Session 5 – Understanding the Brain

This is a human brain.  We all have one. Brains are amazing.

Amongst it’s many parts, the brain has three main areas that deal with trauma.

The upper brain (officially known as the prefrontal lobe) is the most advanced bit.  It deals with language, imagination, reasoning and rational thinking.

The mid brain (its proper name is the limbic system) deals with emotions, memories, habits and basic decisions.

The lower brain (the least developed part, known as the brain stem) deals with trauma responses and the times we go on autopilot.

When we come across a threat - like this lion here - our upper brain won’t work fast enough to make sure we don’t get eaten.  Our lower brain acts to protect us before we even have time to think.  It chooses one of the Five ‘F’s: Friend, Fight, Flight, Flop or Freeze while our upper brain is still trying to work out whether it’s a real lion or just a stuffed toy. It’s why, if we’re scared of spiders, we might panic when we see one in the kitchen, only to realise it’s actually just a tomato stalk.

Once our lower brain has responded to the trauma, the trauma can get stuck in that lower part of the brain.  When the trauma gets stuck, this is known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD for short.

When trauma is stuck in the lower brain, our brain doesn’t know that the trauma is a memory. Instead, it continues to try and fight the trauma, leaving us feeling dissociated, numb and spaced out.  Any of our senses can trigger us to suddenly become more aware of the stuck trauma: watching a programme, a particular voice or sound, trying to talk about it, being touched in certain ways, or smelling a particular odour.  Especially, as the sense of smell is directly linked to the lower brain.  We may have flashbacks, nightmares, be hypervigilant and hypersensitive, and even block out the memory of the trauma altogether.

It’s important to understand that these responses are normal reactions to an abnormal situation.  It’s not us that are wrong,  it’s what has been done to us that is wrong.  This is why some people object to calling these responses a disorder: we’re not “disordered”, our body is just doing its best to manage the trauma.

To un-stick the trauma, and move it from the lower brain to the upper brain, research has found that we need to be relaxed while recalling the trauma.  This is difficult because recalling the trauma will often re-traumatise us.

One successful method for moving the trauma to the right part of the brain is called The Rewind Technique.  It needs to be done by a trained therapist.  Getting us into a relaxed state, the therapist will help us to imagine ourselves coming out of our body and sitting down in front of a television. We watch ourselves watching the trauma on the TV.

This means we’re twice removed from the trauma, enabling us to stay physically relaxed.  After imagining ourselves watching the trauma on the TV, we watch it in rewind, in fast-forward and in fast-rewind. Then, we visualise throwing the tape away, and the therapist gently brings us out of the relaxed state.  This process can move trauma to the upper brain, where it can be dealt with and moved to the mid-brain, where we store memories.  There may still be issues to deal with, but usually these become manageable.  There is hope and we can feel better.