Healing begins on the inside—in our brain, our body, and our soul.
Childhood Trauma
There are overt traumas such as physical and sexual abuse, and there are covert traumas such as emotional neglect (feeling unseen, unheard, unloved). In many aspects, emotional neglect is a form of abandonment. Below is a video of one of the largest childhood trauma studies conducted in the U.S. and its results. It may help you put a context to some of the struggles, issues, problems you face in adulthood.
Listen to the pain of your inner child, and discover paths to healing for your adult problems.
Top-Down versus Bottom-Up Approaches to Trauma
The terms "top-down" and "bottom-up" refers to the general areas of the brain where you start with therapy. Different parts of our brain work together to help us adapt and survive in our environments.
When we talk about "top-down"approach, we are focusing therapy in the part of our brain that is associated with thinking, speaking, conscious emotional awareness. In other words, our cognition, or our neocortex, frontal lobes, and prefrontal lobes. An example of "top-down" therapy is Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy (CBT), which focuses on how the conscious mind interprets information. How we think affects how we feel and our behavior.
When we talk about "bottom-up" approach we start therapy with the part of the brain located towards the base, which are the mammilian (emotional) and reptilian (instinctual) parts of our brain. This approach views the body as a gateway to unconscious/subconscious information that drives our behavior.
Which one is right for me?
Both approaches have their limitations when used alone. The most effective approach is dual awareness — targeting both the feeling/sensation and thinking processes that humans posses. This is the approach I use in working with all of my clients, especially those with trauma histories. I truly believe that humans are biologically equipped to heal, therefore, my goal is to utilize both "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to facilitate healing.
What is Brainspotting (BSP)?
Brainspotting is a brain-based psychotherapy approach that uses the field of vision to find brainspots. Brainspots are points in the field of vision that correlates to where the individual is holding trauma or other negative experiences in their brain. Brainspots are found through the attunement of the therapist to the individual and through the individual’s bodily activation.
Multiple techniques can be used and tailored for each person. Brainspotting is an approach that is highly integrative with other therapies. This flexibility allows the therapist to be able to shape each technique and approach according to the client's uniqueness.
Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR focuses on the brain’s ability to constantly learn, taking past experiences, and updating them with present information. It utilizes the brain's adaptive information processing to update our memory network so that emotionally-charged memories can be diffused and procssed.
EMDR uses a set of procedures to organize your negative and positive feelings, emotions, and thoughts, and then uses bilateral stimulation, to help effectively work through those disturbing memories. Bilateral stimulation is much like Rapid Eye Movement (REM) that we experience in our sleep and helps us process information.
You are capable of healing.
We humans are amazing creatures. We accommodate, readjust, alter, and revise ourselves in ways that best position us to survive. This adaptive ability is automatic. It is a part of our biology that does not ask for our permission. Therein lies the true beauty of our species — we are equipped to survive, we are able to thrive, and we can choose to heal.
