Collectively Rooted

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lecture you will be able to 

• Explain how neuroscience has enhanced our understanding of trauma

• Describe critical parts of the brain and how the damage trauma causes impairs their functioning, leading to altered perceptions of the world

• Explain the difference between limited traumatic experiences and developmental trauma

• Explain the consequences of developmental trauma and the adaptations of the children who experience it and what that means for their adult lives

• Discuss the importance of visceral experiences in both the making of and treatment for trauma

• Examine and compare contemporary treatment paradigms and their limitations  

• Critique treatment modalities that fall outside of the modern repertoire of treatment for trauma  

• List 3 characteristics of what can happen to the brains and bodies of traumatized people

• Explain how the amygdala facilitates communication between the brain and body  

• Discuss barriers to treatment for traumatized people 

• Discuss the core issues of trauma 

OUTLINE

TREATING TRAUMA EFFECTIVELY

• Introduction to EMDR

• Studying EMDR

• The limitations of EMDR

• Brain anatomy and how trauma rewires the brain

THE ACE STUDY

• The ACE study and the prevalence of trauma

• High ACE scores are associated with a range of negative adult outcomes

WHAT WE KNOW AND HOW WE KNOW IT

• Technology has limitations

• What brain imaging can tell us

• The developing brain

• Trauma interferes with the autonomic housekeeping of the body

• Cultural responses to trauma

• Development of the survival brain 

• The importance of our map of the world and how it develops

• Changing the map with deep visceral experiences

• Development of the frontal lobe

WHAT CAN BRAIN SCANS TEACH US

• Brain anatomy and how its functioning is disrupted by trauma

• Brain activity in scans of people having a flashback

• What we can infer from brain scans and what they show

• How trauma renders us speechless

• What we can learn from scans of “the default mode of the brain” versus scans of people who have experienced chronic trauma

• What we understand about trauma at different stages of brain development 

• Trauma changes specific parts of the brain and how they function

EARLY CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

• Impulsivity and trauma

• The finger-wagging part of the brain and how juvenile programs focus on a system that won’t work for many traumatized kids

• Teaching kids self control with activities that require self restraint

• The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and restoring a sense of time with visceral sensations

• The importance of raising awareness for traumatized people about their ability to change their internal state and regulate themselves

• The anterior cingulate and filtering what is and is not relevant

• Attention deficit disorder and trauma

TRAUMA THERAPY AND MEDITATION

• Examining how you organize your relationship to yourself 

• The relationship between the survival brain and the frontal lobe 

• Getting control over the primitive part of our brain with body-oriented methods

• Our cognitive, social brain cannot override the emotional, survival brain

• The midline structures of the cortex that is devoted to you and your relationship to yourself

• Activating the midline structures of the brain with interoception and breathing exercises

• Reactivity and accessing your internal experiences by exercising the pathway to the survival brain via the midline structures of the brain

• Why meditation can be difficult for traumatized people

BREATHING EXERCISES AND THEIR BENEFITS

• A breathing exercise

• Notice your thoughts

• Noticing your body

• Noticing your breath

• The importance of being in tune with each other

• Heart rate variability

CHALLENGES WITHIN THE SYSTEM

• The importance of talk and why it can take so long to be able tell your story

• Group therapy is a useful setting that is not widely available

• Access and barriers to mental health services 

PSYCHODRAMA WORKSHOPS

• Things didn’t happen are as important as events that did happen

• How psychodrama workshops can help you know what it feels like to have positive experiences

• Working in three dimensions during psychodrama workshops

• Suspending time and leaning into space and imagination

• The real and the ideal

• The right person at the right time in the right place

NEUROFEEDBACK

• How neurofeedback works

• People can learn to regulate their brainwaves using neurofeedback

• Neurofeedback can radically improve executive functioning 

• There is a spectrum of body-oriented treatments that can quiet the survival brain and enhance the temporal lobe

THE STORIES WE TELL OURSELVES

• The roles we all play

• Can we go beyond the roles we play