Therapist Shares 8 Signs of Trauma | The Body Keeps the Score

hi guys welcome back to my channel and if you're new welcome to my channel my name is stephanie yates anyabuila stephania for short and i'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in today's video i'm going to be recapping some of the things i learned from bessel vander kulk about trauma and we're going to be talking about eight signs that you're traumatized if you're curious stay tuned [Music] all right guys so recently i did a two-day intensive training with bessel vanderkulk the author of the book that i've recommended in several videos the body keeps the score and he is a medical doctor who talks about the brain and talks about trauma now i wanted to take some of the things that i learned and put it into terms that would be universal both for therapists who are working with clients who are traumatized as well as people who may be experiencing trauma with themselves or have people that they care about that they suspect may be traumatized this intensive training i learned so much over these two days so i might be doing multiple videos if you like me too let me know but first i'm asking that you like this video if you like this type of content and i'm going to jump right into those eight signs that you may be traumatized number one disassociation or numbing this is when i have clients come to me and say i don't feel anything and sometimes clients can actually be very high functioning and still have this feeling of numbness i've had clients explain it to me it's like i'm moving in the world and things are happening and my body might be responding but my mind is just not connected with what's happening in my body maybe there are certain things that they know should scare them or there are certain things that they know should bring them pleasure and they just cannot experience that that's because your parasympathetic functions have shut down and that again can be a result of trauma is that you are unable to fully feel what's happening to within you it could be touch even but really i'm seeing it more often with emotional responses just that feeling of numbness almost like an out of body experience i can do a whole separate video talking about ways to address these trauma responses but i will say with parasympathetic responses if you've been shut down there are certain things that you could try to kind of re-engage your parasympathetic system something like acupuncture for example might be a way to reconnect your mind and body so that you don't feel as disassociated here's a big one i want to take a little time talking about which is that your body is always in an aroused state and this is really in response to danger it's a perceived sense of danger and so if your body is constantly in a state of arousal imagine when you are like running and you know your heart is beating you're sweating imagine someone who's experiences that feeling 24 7. no one can survive with those high adrenaline levels with those high cortisol levels no one can survive doing that so they try to find alternative ways of calming down since their body is not able to naturally do it on its own when it recognizes that there is no sense of danger that's the problem is that the mind is not recognizing that you're no longer in a space of danger so how do they address it they try to manually calm down this is where i might have clients who are perpetually masturbating for example the feeling of masturbating is giving them a break from that aroused state they might turn to drugs to calm down alcohol they might cut their self right so sometimes we can't make sense of why a person would become a cutter for example but if your body is always on high alert then the process of pain at least is a very streamlined centralized feeling that you can understand and make sense of and it can distract from the feeling of anxiety and angst that they're having within their body with no explanation similarly starving yourself might be another way of centralizing that pain into your stomach and so these are ways that we try to address that feeling of arousal to calm ourselves and so sometimes especially with people who might have to deal with addicts and things that might not make sense to them why you would continuously make these choices but when you're dealing with so much arousal in your body that it's overwhelming you look for a way of escape for dilling and processing so that i thought was very interesting from the training number three is self-loathing another concept that vander kulk would often go back to is that when a person is traumatized whether that be in childhood or adulthood whether it be physical assault whether it be sexual assault whether it be a natural disaster whatever form of trauma we're talking about people often find a way to blame themselves for their trauma so had i put my seatbelt on had i just not talked back to my parent had i xyz then maybe this trauma wouldn't have happened to me so self-loathing is another major predictor that a person is still in a traumatized state number four you might be rigidly stuck in the past this is really the direct work of your thalamus and your prefrontal cortex in the brain the thalamus is your sensory integration so this is how you recognize for example if you are touching a pet you are feeling fur or if you hear whooshing sound you might be able to recognize it as a car that's what your thalamus that's part of its job is that sensory integration so you can make sense of the things happening around you and your senses your prefrontal cortex is the time keeper so this is the part of your brain that helps you view things chronologically when you have experienced severe trauma you may be in a position where you're rigidly stuck in the past in ways that we'll talk about later that affect you in other ways but essentially it can be hard for you for example if you see a long pipe your brain rationally would let you know okay i'm near a water hose but if you have been bitten by a snake in the past or you had a family member who maybe told you a story that traumatized you about them being bitten by a snake you might jump scream run think that you're seeing a snake right and if this is continuously happening where you're seeing something that is relatively benign but you are jumping two moments in the past that this was actually a danger for you then that might be another sign that you are traumatized being rigidly stuck in the past difficulty integrating what's happening to you right now number five speechless terror speechless terror is activated by a certain part in our brain where when we are in a certain situation that feels traumatizing or feels dangerous we might resort to not being able to speak at all becoming mute in certain situations so if you recognize that maybe typically you're a very verbal person and able to speak but in certain situations you completely shut down and cannot speak that might let you know that there are situations from your past or maybe the situation you're experiencing within that moment that have been traumatizing next loss of self this is a really important thing to pay attention to because one thing that vander kulk talked about in the training is that when you've lost a sense of yourself that also means that you lose a sense of other if you can't acknowledge or discern what is you it's hard for you to separate and distinguish what is other so there might be situations where that situation or person might be a danger but you view yourself as the danger because you cannot distinguish between the two so if you feel like you have lost a major sense of yourself your identity who you are particularly within the world so you can make sense of the world around you that could be a result of trauma physical immobility one of the things that vanderkalt talked about was having certain traumas be physical where you are actually told by your perpetrator not to move and so if you are in certain situations like uh that could be physical or sexual trauma maybe even if you were in a car accident something like that where if you would have moved then maybe you would have gotten cut with the chart of class or maybe if you were getting a spanking and if you would move you get hit in the face in the eye you learn that your safest response is not to move at all so again if you find yourself in certain situations let's say you're driving and you've been in a car accident before and you notice when a certain color car passes you you completely freeze up that physical immobility may be a sign that you might have trauma work that you need to begin the process of doing and lastly the most important one for me as a therapist the thing i needed to hear to process some of the work that i'm doing with clients is difficulty learning new information this is one of those things that was very relevant to me as a therapist because often i have clients that i'm seeing where it feels like we're making breakthroughs it feels like they are learning new things that should help them make decisions that they're more proud of but what we see instead is that there's almost this cyclical nature to break through get into real world practice the change get right back to their regular homeostasis or status quo and so when that happens it can be really frustrating because you're thinking hey i was really excited to write this part in the progress section of the note and now we're right back where we started but when a person has experienced trauma it's difficult for their mind to process new information and learn new information that's why a lot of times when you are working with or dealing with people who were traumatized especially at young ages some of the ways that they cope with that might feel immature to another person who is more fully developed that's because their learning process may have been stunted at that age where they're not continuing to develop due to having to be preoccupied again with a lot of the things we talked about earlier if you're rigidly stuck in the past if you can't turn off those alarm signals in your body that's so much that you're having to deal with on a consistent basis that being able to actually be able to incorporate and integrate new information into that you know the time keeping that chronological understanding of life might be impossible for them at a certain point because they're overwhelmed with things that have happened to them in their past so those are eight signs that you might be either working with someone who's traumatized be traumatized or you know a living life navigating life with someone who is still in a position of trauma and if you would like me to do a follow-up video with some of the things that vander kulk recommended for dealing with trauma and spoiler alert it's not just therapy let me know and i'd be happy to do a follow-up video for you again my name is stephanie italian builder steph anya for short i'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and it is my sincerest joy to be able to bring you guys these sort of topics i love learning so being able to share what i'm learning with you all is a passion that i have and is what keeps me motivated on this channel so let me know what other things you want to learn about and i will try to find sources to bring that information to you ask that you subscribe to my channel and like this video share it with anybody that you think it may be relevant for and i thank you for watching all the way until the end that really really helps my channel especially with the youtube algorithm to get the content out to more folks so thank you thank you thank you [Music] am [Music]

Channel: Steph Anya, LMFT

Views: 1,209,520

Keywords: marriage and family therapy, couples therapy, black therapist, natural hair, whats anya mind, what's anya mind, social work, life coach, marriage family therapist, marriage and family therapist, marriage counseling, marriage family therapy, steph anya, Body keeps the score, Bessel can der kolk, Trauma, Traumatized, How do I know if I’m traumatized, Help with trauma

Id: ckl9wCl5SAc

Length: 12min 50sec (770 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 18 2022