Tips tools-for-helping-gifted-cope-with-trauma-cagt 2018

When The Sky Falls:
Helping Gifted Students
Face Traumaby
Sharon M. Barnes, MSSW, LCSW
Therapist For Sensitive And Gifted
©2018 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW PLLC www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com

Therapist For Sensitive and
Gifted
Local Counseling/Psychotherapy
Online Distance Consultation
Presentations, PlayShops & Retreats
Professional Development
I’m here to help you:
Release your Creativity
Heal your Past
Transform your Pain
Become Fully Alive
Find & Fulfill your True
Purpose

Housekeeping . . .
Slides are available
here:
https://delivr.com/2zc5g

April 20,1999

What IS
Trauma?

PT: Psychological
TraumaTrauma = exposure to life-threatening
event or experience
VT: Vicarious Traumatization
Vicarious = experienced through others
Anyone working with people in life-
threatening situations is exposed to
vicarious trauma
Anyone watching or hearing news
stories of life-threatening events can
have vicarious traumatization

Effects of
Traumatization
 Direct AND Vicarious Trauma have
cumulative transformative effects on your
Memory system
Psychological needs
World view
Identity
 As a result of our exposure to the realities
of trauma, we are changed (McCann & Pearlman,
1990

Creative, Complex, Curious
Acutely Aware
Super-Sensitive
Intense, often Introverted,
Independent Thinking and/or
Gifted
You? someone You know?
CASIGY™s!©2018 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW PLLC www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com
Who’s MOST
Impacted by Trauma?

©2018 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW PLLC
www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com

Overexcitabilities:
o Having a significantly FASTER or GREATER CNS response
overlaps with Overexcitabilities (OE).
o OE originates in our physiology
o OE shows itself as Psychomotor, Sensual, Imaginational
Intellectual and Emotional OE.
o OE will likely show up in our Trauma Responses.
©2018 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW PLLC www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com Chart © Lucy Jane Miller, PhD,OTR

Signs of a Normal
Trauma Response
1. Hyperarousal /  Startle Response
2. Constriction of emotion
3. Freezing/immobility of movement
4. Hypervigilance
5. Flashbacks/intrusive memories
6. Disrupted sleep/dreaming of this or other
traumatic events
7. Appetite Disruption
8. Mood swings (much more than usual)
9. Dissociation/depersonalization
“Dissociation is the
essence of trauma”
(van der Kolk)

How is aCASIGY’s
Trauma Response
Different? Increased experience of Trauma
(heightened perception of life-threatening
situations)
 FASTER Trauma Response
 Increased INTENSITY of Trauma
Response
 LONGER, MORE RECURRENT
Trauma Response
 More PERVASIVE Trauma
Response

Guiding Principles
1. Healing from trauma is
a natural process (Levine, van
der Kolk)
 Allow the process to continue and it
will complete itself.
 Block it, and you will slow it down,
perpetuate it or completely stop it.

Guiding Principles
2. In abnormal
circumstances, abnormal
feelings are
NORMAL(Bryan)

3. Emotions are like Ocean Waves
o natural phenomenon
o energy
o don’t ask permission
o respond to the weather, moon & earth’s movement
o Our 1st reaction is to
o When we fight them,
o Learn to READ them
o Learn to RIDE them
FIGHT THEM
WE LOSE
stay SAFE
have FUN
Guiding Principles

Guiding Principles
4. If You Feel it
You can Heal it (Gray)
1. Emotion is energy- when you block
emotion, you block your own energy
2. Instead of blocking or fighting the
emotion, allow it to flow through you
1. Acting out emotion is a form of
blocking it.
2. Feel it; don’t act it out.
3. Feel it, then channel it
constructively

Guiding Principals
5. ABC’s of Vicarious Traumatization
Awareness
 Of one’s own inner state
 Dreams, imaginations, associations, body sensations, conscious and
preconscious material
 One’s own needs, limits, emotions & resources
 Requires time, solitude & quiet for reflection
Balance
 Internal
 Life activities: work, play, rest
Connection
 To ourselves
 To others
 To something larger than ourselves

Trauma Strategy #1
Coping
 Temporary Distraction (Watch TV, play with
pet)
 Healthy Self-soothing
Beware of ‘default’ methods which are
hurtful in the long run- overeating, over-
using meds, substances, over-spending,
smoking, overworking, etc.
Instead, Drink a glass of water, Take a Walk,
Catch N Release, Eat an apple, Watch a
comedy, Write 5 Gratitudes, etc.
 Make copies above lists to use in a pinch
One list for yourself
Another together with your teen or child
Keep copies in other relevant places.

Trauma Strategy #2
Containment
 Write a few words or draw the distressing
“issue/memory/feeling” and place the paper in
an actual, physical container
This then becomes a co-container for the emotion
& energy
 Later , you take them out and face, feel & deal
with them
 This ACTION puts a ‘temporary fence’ around
overwhelming physical or emotional reactions
 This is NOT repression or suppression unless
you leave them there and do not ever take them
out to deal with them.

GREEN Flag = Small waves = ALL CLEAR
ORANGE Flag = Medium waves = CAUTION
RED Flag = Big waves = DANGER
PURPLE Flag = Something’s in the water
= BEWARE
BLACK Flag = Tsunami = GET OFF
THE BEACH!
What Color Flag is flying on Your Inner Beach?

 First
 Best
 Last
 Use anywhere
 Use anytime
BREATHE
www.TherapistForSensitiveAndGifted.com>
Resources>
CASIGY ToolBox>
Relaxation Breathing Exercises

©2016 Sharon M Barnes, MSSW, PLLC
You have to
Catch & Release

before you can
Catch & Release

Let’s DO it!
Catch & Release

BUT … there’s Barriers!
TABOO

1. DON’T FEEL!
o Don't feel sad
o Don't feel mad
o Don't feel bad
o Don't feel too
glad/happy
o Don’t feel ____
Modern civilization has
taboos against feelings
and emotions
o Men
o Women
o No-one

The Result?
We Stuff our Emotions

Emotional Volcanoes

Emotional Floods

Have You Had This
at Home or School?
Emotional Icebergs

We’re Afraid the Dam will BURST

To save the
dam, open a flue
HOW? Release your
emotions
• in small amounts
• often

Ten Tools–in-One

Transforming
Traumatization(Here’s More of “What you can do”)
Antidotes must address (van der
Kolk)
1. Stress
2. Demoralization/meaning
3. Helplessness
AND FINALLY…..

Transforming Traumatization:
1. Address the Stress
 Self- Care - (also fosters a sense of
personal control)
 Make healthy lifestyle choices
↓caffeine, nicotine, sugar
↑vigorous exercise
Daily relaxation (Parasympathetic N.
S.)
 Social support
 Pursue personally meaningful tasks
 Self-Nurturing
 Life Balance
 Patience/Perspective

2. Transform the loss of meaning
1. Identify what this traumatic event means to
you
2. Infuse another current activity with
meaning
1. Practice mindful, intentional self-awareness,
2. Restore spiritual awareness & aliveness
3. Identify & challenge negative beliefs &
assumptions that have come as a result of
trauma exposure
4. Build Community: find or make a safe place
to debrief often, AKA share the
emotional/spiritual/ mental/physical impact
of the trauma

*This* happened
because…

*Different*!
Myth & Fairy Tale show the way…
o ridiculed
o excluded
o shunned
o shamed
o ostracized
o banished into exile
Transform the loss of
Meaning

All of this
happened
because of . . .

Also
because of . . .

Meet Casi & Siggy You may know of their famous uncle
 You haven’t met them … or their cousins
(yet)
 These things often run in families
 CASIGYs often feel isolated
 There’s really many of us . . . You’re not
alone
Siggy
Casi
Meg Reggi
e
©2016 Sharon M. Barnes, LCSW, PLLC.

If You Have a RED NOSE,
You’re NOT ALONE!!!

= BONUS TOOL!

CASIGYS’ Cycle of
Discouragement
Meaning

CASIGYS’ Cycle of
Encouragement
Meaning

Foundation Stone 2: Who am I & Where am I in this picture?

Having Trauma & Being Different
is not proof of your inferiority;
it is an engraved invitation to the
Hero’s and Heroine’s Journey

CASIGYs ─
You’re NOT
Defective;
You’re
Distinctive…
by Design!

3. Transform the Helplessness
DO WHAT YOU CAN DO!

Three Ways to Tell:
When to Get Professional Help
1.When you, your child or teen has
done all of this but is not getting
relief
2.When your or they are not able to do
these things and continue to be in
distress
3.When you see warning signs of
trouble:

When to Get Professional Help
Warning Signs of Trouble:
 Suicidal thoughts, threats or attempts
 Trauma related symptoms continue beyond a
month or increase beyond ability to cope with
them
 You or your child are unable to participate
normally in home, work or school relationships or
activities
 When you or your child are continually unable to
take things out of containment and deal with them
 When what is put in containment consistently
won’t stay in containment but keeps intruding in
life

Sources
 Aron, Elaine, PhD: The Highly Sensitive Person
 Badenoch, Bonnie: Being a Brain-Wise Therapist: A Practical Guide to Interpersonal
Neurobiology
 Barnes, Sharon:. Blog post: “http://therapistforsensitiveandgifted.com/foggy-days-groggy-
nights/
 Bryan, Ed: Personal conversations
 Gray, John, If You Can Feel It, You Can Heal It.
 Hadamard, Jacques: The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field
 McCann,Lisa & Pearlman, Laurie: Psychological Trauma and the Adult Survivor; Theory,
Therapy and Transformation
 Miller, Lucy Jane: Sensational Kids
 Pearlman, Laurie Anne & Saakvitne, Karen: Transforming the Pain, A Workbook on Vicarious
Traumatization
 Pearlman, Laurie Anne & Saakvitne, Karen: Trauma and The Therapist
 Van Dernoot Lipsky, Laura & Burk, Connie: Trauma Stewardship
 Van Der Kolk, Bessel: The Body Keeps the Score
 Wood, Sam: Transforming Compassion Fatigue

When The Sky Falls:
Helping Gifted Students
Face Traumaby
Therapist For Sensitive And Gifted
Slides are available here:
https://delivr.com/2zc5g

Tips tools-for-helping-gifted-cope-with-trauma-cagt 2018

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