[Amelia is the pen name of an EMDR therapy client of Dr. Sandra Paulsen, pioneer of new EMDR protocols for developmental trauma/early trauma (ET).1 Amelia is now with Paulsen colleague D. Michael Coy, MA, LCSW. She graciously provided this blog to inspire others to seek healing. –Kathy Brous]
In 2013, I began working with Sandra Paulsen, PhD. I am very grateful for the early childhood trauma (ET) work we did. It was a stunning process that gave me understanding and resolution of significant traumas. I learned to understand “ego states” and gained a view of the numerous parts of me that acted as protectors throughout my life. The use of “the conference room” was difficult and surprising at first, but with Dr. Paulsen’s encouragement and compassion for “the little one” inside me, it quickly became easier for me to imagine a conference room in which I could see “parts of my self” sitting around a table.
Guest blog by Dr. Sandra Paulsen (left) & D. Michael Coy, MA, LCSW[First I discovered it deep within myself and called it “trauma since the sperm hit the egg.” Then I read that Bessel van der Kolk calls it “developmental trauma,” in his drive to have it finally recognized by the psychiatric profession. Dr. Allan Schore calls it “trauma in the first 1000 days, conception to age two.” Earlier it was “complex PTSD” or C-PTSD. In EMDR therapy, Dr. Sandra Paulsen, therapist Katie O’Shea, LCPC (who began this work), and D. Michael Coy, MA, LCSW, use “Early Trauma” (ET). The science is in Chaps. 16 & 20 of Paulsen’s 2014 book.1 Well: “ET, phone home!” Dr. Paulsen & friends have good news: they’ve created new EMDR therapy protocols to heal developmental trauma. -Kathy Brous ]
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy “enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that result from disturbing life experiences,” says Dr. Francine Shapiro’s EMDR Institute website. Standard EMDR therapy has been shown to heal traumatic memories with a conscious, visual component, also called “explicit” memory. As EMDR clinicians, we have seen frankly astounding changes in our clients, both in how they see themselves and in how they experience and take initiative in the world.
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My Neurofeedback Journey, 2 of 2
by Tina Marie Hahn
— as told to Kathy Brous
Tina added on July 11: I am experiencing major changes in my brain functioning so fast with neurofeedback, although as of this writing, I have only been doing it for three months. But in six months I seriously don’t think I will recognize myself anymore, and I say that after decades of struggle. I truly recommend checking out neurofeedback, for anyone who has failed all the traditional approaches to trauma. Now back to my journey…
Major Trauma Release
On April 27, it had been about three weeks that I’d been working with the BrainPaint® desktop home neurofeedback machine. I’ve been doing about 1.5 hours of neurofeedback a day. That turned out to be a little too much for me as a beginner, so I gave myself a break the last two days.
My Neurofeedback Journey, 1 of 2
by Tina Marie Hahn
— as told to Kathy Brous
I am Dr. Tina Marie Hahn, MD, advocate for Trauma-Informed Care and Communities, and survivor of actually ten Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). As a pediatrician, I screen parents and children alike for childhood trauma. That’s me at 30 months old and my background story is here.
I’ve been excited for some time to try neurofeedback, after listening to a talk given by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk and Sebern Fisher and reading Dr. van der Kolk’s latest book “The Body Keeps the Score” and a blog on Sebern Fisher’s work with neurofeedback here. I then read three books on neurofeedback, including Dr. Fisher’s book “Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma: Calming the Fear-Driven Brain” and decided to research several electronic neurofeedback systems for home use.
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Why Dating Never Heals Emotional PainPeople with attachment troubles or other child trauma often ask: why is dating so difficult? It is, for a reason.
So instead of the dating hunt, I invested my life, fortune, and sacred honor to work for “earned secure attachment.” Dr. Dan Siegel says that’s when we start out with attachment damage from childhood trauma, but grow into secure attachment by earning it as adults. “It’s possible to change childhood attachment patterns,” as Dr. Mary Main says in a 2010 video.1
My plan: “become the change you seek,” as Ghandi said — and then a good-hearted mate will find me. Either way, eventually I’ll have peace in my soul.
Look, Ma, no hunting or begging – for once in my life! I’ve been begging since birth for a scrap of love like Oliver with his begging bowl, and I’m done. Dating website emails go to my spam folder.
I know it’s possible to earn secure attachment, even for those with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) like me who’ve had developmental trauma “since the sperm hit the egg” and thus the world’s worst case of anxious attachment.
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“During REM sleep, the brain is attempting to process survival information until it’s resolved.”
Eye Motion Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a potent trauma treatment developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro (left), a literature professor who was diagnosed with cancer. The shock of suddenly finding her survival was under threat, affected her so strongly that Dr. Shapiro mindfully paid attention to how her body was reacting.
She discovered by accident that when the survival fear got intense, her eyes would sometimes move back and forth diagonally or from side to side, as if in dreaming – following which she felt less upset, much to her surprise.
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Psychotherapist Sebern Fisher gave a great webscast Oct. 14 in the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine series, about neurofeedback (biofeedback to the brain), which gives us access to our brain function frequencies. The brain gets organized from the womb in oscillatory patterns, and we with histories of early neglect and abuse, i.e. developmental trauma, suffer from disorganized and dysregulated brains.
Our fear circuits dominate. Neurofeedback can calm these erupting circuits, while encouraging neural connectivity, which helps us create a more coherent sense of self, so we feel safer and more centered.1
Folks with difficult parents often grow up with a “fear-driven brain” as I did — and it can be a huge relief to find out we’re not freaks; nope, we’re a chunk of the mainstream. In fact, maybe 50% of Americans have some degree of this “attachment disorder” due to parents who were too scary to attach to. Of course it’s not their fault either, because odds are, our grandparents were too scary for our parents to attach to, and so on inter-generationally.
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I can’t read much due to three recent surgeries, so I won’t wait to finish this book just out– I’ll urge you now to buy it. “The Body Keeps the Score” will “permanently change how psychologists and psychiatrists think about trauma and recovery,”as trauma scholar Dr. Ruth Lanius writes. She was the first to call developmental trauma a “hidden epidemic,” source of my book’s subtitle “Silent Epidemic.” Dr. van der Kolk repeats this in his new book.1
And it is about the body. “Infants are psychobiological beings, as much of the body as of the brain,” writes Prof. Ed Tronick, author of the Still Face Experiment. “Without language or symbols, infants use every one of their biological systems to make meaning of their self in relation to the world. Van der Kolk shows that those same systems continue to operate at every age, and that traumatic experiences, especially chronic toxic experience during early development, produce psychic devastation.”
Read More“To prevent childhood trauma, pediatricians screen children and their parents…and sometimes, just parents…for childhood trauma”
– guest blog by Jane Ellen Stevens, Editor, ACEsTooHigh.com and ACEsConnection.com
Tabitha Lawson of Portland, OR with her two children, who greatly benefited from the new program; more below.
When parents bring their four-month-olds to a well-baby checkup at the Children’s Clinic in Portland, OR, Drs. Teri Petersen, R.J. Gillespie and their 15 other partners ask the parents about their adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
When parents bring a child who’s bouncing off the walls and having nightmares to the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris doesn’t ask: “What’s wrong with this child?” Instead, she asks, “What happened to this child?” and calculates the child’s ACE score.
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