ridiculous, asked: What are you ACTUALLY trying to say? Insinuating that I lied.
Like I said yesterday I need a therapist who dares to walk all the way to hell with me and back. (Although I don´t need a therapist anymore for real, thank heaven).
The idea of mastery, that Bessel van der Kolk presented as a result of service in the army is very familiar to me. I have not served in any army, since I am, thank God, a woman, but exactly that feeling of mastery I have after having survived my therapists. It just took all too many years. I needed help and since i didn´t get any help I had to make it anyway. Therapy stole 30 years of my life. I am 75 now and I have a good old age. That is fine of course, but I could have done with some help, as I sought therapy at 30.
Thanks so far.
Thank you so much for this series Ruth and NICABM team. I have a better understanding of trauma and how it manifests itself in the body. In my work, I speak to clients on the phone and encourage them to seek psychological and therapeutic support when they are keen in the first instance to show how damaged or impaired they are for compensation purposes. Getting the balance right is very important for my work in terms of assisting them to succeed in their aim ( compensation) in the first instance AND at the same time acknowledging that once this process is over they can truly heal from their diagnosed PTSD, anxiety, and depression disorders with the right support and treatment. Helping them to believe they can improve, they can unlearn unhelpful behaviours. One area you did not touch upon is chronic pain and I wondered if the esteemed therapists were able to help clients who struggle with chronic pain and how that may be related to trauma.
YES!!!! Chronic pain goes with C-PTSD and it may be related to attachment disorder, which predisposes a person to PTSD and/or chronic pain. I find Dr. Peter Abaci’s books and blog extremely helpful in understanding what happens in the brain when pain becomes chronic. He employs a variety of treatment modalities, including art therapy, at his pain clinic in the Bay area. He also writes for WebMD and the New York Times.
This has been a very enjoyable and useful series. I especially liked session number five, because it makes total sense to me that we are totally integrated so mind, body and spirit function together. I love having the client show me how they feel and where in the body they feel it
As a pastor and chaplain, the series contributed to my understanding of trauma, the ways it may be embodied, recognizing some of the many ways the experience may manifest in a person’s life, and current thought on helpful and non-helpful ways to work with individuals who suffer with trauma’s aftermath. The series has enhanced my ability to be present and attuned, and more knowledgeably offer spiritual care and healing in my work.
This is a very powerful and helpful presentation. Thank you for what you are doing. I believe you are changing society as a whole by giving clear reasoned language to what many have just thought was being odd because they were just “mentally ill.” For those clients that cannot participate in religion or a religion other than their own, I can take these principles of connection and mindfulness and rework them and look for alternatives to yoga and some martial arts and offer them an alternative to those options illustrated here. (Ask any true Yoga Master or Yogi Guru if simple yoga can be separated from the Hindu philosophies and experiences and they will let you know that it is not possible to completely disconnect even the most basic yoga from the religion because the poses themselves are part of their religious experience.) I am excited to learn of these things… Especially to not exclude “the story” but to use it to look for incongruities in posture. I feel really clear about this new path and am grateful that you have offered it this week!!!
I am the mother of a 50 year old daughter who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s and PTSD (including a dissociative disorder and psychogenic seizures). This series has been very helpful to me in more fully understanding the impact of the abusive disciplinary practices she experienced at a private school she attended as a teenager (for special needs students) and how it continues to affect her. As an educational consultant, The sessions were very well organized and were very engaging in the way the information was presented. My daughter works with a local neuropsychologist, but I would love to find a way to have her work with someone who has the level of expertise and experience as the presenters in this series. I am very grateful for the hard work among the presenters and organizers of this series to make it widely available at not cost. I signed up for the Gold Subscription to have the information available as part of my long term estate planning for my daughter. I want anyone who plays a guiding role in her life in the future to have access to the information so they can better understand how to support her. Thank you!
Thank you for your time and efford you have put into this series. It realy was educational, informative and helpfull. I Would like a certificate of completion of this series that mentions the content and sources. Thank you so much.
I remember seeing someone working on an issue at an open seat at Esalen circa 1999-2000 and thinking she has told this same story in couple of previous open seats and I was about to leave, somewhat in frustration, and all of sudden she went deeper and got into the emotional core. I took away from that sometimes a client has to keep circling down like a bird, as they tell the same story, probably not feeling they are safe yet or really being listened to, and as that adaptation takes place, they circle closer to the underlying feeling. and they may feel “held” by the leader, group, place etc they touch upon it, like a bird landing at last.
Thank you for offering this. It was incredibly rich and interesting to see over time how trauma treatment has evolved over the last 30 years. Great work by all involved.
As a family medicine physician, I worked on an Indian reservation for 20+ years. For some time, I’ve been able to enjoy embedded mental health services in my work. In my own personal journey, I have studied qigong, yoga and conscious dance. In this next phase of my career, I plan to integrate the deep experiences of my life and studies into movement practices to address healing trauma.
Thank you for helping me to integrate my knowledge and clarify with wonderful motivation the next steps I need to take!
I am not a practitioner. I grew up w/these concepts from my grandmother and family – not in a Western scientific way but as just a simply, critical way of being. I have enjoyed this series because I got to see the faces of those whom I’ve read and hear the terms of art for what I know, practice and attempt to share & teach. Thank you for this fabulous and useful opportunity for little ole me to learn from the frontline practitioners.
Blessings,
Shannon Dewith-McCormick
I am convinced that when we touch each other and other living things physically, emotionally, rationally and spiritually and at the same time non-judgementally, with unconditional love and intent to facilitate healing, that we help each other to restructure our DNA and eventually help ourselves and others to evolve to a higher level of existence.
Thank you for sharing for free. Very relevant in my work with a client. I wish I could subscribe for gold, but my resources are not much these times.
I am opening up to take into account even more than I do up to now the somatic cues (posture, expressions, movements and changes of them) and open up to them. I am going to do a lot more bottom up technics together with a mindful approach to them as well as propositions to clients to take up some kind of physical action and arts (like yoga and martial arts ). So powerfully bringing self reliance. Thank you so mutch!!!
Extremely helpful and thought provoking. Gets down to changing the brain through a physical action which is so simple yet complicated! Thank you for sharing this valuable knowledge.
Excellent information. Thank you. I have been studying psycho-sensory modalities which often seem to move clients ahead from trauma more effectively the talk therapies. This perspective of the somatic narrative is certainly great food for thought and further study.
This is a great series. I wish I had the money to buy a subscription; but I am not a practitioner but just a SAHM trying to understand the cumulative complex trauma that resides in my own body — both from my motherhood journey and from my childhood experiences. I am a big fan of Stephen Porges’s work and Bessel’s work; and interpersonal neurobiology resonates with my lived experience. It would be great if you offered a low monthly payment plan of some sort.
Thank you so much for offering this webinar of Trauma and the limbic system.
I am an Elementary School Counsellor and part of my position in the schools is to work with children who have major behavioural challenges and write up behaviour plans and consult with teachers. A big part of my position is to inform teachers and parents on the impact trauma on our bodies and how this is demonstrated through our bodies. Very difficult understanding for many… Many of my students came to mind throughout this session and gave me more insight and understanding on how to implement this in the development of behaviour plans and counselling.
I really appreciate the sharing of this knowledge, Caroline
I appreciate that you make this free for those of us who aren’t practitioners. It helps me enormously, as a ‘client’. It is so hard to find a therapist in the UK who isn’t purely a talking therapy, or who can do the bodywork without the psychological understanding. The care and dedication you all show is heartening, and restores my faith. I have found a therapist, who has a little knowledge of some of these concepts, and I’m also doing my own follow up work using your ideas – starting with reading ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ a couple of years ago. All of you talking about your work gives me hope that even in my 50s I can find a way forward from the elements of cPTSD that still impact me. It also gives me hope that there will be more understanding of the long term impacts of childhood abuse/trauma, and better ways of helping those of us who carry its impacts with us. Thank you.
Healing Intergenerational Trauma – is the essential ( missing) component that needs to be addressed within Indigenous Communities impacted by residential schools and systemic discrimination. I would love to support this work being taught in the context of Truth & Reconciliation Canada, to heal the healer as well as the client population.
As a former dancer and yoga practitioner and yoga teacher in training I really appreciate to hear all the incredible research backing up this practice and how it can help people who might not benefit from mindfulness (also part of my training). I also learned how retelling a one-event trauma might not be helpful. I always thought it was helpful for children so that they could put their emotions into words and make sense of them. I would like more clarification on this though. Perhaps it works differently with kids?
I will be graduating from an MFT program this month and feel like I learned more about trauma and how to treat my clients than what I got from all previous graduate learning on the topic. The fact that it was free and accessible to me this week was amazing and I’m so grateful.
Excellent series. I don’t need the teaching details to conduct therapy, but as a trauma survivor, I appreciate hearing your approaches that confirm much of my own therapy, especially bodywork that finally opened the door to real change. There is always a way out, but it depends on a person’s determination and perseverance to keep searching for methods that create breakthroughs and lasting change. Opening up this program as a free offering occasionally is a powerful way to enable sufferers to know what to look for in therapy.
Very relevant and informative. Thank you for sharing for free. I can use these with a client who experienced sexual abuse. I would love to subscribe for gold, but My resources are not enough.
Thank you for you for a most helpful program. I am a lay person who suffered childhood trauma but could never find the right therapy. You sessions have not only opened up the door of knowledge but also the door of possibilities. I hope to be able to seek out a therapist who uses these methods.
I will be using this training in an effort to mitigate trauma response through building resilience in youth. So very appreciative of all the information and shared experiences.
Brava, bravo, alll great and so wonderful to know you are bringing this to so many. I am unable to purchase at this time, but I have so many times received, just-in-time, insights from your programs so useful over and over again. The world needs you and this work big time right now, maybe more than ever. Thank You all.
Thank you do much for making this available free online. I’m a complex trauma survivor, not a therapist and I am working on a memoir that integrates attachment theory, trauma and healing work and I really appreciated all the knowledge glove shared. I can’t afford to sign up for a gold subscription even at the discounted price but I would have loved to have access to all the videos if it had been possible. So much gratitude for your life changing work and commitment to helping people recover.
Freed me up to share what I know with my supervisees and to encourage them in their work with trauma.
As I am a yoga instructor, I can say that yoga is very good activity to heal a traumatized person.
And yoga is helpful in many ways.
I am thankful for this free course
Thank you
Love and Blessings
Krishna
I am inordinately grateful for allowing me access to this course. I would not have been the changed therapist i am today without it. I appreciate the gold subscribers because there is no way I could have afforded this. Of course my regret is all the bits I am not getting to hear. My mind is literally packed full. thank you from cape Town, South Africa.
Thank you for this session. The practical ideas were presented in a straightforward, digestible manner. I will use the ideas about reading the “somatic narrative”, changing actions, limbic system bottom approaches, and changing perceptions to the benefit of many clients.
I love these videos and have learned so much. What I would love to see is actual application of so many of these techniques (mock sessions). From the beginning where psychoeducation is provided to grounding/stabilizing techniques and then the actual sessions where techniques are demonstrated with a mock client. Would such a series be possible?
Many thanks.
Thanks for making this absolutely amazing series available! I am definitely enriched, especially in being able to enhance my use of somatic modality in my therapy with with clients.
Great series. Much of the information will be used in creating a therapy product for children to be used in trauma treatment. Many thanks,
Tom
Thank you so much. Your courses have changed the way that I think about things and work with people. lots to reflect on further as so much material is covered in each session!
Very useful, how to combine talking cure with body perceptions.
Thank you all.
I really enjoyed the series. Very informative and applicable. Can’t wait to apply with my clients
Thank you so much!! Great work, great inspiration
Enjoyed this