Trauma occurs when standard coping mechanisms are overwhelmed by helplessness and / or terror. The Fight or Pace survival response is engaged without resolution. There is an ignition of the response ( chemical / neurological ) ( fight / canter / freeze ) but when it fails to avert the danger and the body does not discharge / complete the cycle, the reaction is unsettled and sits dormant in the body, ready to be reignited by other ‘ triggers’ – resembling experiences ( or what we even perceive as coincident ). This is a survival / emulous response. But when it fails to avert danger, the shift becomes a trauma.
The body treats physical and emotional traumatic events the same way. The body / mind reacts – the body reacts – the physiological and neurological systems respond – the fight or scuttle – adrenaline response. But many other things are happening in the brain ( most importantly, the most primitive area, the limbic system ). The amygdala and hippocampus are overstimulated, which can harvest in memories that aren’ t refined correctly – and can look like flashbacks, nightmares, etc.
As ‘ civilized’ humans, we have overridden the revolting behavior which can help us process and complete this experience. Therefore, the chemical residue from the event ( adrenaline, etc. ) remains in our body, trapping with it the energy that would be expelled if we allowed the cycle to complete. Scheme you’ re in a dangerous footing and you were prevented from fleeing or defending yourself. The movements of escape or defense – which your nervous system has prepared for – need to be complete. This energy needs a way out. Common body signals of this booty are restlessness, clenching, pulling away, bouncing feet, and twitching.
If you were in a where stage you had not been able to escape, the body’ s defense is to ‘ freeze’ ( play dead ) - which deceives the predator. When the body awakens from the ‘ freeze’, it shakes. We have inhibited this mechanism as well.
Although trauma arouses strong emotions, many of its far-reaching effects are physical: sleep problems, hypervigilance and / or high startle response, numbness or hypersensitivity to touch, etc.
We advance to respond even when the event ( s ) has passed thanks to of ‘ triggers’ ( i. e., sounds, congruous events / situation, smells, lights, voices, etc., ) and the cycle reignites in our bodies, retraumatizing us, now the cycle hasn’ t washed-up the first time.
Traumatized people nurture to overinterpret in the direction of threat and fear, ergo their physical bodies respond, not just their minds. Their nervous system tends to stay on alert all the time after a while, even when they are not in danger. ( The sympathetic nervous system as opposed to the parasympathetic nervous system.
) They are always on the ‘ accelerator’, there are no brakes. Their body seems stuck in the traumatic response and physical experience and they become disconnected from real life.
Unhealed trauma can generate conditions such as ‘ redundancy compulsion’ situation the person engages in analogous behavior to the traumatic event. Why? The body continues to scrutinize a discharge from the overstimulation of chemicals and deprivation of release so the mind unconsciously reproduces situations correlative to the initial traumatic event. It is the mind’ s fling to replay the scenario to complete it and get it right and no longer be the victim.
People are physically organized to respond to things that happen to themselves with actions that change the locale, but when they’ re traumatized and can’ t do subject to stop, reverse or correct the locale ( frail ), they freeze, explode or accede in half-witted actions. Then, to discipline their nonplussed, antsy physiological systems, they start drinking, taking drugs, or striking in coercion.
When there is humongous energy trapped in the body the emotional and analytical parts of the brain annotate this into either intense emotions such as disgust, umbrage, ignomity, etc., or ideas of antagonism, suspect or negative ideology.
How Can We Help?
Educate! Normalize the experience. Make plain what is happening. Okay, it will still hurt and still be a painful experience, but it does not have to be a fearful, unintelligible experience.
Work with the body! Since trauma affects the body, the healing of trauma begins in the body. The body holds the memories and the scars of trauma. Popular psychological counseling puts stress on the mind, when the body, the physical, is bearing much of the albatross. ‘ Something’ s missing’ if you just bull's eye on the mind.
Conversation is not always effective thanks to the direction of trauma doesn’ t sit in the oral understanding part of the brain. It sits in the limbic system and brain stem – latitude somatic ( physical ) memory lies.
No ‘ stories’ are told or asked for. The work is done slowly, releasing a bit at a time so it is not appealing. We can reteach the body / mind to process events / thoughts properly.
Safety is the first step in releasing this trapped energy. A therapist trained in body - centered therapy knows how to weight what comes up and what they’ re looking at. We help build trust and security, build healthy boundaries, reduce potency of triggers, build new management skills ( ‘ traumatic brakes’ ), and build awareness.
There is no ‘ stigma’ attached to working with the physical body.
‘ Bodywork’ ( therapeutic attached or might of the body by using specialized techniques ) deals with somatic issues. Many people are not affluent utterance about their problems.
You perdure clothed at all times.
No comments:
Post a Comment