psychophysiology of trauma
From an article describing some of the work of Bessel Van der Kolk, MD
"In his presentation, he shared some of his research in which brain scans were performed on patients who suffered trauma. They found that it is the limbic part of the brain that is most affected by trauma. During a traumatic experience, the right posterior part of the brain, the part of the brain that does not have language, shows the most activity. These studies help explain why standard "talk-based therapies" may have limited success with trauma-survivors. The anterior part of the brain, the part of the brain that is associated with speech and being able to talk about events, literally shuts off during trauma.
"This also may be a reason why the scars from such traumas can lay dormant for a time (months or even years). Because they reside in the portion of the brain without language, their ability to connect in a cognitive manner is limited. When they do eventually 'speak' it may be with the voice of rage, substance abuse, or even physical violence.
"Other neuroimaging studies show that trauma also affects the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus and brain stem. It does not affect the verbal and understanding part of the brain. It is our bodies, not our minds, that control how we respond to trauma, what we do and don't consciously remember, and whether or not we recover from it. This means that in the midst of trauma, civilized discourse is not possible. It also means that people don't necessarily need to talk about trauma to resolve it.
"Van der Kolk spoke about the success of working with the body to resolve trauma. He talked about the power of qigong, tai chi, yoga, dancing, and breathing in order to quiet the body down and teach people self-regulation.
"Shamanic work is especially suited to dealing with trauma issues because it is essentially non-verbal, and works directly with the body. It also addresses the non-linear and non-verbal symbolic language of the psyche. Many practices involve drumming, movement and dance within a variety of ceremonial, ritual and symbolic contexts ... all of which are avenues to address the body and mind in ways not connected with language."
(a different article (Bessel Van der Kolk))
"The DSM definition of PTSD recognizes that trauma can lead to extremes of retention and forgetting: terrifying experiences may be remembered with extreme vividness, or totally resist integration. In many instances, traumatized individuals report a combination of both. While people seem to easily assimilate familiar and expectable experiences and while memories of ordinary events disintegrate in clarity over time, some aspects of traumatic events appear to get fixed in the mind, unaltered by the passage of time or by the intervention of subsequent experience.
"For the past century, many students of trauma have noted that the imprints of traumatic experiences seem to be qualitatively different from memories of ordinary events. Starting with Janet, accounts of the memories of traumatized patients consistently mention that emotional and perceptual elements tend to be more prominent than declarative components. These recurrent observations about the nature of traumatic memories have given rise to the notion that traumatic memories may be encoded differently than memories for ordinary events, perhaps via alterations in attentional focusing, perhaps because of extreme emotional arousal interferes with hippocampal memory functions."
"In his presentation, he shared some of his research in which brain scans were performed on patients who suffered trauma. They found that it is the limbic part of the brain that is most affected by trauma. During a traumatic experience, the right posterior part of the brain, the part of the brain that does not have language, shows the most activity. These studies help explain why standard "talk-based therapies" may have limited success with trauma-survivors. The anterior part of the brain, the part of the brain that is associated with speech and being able to talk about events, literally shuts off during trauma.
"This also may be a reason why the scars from such traumas can lay dormant for a time (months or even years). Because they reside in the portion of the brain without language, their ability to connect in a cognitive manner is limited. When they do eventually 'speak' it may be with the voice of rage, substance abuse, or even physical violence.
"Other neuroimaging studies show that trauma also affects the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus and brain stem. It does not affect the verbal and understanding part of the brain. It is our bodies, not our minds, that control how we respond to trauma, what we do and don't consciously remember, and whether or not we recover from it. This means that in the midst of trauma, civilized discourse is not possible. It also means that people don't necessarily need to talk about trauma to resolve it.
"Van der Kolk spoke about the success of working with the body to resolve trauma. He talked about the power of qigong, tai chi, yoga, dancing, and breathing in order to quiet the body down and teach people self-regulation.
"Shamanic work is especially suited to dealing with trauma issues because it is essentially non-verbal, and works directly with the body. It also addresses the non-linear and non-verbal symbolic language of the psyche. Many practices involve drumming, movement and dance within a variety of ceremonial, ritual and symbolic contexts ... all of which are avenues to address the body and mind in ways not connected with language."
(a different article (Bessel Van der Kolk))
"The DSM definition of PTSD recognizes that trauma can lead to extremes of retention and forgetting: terrifying experiences may be remembered with extreme vividness, or totally resist integration. In many instances, traumatized individuals report a combination of both. While people seem to easily assimilate familiar and expectable experiences and while memories of ordinary events disintegrate in clarity over time, some aspects of traumatic events appear to get fixed in the mind, unaltered by the passage of time or by the intervention of subsequent experience.
"For the past century, many students of trauma have noted that the imprints of traumatic experiences seem to be qualitatively different from memories of ordinary events. Starting with Janet, accounts of the memories of traumatized patients consistently mention that emotional and perceptual elements tend to be more prominent than declarative components. These recurrent observations about the nature of traumatic memories have given rise to the notion that traumatic memories may be encoded differently than memories for ordinary events, perhaps via alterations in attentional focusing, perhaps because of extreme emotional arousal interferes with hippocampal memory functions."