What is trauma?

A phenomenon that almost everyone has experienced, yet very few people acknowledge. This is often because we don’t have the language to describe our experiences when it comes to trauma. In addition to this, many people who experience trauma don’t think that their trauma ‘counts’, invalidating their experience because so many people have experienced ‘worse’.

The brain and trauma

It is impossible to talk about trauma without making reference to the brain. The brain plays an integral part in the detection of threats in the environment as well as the mobilisation of the trauma responses. These trauma responses are fight, flight, and freeze. More recent research has highlighted another response known as fawn, which is a trauma response characterised by people-pleasing or other appeasing behaviours to avoid conflict. This is important to note because while it is relatively easy for us to detect people-pleasing behaviour, we are often unaware that this too has roots in our experience of trauma. 

To clarify the description of trauma, you can make a fist with your hand, making sure that your thumb is tucked inside the fist. Your fist is a model of the brain. Tripartite Theory divides the brain into three simple parts, each serves a different function and each part poses a simple question. 

The first part is the section from the thumb’s knuckle down to where it joins the wrist. This is the reptilian brain at the very base of the brain, which is the most primitive part of the brain. This part wants to make sure our basic needs are met and the question that this part of the brain wants to answer is “AM I SAFE?”. 

The next part is the mammalian brain, represented by your thumb, which is tucked inside your fist. This is the emotional brain which is slightly more sophisticated than the reptilian brain as it has some awareness of memories and emotions. This part of the brain wants to answer the question: “AM I LOVED?”. This could also be punctuated slightly differently to say that this part of the brain wants to answer the question: “AM I LOVEABLE?”. 

The third, and last, part of the brain is the human brain and consists of the whole of the back of the hand and the fingers. This part of the brain is also known as the cortex and is the spaghetti-looking part of the brain. This is where all of our higher-order functioning takes place – logic, reason, problem-solving, inhibition, judgment, comprehension, language, emotional regulation, and much, much more. The question that this part of the brain wants to answer is “DO I UNDERSTAND?”. This part of the brain wants to make sense of and meaning of our experiences. 

Understanding the solution

However, many people experience frustration in so far as understanding why a certain struggle may be happening, does not resolve the struggle. For example, someone may understand why they are anxious, but they still experience anxiety. Another person may know why they are triggered by their birthday every year, but every year they still experience the triggering. This is because all trauma (everything from being held at gunpoint, to someone blowing your birthday candles out at your third birthday party) is linked with “AM I SAFE” and “AM I LOVED”. Yet, there is a limit to what understanding can do when it comes to resolving our questions of “AM I SAFE” or “AM I LOVED” because they are in geographically different locations in the brain. 

The take-away

There are some important takeaways from this. Firstly, if we continue to invalidate our traumatic experiences because someone else has had it ‘worse’, we will never allow ourselves the opportunity to process them. Experiences are subjective and whenever the brain detects a threat to our sense of “AM I SAFE” and “AM I LOVED” it establishes that there are not sufficient internal or external resources available to help us combat this threat. You have experienced trauma and the body responds accordingly. 

Secondly, because our trauma is stored in a location of our brains that is outside of logic, reason, and understanding, sometimes there is a limit to how much traditional talk therapy can help. With trauma being exceptionally brain and body-based, it follows that we should be focusing on the brain and body in our endeavours to heal trauma. Healing trauma is less to do with rehashing what happened (this can often be unhelpful and can even cause re-traumatisation), and more about sitting with what you are experiencing in your body when you think about what has happened when “AM I SAFE” and “AM I LOVED” is called into question, allowing those emotion cycles to complete. 

This is because all emotions have a beginning, a middle, and an end; but these emotions are often uncomfortable and we usually do everything that we can to not feel them. When that happens, the emotion cycle is unable to be complete and these feelings become stored in the neural networks of our brain. These are like little knots that form in the neural networks of our brain that may remain unprocessed and show up as unfinished business in our responses to situations and people. 

The help we need

Therapy can be helpful in facilitating the process of healing, especially with the use of brain-based therapies (such as Brainspotting, BWRT, EMDR, etc.). Some things that can be done to support your therapeutic process, or that can help you to process in your day-to-day life include diaphragmatic breathing, yoga, other forms of movement (walking, running, weight-lifting), listening to bilateral sounds (accessible on YouTube), connecting with people that feel safe to your nervous system and adopting an overall approach of acceptance towards your body and emotional experience. What is also necessary is realising that certain experiences that are so common in the lives of so many are actually not normal and are often linked in some way to trauma and thus require your attention. These may include but are not limited to difficulty sleeping, body aches, constant headaches, chronic fatigue, low energy, gut issues, and locked jaw to name a few. 

Trauma is so widespread in our world today. It lives in the body and the parts of the brain that are often beyond understanding. Probably the most difficult part of trauma is that it can’t be dissolved through understanding, it has to be felt in the body so that the associated emotions can go from beginning to middle, to end. It’s time that we start giving ourselves enough grace and space so that we have the opportunity to heal it effectively. 

Book a free 30 minute consultation with one of our Featured Therapists on Conrati who would be happy to help you on your path to a healthier, calmer state of mind.