Understanding a person’s natural trauma response helps reframe our narrative and our therapeutic approach. The article below describes a set of questions one can ask that acknowledge that people experiencing trauma, especially developmental or early childhood trauma, did their best to survive.
“..being told my brain was permanently imbalanced and that I’d need medication for the rest of my life shut down any capacity to stay curious and hopeful that there might be another outcome.”
“If the current narrative isn’t working for you, there’s an entirely different way of thinking about distress using trauma-informed relational neurobiology that is deeply honoring of our humanity, of our infinite complexity. Inhabiting a new understanding of how the human nervous system works helped me get off all my psych meds (there were 5), and heal the underlying trauma that partially led to the diagnostic labels in the first place.”
“Understanding the way that our activated nervous systems respond to threats using behavioral adaptations like depression, dissociation, anxiety and rage can help us reframe distress as something that happens not to a select group of “mentally ill” people, but instead as a natural response to negative experiences of power. For me, this understanding helps reduce stigma of (so-called) mental illness and deeply honors the extent to which psychosocial factors play into distress.”
Here are the questions that help reframe our narrative:
- “What has happened to you?” (How is Power operating in your life?)
- “How did it affect you?” (What kind of Threats does this pose?)
- “What sense did you make of it?” (What is the Meaning of these situations and experiences to you?)
- “What did you have to do to survive?” (What kinds of Threat Response are you using to respond to this experience? eg — dissociation, anger, defensiveness, control of others, anxiety, depression, numbness and boredom could all be threat responses)
Brainspotting Therapy with Elaine Korngold
I am a Certified Brainspotting Therapist and an Approved Consultant and would be happy to talk to you about Brainspotting. Brainspotting therapy accesses the genius of our deeper emotional brain and honors each person’s natural trauma response. During the healing process I am fortunate to observe how intelligent, inventive, and intuitive all human beings are. Creativity is revealed through their resilience, survival, and recovery. The processing that occurs with clients focused on a Brainspot is deep, rapid, and unpredictable. During each session I wait for the surprise and I am rarely disappointed.
With your focused vision and my attuned presence and verbal guidance, emotional Brainspots can be released in a gentle and non-invasive way. There is no need to be in chronic emotional pain. Please text or email me for a free consultation.