In March I was fortunate enough to attend the Psychotherapy Networker Conference in Washington. There were so many amazing speakers that it is likely that another one will end up in this blog, but today I would like to focus on Janina Fisher. For those of you who are unfamiliar with her work, Janina is a leading trauma therapist, author and trauma educator. I went into the session as a fan and left as a superfan, because her work is so insightful and inspiring.
Fisher describes trauma as not just an event but as a living legacy of the effects caused by traumatic experiences. After a traumatic event, the symptoms of extreme stress remain. There are a wide range of trauma symptoms that linger when trauma is unresolved. Symptoms such as hypervigilance, people pleasing, co-dependency, strong desire for external validation, fear of abandonment and difficulty setting boundaries are just some of the responses that persist long after the traumatic event has taken place. Despite these symptoms, we often tell ourselves (and others) that we are fine. And outwardly, this may appear to be true. How many times have you responded “I’m fine” when you were struggling? for most of us, the answer is more often that we are comfortable admitting. As Fisher explains, we tell others we are fine as a survival strategy. We may even try to convince ourselves that it is true, and for a while it may be. Inwardly, when trauma occurs our pre-frontal cortex shuts down so that we can act instinctively and our limbic system (used in emotional and somatic processing) shuts down, causing us to repress our memory of the trauma. When we talk about the event, our implicit memory is activated, causing us to experience the sensory memories associated with the event but not be able to access the words or timeline of the event.
Once our brains are exposed to threat the brain becomes overly sensitive to everything, this causes us to perceive things as threats that may not be threatening. Essentially our brains are on high alert and respond as if we are experiencing danger now, long after the threat has ceased. Our brains adapt to danger over time through avoidance. (insert the the “I am fine” narrative here) Young children who experience trauma will often disconnect from emotions because their emotions were not soothed and they were deemed unsafe. If children are punished for emotions, they often turn to intellectualizing because children often get punished for emotions not thinking. Envision a child who is playing loudly or wants their parent’s attention, if the child is dismissed and scolded, the brain deems hyperactivity as unsafe. If we take it a step further and parents in the home are loud or abusive, the child may go unseen if they are not heard, so the child turns to reading to escape. Eventually the studying will become a way for the child to escape the chaos and maybe eventually the home (perhaps choosing a post-secondary education site away from home). Being in your head is often a good defense. Fisher refers to this as our thinking brain, and surmises that the intellect was used as a defense to survive the trauma. Fisher encourages trauma survivors to thank their thinking brains for saving them.
It is interested to me that in a society that praises intellect and education so highly that many of us never recognize that these skills could be adopted as a trauma response. We may need to pay closer attention to highly intellectual children to ensure that they are safe in their home environments. I am not suggesting that all intelligent children and all high academic achievers experience trauma, however I do think that we need to be careful when assuming that these kids are fine because they are doing well in school or these adults are well adjusted because they have conformed to conventional measures of social success.
So, what are we to do if our brains shut off emotions because they were dangerous and threatened our survival? The good news is that these individuals are not destined to feel numb forever. I highly encourage my clients to remember how remarkable it is that they were able to live with symptoms and make a life for themselves despite what happened. It is also important to note that just because we cannot feel the feeling that this does not mean that we are not having them, they are there…just a little buried. Somatic therapy is an excellent way to reconnect with your feelings. It is also important to recognize the unfairness of being deprived of your feelings and not having the freedom to feel when you needed or wanted to. Being in tune with your feelings does not mean that you have to express them or share with others (remember the “I’m fine” defense), but it is also okay to seek safety and comfort in others. We are all born with a social engagement system. If yours is a little rusty, I encourage you to spend time with babies and puppies and see what happens, you may just find that when you tell others that you are fine that it may start to be true.
Lisa Bell
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