Posts Tagged ‘neuroplasticity’
Florida NASW Conference, Trauma, and Fear
“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.”
German Proverb
Bindu Wiles post yesterday was about fear. Bindu has been a breath of complicity in my blogosphere and I am very glad to have stumbled upon her writing, her story, and her 21.5.800 Challenge of which I am partaking. Bindu’s story is one of trauma, survival and a renewal of self through therapy, yoga, buddhism, writing and breath. Her story is emblematic of what I spoke about yesterday at the National Association of Social Worker’s Florida Conference and what has resonated in my own life story and recovery from trauma and PTSD–a restoration of breath and renewal of self by way of writing, yoga, and contemplative practices (buddhist, christian and yogic alike). The passion I bring to my work, my speaking about the work, and into my life is one of feeling dedication and onus to perpetuate the discourse on what, for me, has been profound healing in my own life story and the stories of the patients/clients I have treated implementing the very things that brought about change for myself and my life.
“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is,” or so goes the German proverb above. I think this statement gets to the hear of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A primal fear, animal in nature, overcomes us when in a dangerous situation–our survival mechanism kicks in and tells us one of the following, ”Run, hide, fight, stop where you are” which translates to the built in mechanisms for fight, flight, freeze, submit. In danger we become like the deer in the wild, doing everything we can to survive. When PTSD is activated that survival response is locked in, “stuck” inside our body and brain and is not let go of when danger disappears. We are left a constant state of “danger” or “I am going to die.” Fear. We are in a constant state of danger/fear. Bindu’s post resonates with me because the pervasive fear of PTSD is so overwhelming and all-encompassing; something that logic cannot dissolve easily. The hair-trigger response to anything that resembles danger (often distorted by a high-alert PTSD brain) takes the traumatized person all the way to the feelings of “I am going to die” before the non-trauma brain could even assess the situation. PTSD brain doesn’t go from 0-100 in one second because in that “stuck” place it is already starting at 50 before even getting out of bed in the morning–high-alert is status-quo. And it is exhausting. I can tell you that from experience. Asleep is exhausting. Awake is exhausting. And every moment is living on the precipice of erupting with fear.
This is much of what I talked about yesterday at the conference as well as how yoga, creative arts, and animal-assisted therapies (equine, canine, and even dolphin) can have such profound healing properties for the PTSD brain and living experience. To me the combination of these elements combines the essential ingredients for the neurobiological issues of trauma and general brain “stuckness”. Yoga, mind/body practices, and breathwork help restore our self-regulating and self-soothing capacities, creative arts help to find an outlet for expression outside of talk, give empowerment, purpose, and competency in action to people often very broken by trauma, and animals, with their ability to be both intuitive and non-judgmental relationships for a trauma survivor who may not be able to bring themselves into interpersonal relationships due to trust, shame and fear. It was so interesting to me, as as I am always intrigued by the synchronicity of writing and happenstance, that while I was speaking about trauma and healing, Bindu was writing about her own plight in the fear of post-trauma, her intimate connection with her dog (an innately therapeutic relationship), and breath as restoration from out of a fear-infused moment. In two different contexts, but from the same origin, we were talking about the same things.
I thank Bindu, and other trauma survivors I have met, for her eloquent and open vocalization of her experience and her ability to bring her insight and her life practices in to play to combat trauma and PTSD. I continue to believe in the neuroplasticity of our brains–the ability of our brains to CHANGE. I believe in trauma survivors ability to heal. I believe in yoga, creative arts, and animals as amazing conduits to that healing. I believe in the power of speaking our own truths and how much vocalization can be a catalyst for change. I thank Bindu for her story and her post. As well as for her 21.5.800 Challenge which I think is an inspiration and a call for self-care and healing in itself. I thank all the wonderful participants at my workshop yesterday for their passions, enthusiasm, and the inspiration they brought me in the work they are doing, the dedication to their clients, and their openness to the creative explorations in therapy I was presenting to them.
WORD COUNT FOR TODAY: 804
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The Neurobiology of Our Wellness: Discussing Healing From Trauma for Sexual Assault Awareness Month
— Santiago Ramon y Cajal
Santiago Ramon y Cajal was a nobel laureate and one of the greatest neurobiologists in history. His assertion above has been proved more and more true as time has gone on and more elaborate science has been able to affirm the brain’s ability to change. REMEMBER one of my favorite words for 2010 NEUROPLASTICITY? I have been, as a trauma therapist, trauma survivor, and passionate advocate for people’s ability to find healing out of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, more invigorated by the day with the overwhelming new science proving that my experience and beliefs are more than just hypothesis in the mist.
I went to a lecture last Friday on “Neurobiology & Trauma” presented by the highly esteemed and eloquent Dr. Amanda Evans of Florida Gulf Coast University (and President of Florida’s National Association of Social Work). I love a good neurobiology and trauma lecture as much as the next person–well, ok I guess I love it probably more than MOST of the people next to me–but I never know what to expect and get nervous for a 101 type generalist discussion. I was blown away by Dr. Evans workshop–she affirmed all of what I have already learned and threw her own vantage point into the mix in a refreshing way.
One of the things she stressed, and I loved her description (I will paraphrase), was the difference between a traumatic experience, trauma survivor, and a person living with Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I loved that she made this distinction because as a trauma therapist in a small field with this focus–most mental health professionals don’t specialize in this area–I have found there are so many perpetuated myths and misconceptions about PTSD that often get passed on as truths to clients and other professionals. Some of the greatest myths I have heard perpetuated by other mental health professionals (well-intentioned but can be so damaging for clients and the perceptions of PTSD as a whole) are:
- PTSD is a terminal diagnosis–You will have it forever.
- PTSD is incurable, un-healable and can only be moderated with medication.
- PTSD exists if you have even one or two of the symptoms and even if they go away if they return (even one symptom) then it means you have had it all along.
- PTSD happens to anyone who has experienced trauma–if something traumatic happened you have PTSD.
- PTSD is treated with talk therapy and medication–there are no other treatment approaches that do any good.
- …I know there are more but these are the biggest.
Dr. Evans, in her eloquence, stated: (paraphrased)
Again, this is my paraphrasing of her words but the gist is what she stated. It is always exciting for me to hear another professional, especially a well-versed specialist in the area of trauma, neurobiology, and diagnosis, describe what I know to be true as well. Our brains can change. The very nature of our own capacity for survival–mind,body, and spirit–that help us to SURVIVE are what can entrench that survival instinct and create a disordered response to the world–one that is all survival mode all the time. This entrenched way of being that becomes a disordered response to the world in all aspects (mind,body, and spirit) are PTSD. We can chip away at those responses and CHANGE our brain with the same resilience and survival capacity that brought us into a PTSD state in the first place. The brain and our humanity are complex but also simple–we survive and hopefully through work we can do more than that and begin to THRIVE. This is true for trauma survivors and everyone overcoming difficulties in life.
This also relates so much to MIND, BODY, and SPIRIT WELLNESS in that it gives hope and the potential for hope and change in ourselves and our lives grounding in reality and science! Whether you are dealing with traumatic issues, stress, anxiety, or any emotionally distressing experience you can know that there is hope in our world and in our own BRAINS for CHANGE. Neuroscientists are saying it, therapists are saying it, and the illusions and myths are being dispelled to make way for the truths of hard science and soft science. I have known my own truth in my life, PTSD, and recovery journey in a visceral way…these new facts only help me to depict this truth concretely for others and be able to be an instiller of hope in my clients lives rather than handing out terminal diagnosis of disorder with no end.
APRIL is the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness month and in the honor of that I wanted to discuss the exciting world of hope in recovery and healing from traumatic experience. I hope more people can believe in themselves, their brains, their spirits, their bodies and the ability to find healing from a variety of sources! I discovered yoga as an avenue to my own wellness and found, through neurobiology and the roots of trauma and trouble with speech in trauma, that movement can often be a great outlet for emotional pain when talk cannot. I hope everyone, trauma survivor, and just those surviving their own issues of life, takes the time to search for their own avenues to wellness! What do you love? What brings you comfort? Start there and reach out for professional help if you need it–there are ways to healing and there are people who can help!
All my thoughts and blessings to those suffering from emotional pains today and every day.
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Why Live Half Empty Lives? : Exploring Trauma, PTSD, & Healing
The old glass half empty versus glass half full is an overused phrase but most overused phrases become so because they are both succinct and apt–as is this particular tome of truth. So often we look at life, emotional distress, and healing from a glass half empty vantage point and in doing so we short change ourselves and our own capacity to find healing and wellness in our minds, hearts, and spirits.
I spoke in my 10 Words of Inspiration for 2010 post about the word “neuroplasticity” which is defined as the brain’s ability to CHANGE. What a fascinating and optimistic truism of neurobiology that we, as humans, have been privileged to discover. And what wonderful hope this truth can bring in life and healing if we choose to see it.
I was made privy on Sunday, via a facebook link, about a post from May 2009 by Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s “Paging Dr. Gupta” blog, medical correspondent for CNN. He was asked whether there is healing from PTSD and his opinion, I believe more personal than medical, dictated that there was no full healing from PTSD and that it was a constant, lifelong struggle just to manage. I felt provoked, by the certitude of his assertion to leave the following comment on this post that I think describes in full my vantage point on the matter (as old as the post was it was just too in my core to say something):
Hello,
It is always a difficult thing as a survivor of trauma and sufferer from PTSD to tell your story. Thank you Dr. Gupta for doing that–it takes much bravery and internal strength. I think, also, that it is hard when you are in the immediate throes of traumatic experience and the aftermath of PTSD to see outside of it–very understandably so. I remember sitting on the side of traumatic experience where I thought there could be no relief or release and unable to find anyone that would insinuate otherwise. It is, again, so understandable to be so deep inside the pain of trauma and not yet in on a path of reprieve and healing that it is hard to imagine real healing or reprieve is possible.
I am a trauma therapist who has worked extensively with combat veterans, survivors of sexual trauma, sufferers of domestic violence, war torture and a variety of other traumatic issues to include chronic illness, eating disorders, and addictions. I have also integrated an extensive amount of mindfulness practices, mind/body techniques, yoga methods, animal-bond therapies and creative arts to facilitate healing in my own recovery as a trauma survivor over the years and in present-day in the lives of my clients. I have found that a multitude of approaches can facilitate a great amount of healing even to the point of being curative in most respects.
Can things be triggering to a person with traumatic history? Yes. But that does not PTSD make. PTSD is misunderstood so often and in that there are a lot of professionals and survivors alike giving themselves or their clients these, as I call them, “terminal PTSD diagnosis”. Telling people with PTSD that they have it forever, there is no way out, is beyond demoralizing it is minimizing a human’s ability to heal or (as we have learned from the study of neuroplasticity in the brain) the brain’s capacity, neurologically, to CHANGE ITSELF.
We learn survival response in overload during traumatic experience and when it gets “stuck” PTSD ensues. PTSD is a cluster of sever symptoms that equal up to a disorder by definition. We are all effected by the things that happen in our lives and painful experience leaves a mark. We cannot erase the existence of traumatic experience from our memories but there is possibility to heal the traumatic response and that stuckness of the survival mechanism so that one is not diagnostically, by definition, a sufferer of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
Are there moments we are reminded of painful experience? Yes. Are there moments that might trigger that memory? Yes. But we also have a way to pull ourselves out–body, mind, and spirit–of the PTSD of trauma and live a healthful life. I have done this and I work to help others do the same daily as a trauma therapist. I believe in neuroplasticity, the brain’s capacity to change and essentially heal itself back to repair. I believe in all of our abilities to find our own resilience and wellness. These things are not easy and there is a process but I will not tell my clients that their PTSD is terminal–this was not true for me and I don’t believe it has to be true for others.
All my best wishes, prayers, and hopes for healing to all those suffering from PTSD and to yourself Dr. Gupta–I believe in your potential to heal and find wellness!
Teresa Bennett Pasquale, LCSW
http://www.embodymentalhealth.com
I figured that my comment would go into the blogosphere oblivion and then today I received the following email from Emily Van Horn, a somatic and energy bodywork professional from Santa Monica, California:
SUBJECT: thank you!
FROM: Emily Van Horn
Hello Teresa,
I just wanted to say thank you so much for your comment to Dr. Gupta. As a trauma healing practitioner myself, I was appalled when reading that post that someone in such a position of “authority” would promote the mis conception that people can only manage their symptoms but can’t ever heal from PTSD. I see the opposite of that on a daily basis in my own healing practice.
I wrote a comment that was never posted so it’s a relief to see that your was. Again, thank you for taking the time to share your truth and help dispel the misinformation that is being promoted about the human capacity to heal from traumatic experiences.
many blessings,
Emily
I had been discussing earlier that day with my friend and co-professional Michele Rosenthal over at Heal My PTSD.com the impact a survivor and trauma professional’s voice can have when leant to the prospects and hopes for a healing journey. That is why I started all the work I have, am trying (slowly) to write the memoir of my trauma experience and healing journey and created my website to expand people’s vantage points of potential angles and paths to healing. Then there are the days I wonder if I am shouting into an abyss with only my own echo. I know we all have those days. Yesterday, on all fronts was not one of those days. From the wonderful comments I got from people on my Karma-Infuse Your Life post to the wonderful surprise of an email from Emily (LOOK FOR UPCOMING INTERVIEW WITH EMILY) I really felt as though my dreams, hopes, and personal journey of healing had some purpose and place as I shout into the void with my voice and my story.
My hope for everyone is HOPE. A hope for healing. A hope for peace. A hope for a CHANGE OF MIND–as neuroplasticity tells us is possible for all of us with the right amount of effort. See what we can do when we just try. I tell my clients that all the time and they surprise themselves with proving that truism for themselves. I hope for the hope of healing for Dr. Sanjay Gupta and all of the readers of his writing about trauma and all those who have not found the own healing properties and resources in their own minds, hearts, and spirits. IT is there. I believe in that.
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