Neuroscience and Trauma in Childhood

FOMO

The last 18 months have changed many of us in ways we would never have thought. We may find ourselves not wanting to join in social and group activities. We may not feel as sociable as we once did. This is not surprising after not being allowed to get together with...

How To Manage Stress

The last 16 months have impacted us in multiple ways. Stress may have crept in quietly and eroded away our resilience or crashed in at times unannounced and knocked us off-kilter. We all need a certain amount of stress in our daily lives to get us out of bed in the...

How to survive the summer holidays

Are you dreading the summer holidays?  Or excited for them to start? Or maybe you have mixed feelings about them. Here are some ideas to make the most of the break Don't over plan. Firstly, children need downtime as much as adults, especially at the beginning and...

Working with the Unconscious in Psychotherapy

The uniqueness of the psychoanalytic model of psychotherapy is that we work with the unconscious. But what does this mean? What exactly is the unconscious?  What is the Unconscious? Practically speaking, in the field of psychotherapy, the unconscious is the part...

How To manage uncertainty

It’s been difficult for many of us over the last year. So many changes here in the UK. At times it felt like change was the new normal, in fact, change was the constant. As restrictions are lifted there are more shifting sands, because there’s yet more uncertainty...

Difficult Mother’s Day Ahead?

Mother's Day means different things for all of us.  It can conjure up wonderful images and memories of young children making cute cards, or posies of garden flowers or precovid family lunches with 3 or 4 generations present. This year Mother’s Day will be like no...

Are You Ready To Date Again?

Fed up being single? Feeling lonely when you are single is common for many people. In fact, it’s normal at times. Do you find yourself alone and lacking compared to your doubled friends’ evenings together? Do you wish you also had someone to go running with, lie in...

How to Manage Anxiety – in the Coronavirus Pandemic

Anxiety has risen exponentially since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and at times it can feel overwhelming. Everyone needs a certain amount of stress to get stuff done but when this anxiety becomes unmanageable, we need to act. If you are suffering from one...

Christmas in the Time of Covid

The festive season can be challenging for many people. However this year especially, it will be difficult for most of us one way or another. We will have to make do with phone and video calls to stay in touch with people who we would normally be with. We will be...

Being Made Redundant

Losing our job or business can be devastating.  I am reminded of a poignant part of the film The Full Monty when we see the redundant manager of the steel works, Gerald, getting ready for work each morning. He was pretending to his wife that nothing has changed...

Neuroscience –the study of the brain and nervous system:

brain cells that fire together wire together

Neuroscience  has proven that prolonged stress can have a serious affect on the structure of the brain. The traumatic event (which we are trying to ignore) actually weakens the functioning of the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. This is the part that regulates our emotions, thoughts and behaviours.

The first few years of life are vital to shaping our brains. The brain’s connections or neurons are stimulated or restricted by the experiences they encounter. Each time we repeat a thought, action or feeling we strengthen the connection between the brain cells or neurons. Therefore if we have an experience which we find traumatic or highly stressful the brain’s neurons can freeze. If this trauma is repeated eg a baby or young child not having its needs met over a prolonged period of time, the immobilisation can increase with each experience. Which may mean that the child becomes very fearful and lacks self esteem.  If the child is not allowed to express these feelings they can lead to anxiety and depression later in life.

Post traumatic stress can feel overwhelming when a traumatic event isn’t able to be processed. In a lot of cases the current trauma can bring up unprocessed feelings from an earlier trauma. This earlier trauma, often in childhood, has been left unprocessed because it is too painful to remember in any detail. So we can carry around some post traumatic stress from the original trauma.

However there is hope

MRI scans show that the brain can change at any age i.e. it is flexible. This is called neuroplasticity. New neuron patterns can be created in the same way that the unhealthy neuron patterns were. Hard data from research is proving what we already know about counselling from clinical experience with clients. Which is that we really can change our brains and improve our lives permanently.

I have found Daniel Siegel really helpful in explaining the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy. His books The Developing Mind and Mindsight are great places to start.

Read my previous blog: Post Traumatic Stress