Frontiers Friday #44. Trauma
Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development
Frontiers Friday #44. Trauma
This is a topic that is close to many clinicians and clients: Trauma.
Here are 5 recommendations for this week on trauma.
Watch: The Wisdom of Trauma
I just saw this documentary 2 weeks ago which features Gabor Mate. It is deeply moving. If you work at the intersection of addiction and trauma, this is a must-watch. (Hat tip to Cherie D!)
Key Grafs:
- trauma is not happens to you but what happens inside of you as a result of what happens to you.
- 64% of in-mates had 6 or more of ACE (adverse childhood events)
- A predator knows who is unprotected
- "When you felt pain as a child, who did you speak to?"
- child don't get traumatised because they get hurt. They get traumatised because they are *alone* with their hurt.
- Attachment needs are non-negotiable
- first issue is not why the addiction but why the pain
- Myths of addiction:
a. addiction is a choice
b. Inherited disease
- Addiction is a normal response to trauma
- Addiction is a solution to the problem
a. to feel alive
b. to feel loved
c. to increase self-esteem
- Homeless people:
a acknowledge them
b biggest impact: feeling looked down on
c. when homeless pain gain housing, along of the pain and emotional stuff surfaces
- medical school almost seems to weed out those who are vulnerable
- modern meds not only separates mind from body but also from person from environment
- trauma is a lifelong energy of pushing it down. the same energy can be transformed.
(Please pardon that these's take-home points are mine. You'd need to watch the documentary to make more sense out of it.)
Bookworm: The Body Keeps Score
You might have heard these words that "the body remembers what the mind forgets."
This is a classic text by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. Others in the sensorimotor Psychotherapy and somatic based therapies have taken these ideas further.
Research: ACE Studies
The impact of adverse childhood events is well-documented. The 10 ACEs are: physical, sexual, emotional abuse; physical, emotional ne- glect; living with a family member who’s addicted to alcohol or other drugs, is depressed, has other mental illness or who’s imprisoned; witnessing a mother’s abuse; divorce or separation.
For people who have four types of childhood adversity — an ACE score of 4 — alcoholism risk increases 700 percent; attempted suicide increases 1200 percent. Heart disease and cancer nearly double. People with high ACE scores have more marriages, more broken bones, more depression, more prescription drug use, more obesity.)
Both the first 2 recommendation cite the ACE findings.
Listen: Richard Bentall on the causes of mental ill health
I was stoked to learn that British psychologist Richard Bentall appeared in this BBC Podcast The Life Scientific. (His books Madness Explained, and Doctoring the Mind packs a punch).
In this interview, he talked about the impact of trauma.
Key Grafs:
- childhood trauma (sexual abuse, bullying etc) , before the age of 16, increases the risk of psychosis by 3-fold.
- dose-response: more severe the trauma, the greater the risk.
- a third of the patients would not be ill if they didnt have traumatic experiences
- importance of enquiring and targeting early experiences.
- indiv traumas are more negative than collective ones (e.g., earthquakes).
Words Worth Contemplating:
"Safety is not the absence of threat. It is the presence of connection."
~ Gabor Mate.
Reflection:
What invisible wounds do we carry that needs the tenderness of our attention?
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Unintended Consequences
Unintended Consequences (Part II)
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