THERAPY FOR TRAUMA & PTSD
The mantra of the mind battling trauma says to itself; I should have done something, I am overwhelmed, I am trapped, I am not good enough, I cannot stop this from hurting.
The brain and body’s last-ditch effort to survive is known as the fight, flight, or freeze response. Increased heart rate, blood pressure, work of breathing, all initiated to fight this nonphysical threat. The brain and body work together to divert resources to the survival of the self. Shutting down the metabolism, we need everything we have to run or fight so we survive.
But we cannot run from or fight our memory, and our internal negative beliefs, therefore the energy remains, cycling, manifesting in panic attacks, frustration, the feelings of injustice and inadequacy. It doesn’t create violence toward others; it creates self-destruction, isolation, and fear, that they can’t have connections, fix what is happening inside, or control their feelings like they once could.
Fighting trauma brings complete and utter exhaustion, both mental and physical. And what does the mind do in response to this? It shuts down and compels the Post Traumatic Stress-afflicted person to isolate themselves, which often makes everything worse. The brain decides it must isolate to protect from any possible trigger and close off emotion to accomplish survival. Isolation becomes the suit of armor protecting the shrinking into nonexistence, a self-implosion to limit collateral damage. The noble way to exit involves the least number of people.
TREATMENT APPROACH
Introduction to EMDR.
Treatments like CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and CPT (Cognitive Processing Therapy) are great for the analytical side of trauma, but it all goes out the window when triggers and thoughts start the fight or flight, flooding our bodies with the physical reaction to our traumas.
These are important pieces that contribute to healing after the trauma is processed. CBT and CPT work well on the mind after the connection to the body is sorted out. The detachment of our survival instinct from memory and emotion must take place so our executive function can operate and both sides of our brain can work to process the information. That is where EMDR comes in. When the memory is taken out of the limbic system and moved into adaptive information processing, the brain does the work it was previously blocked from accomplishing. There is no longer a need for survival instinct; it is a memory, without the five senses putting us back there in the moment. Desensitization and Reprocessing, The D and R of EMDR.
Processing by our own minds is what is needed as opposed to reframing the way it makes sense to someone who has not experienced the trauma. Let’s talk about the misuse of “trauma”. Again, this is not the Hollywood version. Trauma is anything causing you to be hurt, that your brain decides it can’t make sense of or put away at the time. The brain therefore protects it from being processed due to its ability to overwhelm us. It is most often put into the something is wrong with me category, or “I”.
The big lie of “I am not”, attached to those events and emotions is continuously reinforced with every moment until we believe it.
The truth is almost all of us have heard that lie in our heads from one experience or another, I am not good enough, I am not worthy, loveable, safe, the list goes on. A core negative belief is erroneously reinforced by some experience. It is often repeated, and tied to events, nightmares, and conversations, so our brain can make sense of the pain that existed in the previous trauma.