There are many definitions of trauma, which is useful, as I don’t think it is possible to capture such a complex phenomenon in a single way. It can be a significant one off event, or it can be an ongoing threat. Some trauma is acute and ‘obviously’ terrifying, a physical attack, illness, natural disaster, violence. Some trauma is less loud – lack of emotional affection from a parent, pressure to achieve and act a certain way, the constant anxiety of worrying about money, exposure to racism. It is not just the event itself, but includes your emotional and physical response, and the same event can affect people in very different ways, according to their age, experience, and the systems around them.
why is it that some people are so affected by different things?
How can we make sense of our responses?
Our brain can be thought of in two parts – the ‘emotional’ brain, and the ‘rational’ or ‘logical’ brain. This is a major simplification – it doesn’t mean that emotions are irrational or don’t make sense, but can be a useful framework when thinking about dysregulation and ways of thinking. Dan Siegel calls this the hand brain model, where if you wrap your fingers around your thumb, it becomes a simplistic model of the brain where the thumb is the ‘emotional’ part, and the fingers are the ‘rational’ part.
The ‘emotional’ brain contains the amygdala – which is effectively the alarm system of our body. ALL information goes through this gate before going anywhere else in the brain, meaning that our body can respond to something happening in our environment before we are even consciously aware of it. A classic example of this is when you touch a hot pan on the stove, and your hand jerks away before you can feel the pain, or say “ouch”. But this extends to more complex situations, like when you meet someone and have a gut response to them.
The ‘rational’ brain contains the prefrontal cortex, the logical thinking and reasoning part of the brain.
When a situation feels safe, information is passed through to the other parts of your brain without further action. But when your amygdala senses a potential threat, it sends signals to respond immediately, to respond to the threat as an emergency situation. And since it is deemed an emergency situation, your ‘rational’ thinking brain may not be consulted before your body responds. Siegel calls this ‘flipping your lid’, where the fingers straighten out, and your ‘thinking’ brain is no longer online. You are only able to access your ‘stress responses’ – fight, flight, freeze.
Potential threat is the key part there – because what your body deems a potential threat is dependent on your experiences. Your body takes all the information it has gathered throughout your life and makes predictions about what the outcome of a situation will be. The amygdala stores emotional memories, meaning that the next time a similar situation happens, you might preemptively respond in a similar way. Because your amygdala is fully functioning when you’re born, you have implicit memories of experiences as an infant that you might not have conscious memories of, both positive and negative. This can be why traumatic experiences as an infant can be so hard to work through – because you may not necessarily have the words to describe the sensations that your body might remember. This also affects why people have different responses to the same events.
The amygdala’s role is to keep you safe, as much as possible, by assessing and managing risk and responding appropriately. When exposed to trauma, it takes in this information, and remembers it. When there is an acute traumatic event, certain triggers might cause the amygdala to respond strongly, giving an intense reaction that can contribute to symptoms of PTSD. When trauma is chronic, it might cause the amygdala to become hypersensitive to perceived threat, which can contribute to symptoms of CPTSD (complex PTSD).
When the ‘rational’ brain is offline, we can revert to less logical instinctual responses that might not make sense from an outside perspective. The fight / flight / freeze responses are all reactions with the purpose of keeping you safe.
Working with children, teenagers, and young people
The prefrontal cortex continues to develop until around the age of 25, so being aware of the purpose of the amygdala and according behaviours is particularly important.
This might mean lack of understanding between parents and their children – from both sides, not understanding why the other is responding in such a way, blaming each other for being dramatic, moody, aggressive. It just doesn’t make sense – and yet, there is a reason for it. There is some logic to your body that may not be the same logic as in your brain. I come back to the question of “what is this behaviour communicating”. And, what are they asking for, underneath that behaviour?
This is a core question I keep at the centre of my work, trying to understand together with you the needs underneath challenging behaviours, and figuring out how these behaviours are meeting (or trying to meet) that need. And eventually, how can those needs be met in other ways?
This is alongside growing capacity for self regulation, alongside coregulation as appropriate, through mindfulness, noticing what is happening in the body, and being with whatever sensations are there. The safety of the environment is of the utmost importance here – when working with experiences that feel threatening, it isn’t possible to explore them without first feeling safe, within our ‘window of tolerance’.
So what can we do with this information?
The brain does not act by simply responding to a stimulus. Instead, it predicts internal and external needs and adapts accordingly
Steffen, Hedges, and Matheson, 2022
Knowing that we respond according to our predictions and expectations means knowing that when we have a big response to a situation, it may not necessarily be about the current situation in itself. It might be, but your perception may also be influenced by what’s happened in the past. Noticing these moments and reflecting on them can build your capacity and awareness, helping you decipher which is which, and stay present in difficult moments.
It is also important to reiterate here that our brains are adaptive and predictive. Thus, creating new experiences that are different, and really noticing and feeling that different experience, is part of the work of teaching our bodies that we are safe, and don’t always need to resort to these instinctual responses. This takes time to develop, but it is also part of therapeutic work, creating new experiences of feeling safe in relation to another person.
If this is something you would like to explore together, please feel free to reach out for a free 15 min chat below.
References:
Menakem, Resmaa. My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. Central Recovery Press, 2017
Ohman A, Carlsson K, Lundqvist D, Ingvar M. On the unconscious subcortical origin of human fear. Physiol Behav. 2007 Sep 10;92(1-2):180-5. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2007.05.057. Epub 2007 May 25. PMID: 17599366. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17599366/
Siegel, Daniel J. The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being. W. W. Norton & Company, 2007
Steffen PR, Hedges D, Matheson R. The Brain Is Adaptive Not Triune: How the Brain Responds to Threat, Challenge, and Change. Front Psychiatry. 2022 Apr 1;13:802606. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.802606. PMID: 35432041; PMCID: PMC9010774. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9010774/
Walker, Pete. Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma. Azure Coyote, 2013.