Understanding the Amygdala's Role in Trauma and Healing

Neural pathways are created and reinforced when a child experiences repetitive good or negative thoughts, feelings, feedback and messages. When there are continuous wounding experiences, the child is going to have an over reactive emotional brain known as the amygdala and the continuous rapid fire of neurons in the brain causes emotional overwhelm. When the amygdala is overwhelmed, it’s clouds judgement and ultimately leads to extreme reactivity. The amygdala will it be able to soothe, in the case of narcissistic abuse leading to hypervigilance and extreme stress. The toll on the mind and the body is devastating and can severely effect health. It is imperative to work through the painful emotions being stored in the amygdala and allow the cortex, the logical brain, to make sense of the reality and clear the fog of the events that occurred.