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Trauma is at the root cause of many of the mental health problems we face today.
Research from The University of Liverpool has found that traumatic life events are the single biggest cause of anxiety and depression.
And with one in three adults in the UK reporting experiencing a traumatic event at least once in their lifetime, it’s a lot more widespread than we commonly think.
Until recently, our understanding of psychological trauma was limited.
We thought it was something we could ‘get over’ and eventually move on from.
But new developments in the fields of neuroscience, developmental psychopathology, and interpersonal neurobiology have revealed that trauma causes actual physiological changes in the brain and body. It alters the brain’s alarm system and increases stress hormone activity, causing physical and emotional problems long after the event has taken place.
The good news is – advances in our knowledge about the basic processes that underlie trauma, have led to the development of innovative treatments that can help us heal, and move on with our lives. There are several different treatments out there to help those experiencing trauma and you can find out how to pay for them by claiming on your insurance here. One of these treatment methods that is gaining a lot of traction in recent times is different products derived from the cannabis plant, whether these are concentrated CBD (Cannabidiol) products, the likes of this thc distillate Canada and other locations have to offer to those suffering from early trauma’s or PTSD. These cannabinoids, and others, have been hailed by medical and scientific professionals as the potential new route to take when looking to change the neurobiology of a patient for the benefit of their health and wellbeing.
In this series of talks, we’ll explore three of these approaches, including:
You’ll learn how these unique insights can benefit your own life, but also your ability to help others too.
Trauma is an internal straitjacket created when a devastating moment is frozen in time. It stifles the unfolding of being, strangling our attempts to move forward with our lives. It disconnects us from our selves, others, nature and spirit. When people are overwhelmed by threat, we are frozen in fear. It is as if our instinctive survival energies are “all dressed up with no place to go.”
Somatic Experiencing offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity to heal. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatised? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually “immune” to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed.
Although humans possess regulatory mechanisms identical to those in animals, the function of these systems is often overridden by the rational mind. This restraint leads to the formation of a constellation of symptoms, including physical pain, emotional reactivity, cognitive dysfunction, depression and dissociation. Through the focal awareness of bodily sensation individuals are able to access the disconnected physiological action patterns, allowing the highly aroused survival energies to be safely and gradually re-regulated.
In this short introduction, Giselle will offer experiential exercises and some simple tools that can be used immediately in times of distress.
Giselle Genillard, founder and director of “SOS INTERNATIONALE”, is a Licensed Midwife, a member of the European Association of Body Psychotherapy (EABP), a Somatic Experiencing (SE) Practitioner,, a Touch-in-Parenting Instructor and founding Secretary of the Board of EASE, the European Association for Somatic Experiencing.
Giselle combines her training as a somatic therapist with the art of midwifery, the core principles of SE, and her widespread cross-cultural experiences. She works internationally, is multilingual, and was a member of trauma outreach teams in South-East India post-tsunami, New Orleans post-Katrina and post-colonial South Africa post-independence. Giselle brought Peter Levine’s (“Waking the Tiger”) SE trainings to England and France and teaches workshops related to traumatic stress worldwide. Giselle specializes in working with PTSD in early childhood disorders, adolescents, combat and high-stress situations, and international disasters.
The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of daily living powerfully shaping experiences of safety and influencing the capacity for connection. Polyvagal Theory, through the organizing principles of hierarchy, neuroception, and co-regulation, has revolutionized our understanding of how this system works. We now know that trauma interrupts the development of autonomic regulation and shapes the system away from connection into patterns of protection. For many clients, states of fight, flight, and collapse are frequent, intense, and prolonged while the state of safety and connection is elusive. Their autonomic nervous systems now respond in characteristic post-traumatic patterns of hyperarousal, hypervigilance, disconnection, and numbing.
A Polyvagal approach uses an updated map of the autonomic circuits that underlie behaviors and beliefs so clinicians can reliably lead their clients out of adaptive survival responses into the autonomically regulated state of safety that is necessary for successful treatment. Polyvagal Theory gives clinicians a guide to help clients safely tune into their autonomic states, reshape their nervous systems, and rewrite the trauma stories that are carried in their autonomic pathways.
Deb Dana, LCSW is a clinician and consultant specializing in working with complex trauma. She is a consultant to the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium in the Kinsey Institute, Clinical Advisor to Khiron Clinics, and an advisor to Unyte. She developed the Rhythm of Regulation Clinical Training Series and lectures internationally on ways Polyvagal Theory informs work with trauma survivors. Deb is the author of The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation, Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection: 50 Client-Centered Practices, co-editor of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies, and creator of the Polyvagal Flip Chart. For more information, please see: rhythmofregulation.com
The Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., over the past 30 years as he learned to set aside his trained assumptions and truly listen to his clients. It is a highly efficient and effective way of guiding clients to a state of inner clarity and compassion, the Self, from which they know how to heal themselves. From the Self, clients are able to calm and transform their troubling inner voices, the critical and anxious chatter, the compulsive distractions, their feelings of vulnerability, inadequacy, and overwhelm. These parts of the psyche are surprisingly responsive and resilient when addressed with respect and patience. They readily forsake their inner battles, and take on valuable inner roles once they are accepted and witnessed.
This application of family systems principles and techniques to inner systems is now widely used internationally in the treatment of trauma and severe diagnoses, as well as in non-clinical applications such as business consulting and meditation practice.
The healing and reorienting of their “inner families” in an environment of genuine acceptance, translates into concrete behavioral change, plus improved ability to relate well to people. IFS is a gentle, yet powerful, healing delivery system that releases the therapist from the need to be clever because it trusts and empowers the clients’ Self.
This presentation will introduce the basic principles and techniques of IFS, and how they can be applied in the treatment of trauma.
Richard Schwartz, PhD., began his career as a systemic family therapist and an academic. Grounded in systems thinking, Dr. Schwartz developed Internal Family Systems (IFS) in response to clients’ descriptions of various parts within themselves. He focused on the relationships among these parts and noticed that there were systemic patterns to the way they were organized across clients. He also found that when the clients’ parts felt safe and were allowed to relax, the clients would experience spontaneously the qualities of confidence, openness, and compassion that Dr. Schwartz came to call the Self. He found that when in that state of Self, clients would know how to heal their parts.
A featured speaker for national professional organizations, Dr. Schwartz has published many books and over fifty articles about IFS. Learn more at: https://ifs-institute.com/
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