It is a commonly held belief that it is necessary to dig into painful and repressed memory in order to resolve wounds from the past; and while intellectual insight can be valuable, it is rarely enough to heal trauma. Trauma is more a body state than a cognitive construct (for more information see my post: How is trauma held in the body?) and because the body lives and responds only in the present, that is also where the trauma lives. It is more effective to address what is showing up now then to bring up more triggers from the past that may not be relevant to your healing process. The healing process doesn’t have to hurt and be difficult. If you’re white-knuckling your way through sessions, relapsing into coping mechanism or mental health symptoms after a session, or hitting the same wall over and over, you may be suffering unnecessarily.
When a traumatic event is re-visited your body’s physiology reenacts its response from the past, essentially training the nervous system to get better and better at going into that traumatized survival state every time. Neurologically when we go into a survival state our rational, creative, thinking brain goes offline, making it physically impossible to access the mental flexibility (called neuroplasticity) to find new perspectives, problem solve or make new choices. Instead our old brain (the part of the brain located closer to the base of the skull that is in charge of survival responses) takes charge and rather than problem solving, the old brain goes directly to whatever coping mechanisms have worked in the past, however unhealthy or self-sabotaging they may be. This is why revisiting the past can feel just like experiencing it all over again, why it’s so difficult to get out of the pattern once it has started, and why flashbacks are more than just memories.
Why not instead train the brain and body to get better at self-regulation? Instead of asking your body to practice going into a survival response, I use short and simple neuro-somatic exercises to gently re-pattern the nervous system so that it gets better at remaining calm in the face of triggers. Rather than addressing the whole body memory all at once, (for more information see my post: How is trauma held in the body?), the exercises I use strengthen the ability for self-regulation, and safety so that the body gets better and better at staying out of old patterns and coping mechanisms. This steady habit-building allows the work to be stable and long lasting. After some practice this increased regulation makes it possible to process past trauma more cognitively and release the repressed memory and/or emotions without overwhelming the body and triggering old patterns, (for more information see my post: Why can’t we think our way through mental blocks?).
Comments