1. NEW SOUTH WALES
Kon Gres Conference
Sydney 2015
Bill Hewlett
Clinical Service Specialist
2. NEW SOUTH WALES
The Truth
‘We help people choose to surrender the illusions,
mirages, and fantasies they have accepted about
themselves, about others, and about their conflicts...’
Kenneth Cloke (2001) Mediating Dangerously
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3. NEW SOUTH WALES
‘If an organism is stuck in survival mode, its energies
are focussed on fighting off unseen enemies, which
leaves no room for nurture, care and love. For us
humans, it means that as long as the mind is
defending itself against invisible assaults, our closest
bonds are threatened, along with our ability to imagine,
plan, play learn and pay attention to other people's
needs’
(Van Der Kolk 2014)
Trauma theory
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4. NEW SOUTH WALES
We each seek to know
that we are held in the
mind and heart of another
Diana Fosha PhD
Attachment Theory
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5. NEW SOUTH WALES
Attachment Theory
Being meaningful to
someone important is what
the young child strives for
from the first interaction
Travarthen 2001
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6. NEW SOUTH WALES
Attachment Theory
One of the consequences of poor
attachment is that there seems to be less
capacity for ‘reflective functioning’ – to think
about your own and other’s internal states.
(Rudi Dallos 2009)
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7. NEW SOUTH WALES
Implicit memory
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It is less painful to remember
something happening, even if it
is terrible, than to remember
nothing happening when you
needed someone to be with you
8. NEW SOUTH WALES
• We think we live with free will based on conscious
deliberation, actually the truth is we live about 500
milliseconds after the moment, allowing plenty of time for
our past learning to predict what will happen with
absolute certainty, severely limiting our free will.
The propaganda dept.
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10. NEW SOUTH WALES
Characterized by cumulative, prolonged and/or repetitive
exposure to interpersonally generated events that
adversely impact the developmental structures of self
and coping strategies of the individual.
(ACE study; Van der Kolk 2014).
What is Complex Trauma?
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11. NEW SOUTH WALES
“A state of high arousal that impairs
integration across multiple domains of
functioning: affective, cognitive, behavoural,
physiological, relational, self-attributional and
dissociative”
(Cozolino 2002; Kinniburgh et al 2005).
What is trauma?
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There is some duplication across these sources of initiatives
Problems with attention regulation and executive functioning, difficulties with learning, language, responsibility, punctuality, planning, focusing, processing information (Cook et al 2005).
Poor impulse control, self-harm, eating disorders, substance abuse, reenactment of trauma behavior eg sexual, aggressive; sleep disturbances (Cook et al 2005).
Sensorimotor developmental problems, analgesia, somatization, problems with coordination and balance, increased medical problems across wide span including autoimmune, pseudoseizures, skin problems, asthma(Cook et al 2005).
Poor boundaries, social isolation, interpersonal difficulties, difficulty attuning to other’s emotional states, distrust and suspicious (Cook et al 2005).
Lack of continuous, predictable sense of self, poor sense of separateness, disturbances of body image, low self-esteem, shame and guilt (Cook et al 2005).
Distinct altered states of consciousness, amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, impaired memory, two or more distinct states of consciousness (Cook et al 2005).