89 Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection

Feb 7, 2022

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Summary: Join Dr. Peter as he explains how trauma impacts our bodies, through the lens of polyvagal theory. Through quotes, examples, questions for reflection and experiential exercises, Dr. Peter walks you through a current understanding of how large a role our bodies have in our experience of trauma.
Introduction
1. I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, clinical psychologist, bringing to you, my listener the best of psychology and human formation and harmonizing it with our Catholic Faith
1. This is the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast -- you are part of it, right here, right now and I am glad to be with you. This podcast is part of our broader outreach, Souls and Hearts bringing the best of psychology grounded in a Catholic worldview to you and the rest of the world through our website soulsandhearts.com -- we have vibrant communities, we have courses, we have podcasts, we have blogs and shows, all kinds of resources at soulsandhearts.com, check it out.
1. Trauma. Last month, we began a whole series of episodes on trauma -- such an important topic
  1. Quote from trauma therapist and research Peter Levine: “Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering.” – Peter Levine
1. We started with an overview of the best of the secular understandings of trauma. In that first episode in the series, number 88, we got into the definitions of trauma and attachment injuries, and we dived into the experience of trauma -- what trauma is like.
1. That sets us up for today's episode, number 89 -- Your Trauma, Your Body: Protection vs. Connection. Today, we are getting into the body's response to trauma, really focusing in on what happens in our nervous system. What happens in the brain, what happens in our spinal cord and our nerves and throughout our bodies
  1. We will be especially tuning into our own nervous system.
1. There's going to be some vocabulary here, I will help you with that. There will some big words, but I am going to walk you through the concepts and make them easier to understand.
1. In the past two decades we have learned so much about how trauma impacts the body -- the physiological effects of trauma
  1. So what is physiological? Physiology
    1. the branch of biology that deals with the normal functions of living organisms and their parts
      1. organ systems, individual organs, cells, and right down to the level of biomolecules
    2. 1. The parts within us carry out the chemical, electrical and physical functions within our bodies. Our bodies are living systems
  2. 1. Put simply, physiology is the study of how the human body works
  3. 1. Today we are looking at how trauma impacts physiology -- how trauma affects the workings of our body, especially in our nervous system.
1. Lots of misconceptions out there.
  1. Old way of understanding stress -- what I learned in graduate school. Most prominent.
    1. You were either stressed or not stressed
    2. fight or flight or rest and digest
    3. Stress on or stress off. No nuance, very simple way of understanding
  2. Today, we are going to do much better than that, go much deeper than that.
Review: Definition of Trauma
1. Integrated Listening Systems website: Trauma is the response to a deeply distressing or disturbing event that overwhelms an individual’s ability to cope, causes feelings of helplessness, diminishes their sense of self and their ability to feel a full range of emotions and experiences.
2. from Duros and Crowley 2014: …what happens to a person where this is either too much too soon, too much too long, or not enough for too long.
3. From Stephen Porges: Trauma is a chronic disruption of connectedness.
Most clients come to therapy for one main reason. One main, overarching reason. They are dysregulated. What does that mean? They are poorly regulated.
1. Overwhelmed with emotion or on the other side, Emotional shutdowns, numbing out
2. Can't control their thoughts, so distracted, intrusive thoughts, ruminations, racing thoughts, obsessions, disorientation, having a sense that their thoughts are no longer under control
3. Impulses -- rising up
4. Intrusive memories
5. They are having trouble keeping it together
6. High reactivity
7. Mood swings
8. Anger management issues
9. Intense depression
10. Feeling unreal, depersonalized, not myself, identity issues -- don't know who I am
11. Feeling fragile, vulnerable, about to fall apart
12. In one word, they come in to therapy because they can't manage their lives well anymore and they feel losing control and that makes them feel unsafe and scared.
Polyvagal theory --
1. Great discoveries in recent years about the vagus nerve.
  1. The vagus nerve is responsible for the regulation of internal organ functions, such as digestion, heart rate, and respiratory rate, as well as vasomotor activity, and certain reflex actions, such as coughing, sneezing, swallowing, and vomiting
  2. 10th of 12 cranial nerves -- On Old Olympus Towering Top, a Finn and German Viewed Some Hops. Memorizing the cranial nerves
  3. Longest nerve of the body, and the most complex, it branches into 11 different directions.
  4. Responsible for slowing down all the organs from the next down to the colon. Parasympathetic response -- slowing or shutting down.
  5. Responsible
    1. Heart rate
  6. 1. Digestion
  7. 1. Breathing
  8. 1. Sweating
  9. 1. Motor functions for the muscles needed for swallowing and speech
  10. 1. Reflex actions, such as coughing, sneezing swallowing and vomiting

Polyvagal theory was developed by Stephen xPorges -- Ph.D. in psychology over the last 20 years -- writes in an academic way.
Relying heavily on the work of Deb Dana Licensed Clinical Social worker and a great writer and speaker - translates him so well
1. Polyvagal exercises for Safety and connection -- introduction and first three chapters
1. Polyvagal Theory and Trauma – Deb Dana Nearly 2 hours, on YouTube
Deb asks this question: What would it be like for you if your body could help you feel safe and secure, much more protected when you start feeling scared?
Fundamental discovery: Our nervous system is shaped by early experience and reshaped by ongoing experience -- there is connection between our nervous system and our experience.
1. Formation of connections and associations
2. Reshaping -- changing the way our bodies respond to stress -- breaking the old patterns, fashioning new patterns deliberately
3. Change is gradual
  1. Fleeting moments of peace --> more consistent sense of well-being, more resilience in the face of challenges, perceived threats, stress.
5. Very much at a body level -- not ...