Good relationships are the key to healing trauma | Karen Treisman | TEDxWarwickSalon

[Applause] bezel Vander Kolk an American psychiatrist said that the parent-child connection is the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind and that really echoes and really resonates with the clinical work that I've done but I'm going to extend and expand that to all relationships are the most powerful mental health intervention known to mankind and we're not I talk about relationships I'm talking about relationships on the wider front relationships to our bodies relationships to our mind relationships to behavior and relationships to society as a clinical psychologist I've been so privileged to work with people from survivors the Rwandan genocide to asylum seeking young people to those who have experienced sexual abuse physical abuse and neglect and I have to say I'm yet to witness one of those situations that hasn't been significantly influenced by relationships because relationships shape who we are so let's just zoom in a little bit to one of those relationships I've got baby Sasha and baby Sasha looks at me and she smiles and so we think twinkle twinkle little star and she loves twinkle twinkle little star so I sing it again and then it's a bit much because baby's a bit overstimulated so I say oh okay we've had enough of twinkle twinkle little star and then a few hours later baby starts screaming and crying and I say Oh sweetie what's wrong you can't be hungry I've just fed you Oh yep I can smell what you've given to me let's change that and we get her and she goes kick kick kick and I give raspberry kisses oh you're all nice and clean come to me it's these parent-child serve and return interactions that start teaching children about the guiding principles things like trust things like safety things like how to invest in reciprocal relationships those interruptions start to show children their Maps their guides and their kaleidoscopes of how to see themselves others and the world baby Sasha who was enveloped in love is likely to think I'm lovable I'm important other people are worth investing in other people are predictable my world is a safe place and that kaleidoscope is going to color her future interactions it's going to color the way that she operates in the world but imagine in the context of trauma where children haven't had those beautiful emotional exchanges those serve and return imagine how you would look at the world differently if you thought I'm unlovable I'm disposable the world is a dangerous unpredictable place other people are out to get me which is why we've truly need to start thinking about people's life experiences and the kaleidoscope that they look at the world through and maybe if we would start doing that we would have a movement that shifts us away from saying what's wrong with you that pejorative blaming statement and we actually started asking people what happened to you who are you what is your story what kaleidoscope do you look at the world through we need to see the person behind that behavior because relationships are that common theme today the theme is mind over matter but really I'm going to be talking about the relationships that matter and I'm going to share an amazing psychological process with you that I think is extraordinary and that is that our brains our neural pathways our sign answers our architecture and our function of our brain are directly shaped and influenced by the environment and by relationships our brains aren't born they're not in vacuums they are plastic which means that they can be positively and negatively molded and influenced which means that all of us in this room we can all be brain architects we can all be brain sculptors because relationships either strengthen the brain or they can weaken it and if we truly then think that brains directly affect our relationships surely we need to put relationships at the focus instead of how society is moving to be less connected more dehumanized more focused on exams on outcomes of processors on machines and maybe we need to think about how we can bring relationships back into the heart to have those compassionate empathetic societies I'm yet to work with a young person who's experienced sexual abuse physical abuse that hasn't the common thread has been that the traumas happened during their development but that it's happened by people in their relationships and if the traumas occurred by people in relationships then of course the healing has to be in the context of relationships because the relationships are the magic put simply relational trauma requires relational repair we need to model and show children different ways of doing relationships and different ways to be in relationships we need to show children that relationships can be worth and safe investing in because what children really need they need to be held in safe hands they need to be held in thinking minds and they need to be held in regulating bodies and by that I don't just mean physically safe they need to be held in an embodied place of safety in a felt sense of safety a place imagine what it's like what does your body feel like when it's safe how do you know what safety is imagine what it's like if you've never had a sense of safety like in the context often in trauma thinking minds minds that can be reflective minds that can reflect instead of react minds that can be the rainbow in that storm and regulating bodies both bodies that can be still that can be containing that can be calm that can be present without this without this safety and these relationships everything else fades into the background everything else exists on fragile ground they say that if a flower doesn't bloom you don't fix the flower you change the environment in which it grows in so really we want children to be an environment where they can flourish where they can bloom where they can breathe we want children to be in environments where they can thrive not just survive where they can have secure bases and safe havens we want to bring environments but a trauma-informed and relationship based and they shouldn't be best practice they should be standard practice they should be the norm because those environments benefit everyone Peter Benson beautiful iam powerfully said that relationships are the very oxygen of human development so guys what will we breathe in what will we exhale what air do we want our society to breathe and what's it like if that air is polluted and you know I was really really lucky that the air that I breathe was mostly really pure and fresh my parents were crazy about me they still are they delighted in me and that's what children need children need someone who's going to unconditionally adore them they were my life cheerleaders they were my safety net they're here now rooting me on and I was kept in the mines and in the hearts of my parents if we think of this as a metaphor my life treasure box was full and spilling out with relational treasures relational memories relational experiences and developmental skills developmental skills like how do we regulate recognize a relationship how do we see what an emotion is how do we learn to soothe ourselves and my goodness was my treasure box adorned and decorated and held precious and my treasure box was protected and it was held and handled with care but sadly for the children that I work with for the children who have experienced various different forms of relational trauma and developmental trauma their treasure boxes they're not empty but they very often haven't been filled with those same relational treasures relational memories relational experiences and they certainly have not been protected in the same way and handled with care which is why we need to fill up their treasure boxes with millions of relational memories and relational treasures and developmental skills and why we truly need to see our children and hold them precious and you know what maybe if we really saw our children maybe if we really held our children in our hearts and minds maybe we would create a societal movement that shift away from pushing people into boxes from defining people by labels by diagnosis by just seeing a behavior and reducing someone to a behavior because would any of you want to be reduced and defined by our behavior we need to start seeing and connecting with the person behind the behavior if the behavior could talk what would it say to us because behavior is communication we just need to start being curious and interested about what that behaviors telling to us so meet Nathan Nathan was a 16 year old boy he was involved in a gang he'd been arrested several times he had been excluded from school lots of times he had been in multiple foster placements but let's actually think about what happened to Nathan not what's wrong with Nathan Nathan's first classroom his first lesson into life the womb was characterized by Dannette domestic violence he was marinated in toxic stress the war zone the the womb at times had been like a war zone for him and then he was born and he really his home that should have been his safe haven was more like shark-infested waters characterized by domestic violence by physical abuse imagine what that's like being trapped feeling powerless feeling hyper-vigilant feeling on edge not sure what calm waters signify what lurks behind what I'm going to protect and say for Nathan he did what so many children do sometimes he went into flight mode sometimes went into fries but for most of the time he learnt that to survive shark-infested waters you go into fight mode you become like a shark you act like a shark and you go into a shark attack mode which is what he did with me with his teachers with his foster carers because for Nathan he had lurked that it's better to be feared than to be fearful it's better to attack than be attacked because anger is a mask emotion anger is a bodyguard emotion and anger is generally married to another hidden emotion like fear pain sadness and even when Nathan was moved into a different environment a swimming pool like school or foster care that environment still felt like shark-infested waters because those shark-infested waters were in his mind were in his body because trauma travels with you and then we say to someone like Nathan you just need to stop being angry or you just need to calm down well for a child who's been marinated in toxic stress who hasn't been given those skills is the equivalent of saying when you in shark-infested waters just do a queer aerobics guys just do think Rinnai swimming so he really did try and find ways to survive those shark-infested waters and thank God he did because he's here with us to be the amazing boy years so just look at this picture and I use a lot of art in the work that I do for various reasons but because Troma is a multi-sensory experience therefore we need multi-sensory interventions whole-body whole-brain interventions the mask the red mask I said to Nathan what do you think other people see you as how would they describe you and he said things like angry GRU hard keep out skeleton monsters imagine what that's like to feel that people define you in that way what that does to your sense of identity what that does to your self-esteem and then I asked Nathan if I saw the person behind the behavior if I had an emotional x-ray and I could truly see you what would I see and what he said was small scared hurt invisible fragile alone just think how differently I would respond to the mask on the left the mask on the right how different I would interact how different I would emphasize with Nathan Nathan wasn't attention seeking he was attention needing he wasn't manipulative he'd learned how to get his knee his needs met and you know what what we did is we worked as a whole team around Nathan because it takes a whole village to raise a child we gave him those safe hands thinking minds regulating bodies we filled up his treasure box over and over again and we took his brain to the relationship Jim over and over again we saw the person he was behind the behavior we held that hope for him saw the incredible strengths that he had and if he was standing here today he used different words for he would be saying those are some of the things that made a difference to him and you know what it's children like Nathan and I could tell you hundreds of stories like Nathan that truly keep me in this work that are my glue that are my inspiration his survivorship and the strength of this human spirit is remarkable if only we could try and sew some of that into our society because I'll tell you something we all could be a Nathan and we all need a Nathan in our lives and we could all learn from Nathan some people might be sitting in here and thinking I've experienced trauma traumas not relevant to me but just hold in mind that adverse life experiences trauma is widespread it's an epidemic it basically goes into all the systems we operate in from our police into our schools into our businesses into politics trauma is a public health issue it affects our brains and it affects our bodies our immune systems our central nervous systems and beyond so just imagine what it would be like if we had a society that supported people to bloom if we had a society the bought people clothes and connected with them rather than ostracized people imagine what society would be like that actively encouraged emotional expression vulnerability compassion empathy connection and what's the cost of us not doing that what air do we want our society to breathe so before I finish my wish for all of you is that we consciously and deliberately remember these things relational trauma requires relational repair we all can be those safe hands thinking minds and regulating bodies behavior is communication let's see the person behind the behavior let's fill out own treasure boxes because we want people to have the best of us not what's left of us and let's fill other people's treasure boxes and let's remember that we all contribute to the air that our society breathes to me those are ideas worth investing in and believing and spreading thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 170,743

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Children, Mental health, Relationships

Id: PTsPdMqVwBg

Length: 17min 21sec (1041 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2018