Posted by Daisym on April 22, 2007, at 20:29:50
In reply to Re: little baby memories *CA trigger****, posted by gazo on April 22, 2007, at 19:38:23
I think one of the most fascinating things about the brain is how "smart" it is -- it adapts to the situation. For young children, if the fight or flight response were to kick in, the brain's response to raise the heart rate and prepare the muscles for action would serve to make them more vulnerable to bleeding to death if injured. But the freeze response --dissociation ---instead mobilizes the shunting of blood away from limbs and releases a flood of endogenous opioids - killing pain, producing calm and giving a person a sense of psychological distance from what is happening. But even though there is a freeze, the brain is in brute survival mode. Breathing slows down, fear floats away, the body goes numb and time is distorted and slow.
From what I've learned about working with young children, the key to reducing the symptoms of PTSD is reenactment. The brain tries to make the trauma into something predictable and "boring" - pattern and repetition lead to tolerance. Of course the more intense and overwhelming the experience, the harder it becomes to desensitize all the trauma-related memories. Children do this through play - they process every day stress as well as trauma. Giving them control is so important, which is why they like to boss me so much!! For adults, talking and talking and talking about the trauma eventually helps it recede and lose much of its power. We learn to tolerate the stimulus and we also learn to acknowledge the triggers and allow for our response. I have to remind myself often that getting rid of all reaction isn't the goal - because it isn't realistic that I'll ever say, "wow, I'm so glad these things happened to me," but the goal is that while they will hurt when I think about them, they will no longer intrude, uninvited into my life. And when an intrusion occurs, I will recover my sense of safety and self faster and with understanding.
The kicker to everything I've learned is that no matter how well we understand the parts of the brain and neural connections, when the whole brain is bathed in a "soup" of chemicals (like our friend cortisol) individual injury, memory and response can not be predicted well. Fascinating, isn't it?
poster:Daisym
thread:752269
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070419/msgs/752567.html