Trauma and the Nervous System (and strategies to work with it)

Trauma doesn’t just live on in a client’s stories . . .

. . . it can get trapped in the body as well - especially in the nervous system.

So it’s crucial to learn how to work with the nervous system to resolve trauma.

In this video, Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Pat Ogden, PhD; and Stephen Porges, PhD share their strategies to help clients stay in the present, tolerate emotion, and stay grounded in their bodies.

For a deeper understanding of how trauma effects the nervous system and the latest strategies in trauma treatment, take a look here:

[jessica_]

I fully integrated and healed C-PTSD after 37 long years of inner work and therapy through 9 months of group somatics. It was so truly, wholly uncomfortable, but all of my relational trauma is gone now. Please do more of that for those who can tolerate it.

[amy]

The greatest barrier I have to full participation in life & being my best self is my nervous system. My fight / freeze & hyper vigilance has affected my career & personal relationships so much. Slowly slowly getting closer to healing.

[louxjoh]

I’m watching this, and started getting worried, anxious, and stressed about a lot of things, this might be because I’m overanalyzing because of my eagerness to get out of this situation… thankfully, I just remembered that ‘You don’t have to understand everything, you just have to be more understanding…’ then suddenly my brain kind of realize I gotta calm down and accept the fact that I’ll be able to heal this wound inside of me only if I have some enough compassion on myself…

[parisaforpeace]

This has reaffirmed for me the importance of safety and choice for trauma sufferers. Valuable information. Thank you.

[MiriamFine-yx]

I love the closing statement - that every time someone heals from trauma, it changes the course of civilisation.

[charmainelane]

As a Psychotherapist, being reminded in this video that my job is to help the client in The Present Safely Relive the Past👏🏽👏🏽

[nutters]

I resonate so deeply with all of this. I’ve lived this shifting experience and learned to tolerate my feelings and sensations. I made peace with tight, numb, constricted, neglected places in my body. I’ve released muscles that have been frozen in place and even built those muscles stronger. I’ve learned how to regulate myself through breathing, stretching, yoga, music, crying, singing, writing, speaking, and just overall expressing. I’ve gotten in touch with my senses and made peace with my inner critic. I’ve learned to discern between helpful and unhelpful thoughts without invalidating myself as I process my wounds and trauma. I’ve learned to name my emotions and accept them as they come, and allow them to go when they don’t serve me. I’ve come so far and none of that would have been possible without bridging my mind-body disconnection and learning about the nervous system’s integral involvement in the processing of trauma. I continue to learn and practice this in my own life on a daily basis.

Sometimes as a practitioner I feel like I fall short of helping my clients to go where I’ve gone. How im going to incorporate this into my work… im really going to remember those 2 options when clients become aware of a “process memory” pattern in their body, or pickup on and identify a particular sensation. Im going to either help them to exaggerate and sit with it, and see what comes up in terms of sensation, memory, feeling, or thought. And/Or, im going to help them soften it through mindfulness/relaxation training. What im really going to remember about that second option is the need to revisit the sensation or the process memory. The language of having those two “parts” integrate with each other is helpful, and also something I have not done enough of. On top of all of this… im going to remember that I am not an expert on this from just a few books, this YouTube video, or my own experiences. So im going to become more intentional with getting further training and knowledge and use that to further my ability to provide trauma treatment the best I can.

[PS-bsoe]

When healing occurs, many lives are touched, even entire communities saved

[dragonstaye]

It seems like moving from one extreme to the other - telling us that the traumatic events need not be vocalized. I found vocalization necessary to understanding and even to recovering my memory.

[sophiaadams]

2.1k likes over 4 years isn’t nearly enough. THESE are the type of videos I deem worthy of going viral.
Thank you 🙏🏼

[NttainMe]

I feel this channel comforts and guides me because of the life strategies and understandings from these amazing stranger who lovingly and gently share their wisdom. This includes the host, and all the wonderful speakers like this lady, from such a wide array of psychology disciplines. Thank you

[fadilabbas]

I'm from iraq, and I have PTSD, I feel hypervigilant, and that affected all my life.
I'm looking for treatment, but in iraq there is no therapy...just psychiatric doctors who give medication...
I'm truly looking for your help to get me healed from my trauma through your advice or recommendation.
Thank you very much.

[laurenceerrington]

Much appreciated your clear and caring delivery

[katherinejoseph]

What Dr. Ogden is describing was called ‘body armoring’ by Wilhelm Reich for those who might be interested

[conservativeneurologyb]

Thanks for posting; Gentle release by tapping (Gary Craig ) is very therapeutic.

[EvaEva-lfww]

So useful and so true to say ot impacts the community to the direction of healthy patterns of life

[Some_kind_of_wonderfü]

Dr. Ogden always has such valuable information! I’m bummed that most of her audio recordings appear to be of low quality and make it challenging to fully understand her.

[Myheartofthematter]

I wish someone would have warned me when I began to heal that the changes in those around me could in itself be a traumatic experience whether they reacted aggressively or wanted to be closer before I was ready to let anyone in. I've reached a point where I've needed to stay away from people as much as possible while I feel and release the decades of trauma from my body whilst not in a safe environment as my home is currently under threat by a neighbour abusing a structural issue that she knows has caused me further damage to my nervous system and a housing provider that is useless when it comes to dealing with anything but I feel safe at least in myself as I've become confident in telling people what I need from them without feeling responsibility for their upset whether I say I need them to keep their distance and provide consequences if they don't respect this or for them to inform me of what's going on. All the talking with counsellors and medical practitioners did nothing for my healing, that and medication | realise now merely prolonged my agony. I learned to identify how I felt and could talk about it fluently whilst simply scratching the surface of how I was feeling. People believed I'd moved on from my past because I could talk about it without breaking down but I was containing how I felt so well because to let anyone see how I felt left me feeling vulnerable having been used to being taken advantage of in life threatening ways. My life has still been threatened and still is but I never let them see how much trauma I experience as a result. And now finally I know how to release this I'm gaining much confidence in dealing with their abuse, they can do what they will and I'll confront them with their behaviour without feeling frightened about the repercussions. Mostly I've discovered when abusers are confronted and know they will continue to be confronted they back off after their initial reactions have failed to silence me or prevent me from speaking out confidently about what they do and do what I can to ensure they stop abusing me in situations where I'm unable to leave. When I reacted to their abuse they kept doing it. I've never tolerated physical abuse since the beatings from my mother and as a result this only happened once during adulthood and that was the end of that relationship. It never happened again with anyone else, I was never attracted to physical abusers, just the emotional and psychological ones which in many ways can be worse as they leave little evidence of their abuse and many people don't believe me when I speak about it. Their enablers/rescuers in particular who I often find worse than the abusers themselves. I speak out about them too these days. Having had all those I love taken away one way or another I've got little left to lose, there are advantages to this! We don't have to be healed to be confident, we just need to feel the love that comes from accepting how we feel whatever that is and respecting what we need to heal. It's difficult to heal in an oppressive culture and for me so far been the loneliest time as people, family and those I thought close in particular would rather I didn't heal it would appear. It doesn't sit well with them but that's theirs to deal with!

[dariomargeli]

The one part they talk about the voice going high or low monotonous happens to me. What am I supposed to do? How do I know when I am with my real voice?

[anikalee]

I healed by myself
using Buddhist meditation with the right steps and Dr Bessel Van Der Kolk suggestions
Stay present start from awearness of surrounding and my body. In order for the body to feel safe when see hear touch the surrounding with trust and relax the mind will feel safe . The mind don't leave the body tgis stage. If there's past emotion raise up, the monk advised to look at the emotions without judge not react. Like the mind stay calm in the middle way within without fear the fealling. Keep on doing this all day the whole day. Sometimes I take a walk take a pleasure to feel the environment with with calm in the nature. My anxiety attack gone now. I still feel a mind stress. Big trigger gine too realising what trigger me why I get trigger. Trigger get me back to pain like the incidence occurre again. My CPTSD pain have to do with fear the emotion of shame. I disgust the shame and stay right with myself.