Course curriculum

  • 1

    Neuroscience and the Frontiers of Trauma Treatment

    • Neuroscience and the Frontiers of Trauma Treatment Video Part 1

    • Neuroscience and the Frontiers of Trauma Treatment Video Part 2

    • Neuroscience and the Frontiers of Trauma Treatment Video Part 3

    • CE Instructions

    • NCBTMB CEs

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Building on the foundational conception of trauma, this lecture explores the neuroscience of trauma and a spectrum of body-centered interventions aimed at helping people integrate traumatic memories. At the core of trauma’s persistence is the dysfunction it induces in the brain and body. Neuroscience gives us a window into the consequences of both limited traumatic experiences and chronic trauma. Within that context, you will learn how trauma rearranges the brain’s wiring - specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust.This lecture will show how trauma affects the developing mind and brain, and teach how trauma affects self-awareness and self-regulation. 

This lecture will discuss and demonstrate affect regulation techniques, examine ways to deal with fragmented self-experience, and teach the benefits of yoga, EMDR, meditation, neurofeedback, music, and theater.

Course duration 90 minutes


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