Helping Couples Reconstruct the Emotional Brain by Mark Brady

1. Helping Couples
Rebuild the Emotional Brain
Mark Brady, PhD
floweringbrain
@gmail.com

2. Introducing: Mark
2
Transpersonal Neurobiologist

3. 3
A Brief Introduction to Your Brain

4. 4
Major U.S. River Basins

6. Context

7. Context
Context

8. Context
Context
Context

9. 9
How I Think About the Brain

10. 10
Trauma compromises network function

11. 11
Neuroception: Threat Detection Without Awareness

12. 12
Almost all evaluation is perceived at threat

13. The Brain’s Energy Budget

14. The Brain’s Energy Budget
The Brain uses roughly 20% of all the energy the body produces.

15. The Brain’s Energy Budget
The Brain uses roughly 20% of all the energy the body produces.
44% is used by the cortex.

16. The Brain’s Energy Budget
The Brain uses roughly 20% of all the energy the body produces.
44% is used by the cortex.
21% of that is used in neural spiking.

17. The Brain’s Energy Budget
The Brain uses roughly 20% of all the energy the body produces.
44% is used by the cortex.
21% of that is used in neural spiking.
24% goes to ion balancing and general neural transmission.

18. The Brain’s Energy Budget
The Brain uses roughly 20% of all the energy the body produces.
44% is used by the cortex.
21% of that is used in neural spiking.
24% goes to ion balancing and general neural transmission.
55% goes to regular cell-to-cell communication.

19. 19
Emotions are Constructed
Take a look at these Rorschach images …

20. Take a look at these Rorschach images …
Emotions are Constructed

21. Take a look at these Rorschach images …
Emotions are Constructed

22. 22
How might Affective Realism
impact couples?

23. 23
Affective Realism refers to the way
our feelings influence what we see,
hear, smell, taste and touch — not
what we think we see, hear, feel,
smell, taste and touch, but the
actual content of our perceptual
experience.
How might Affective Realism
impact couples?

24. 24
Affective Realism refers to the way
our feelings influence what we see,
hear, smell, taste and touch — not
what we think we see, hear, feel,
smell, taste and touch, but the
actual content of our perceptual
experience. We can only experi-
ence what our senses make us
believe. Human brains produce
Affective Realism through much
of the same network circuitry that
it produces dreams and creative
imagination.
How might Affective Realism
impact couples?

25. 25
Affective Realism results in faulty sensory
perceptions base upon how we feel.

26. 26
“Whenwe experienceaffect without knowing the cause,
we are more likelyto treat it as informationabout the world,ratherthanour experienceof the world.”
How might Affective Realismimpact couples?

27. One of the most prominent characteristics of our left brain is its ability to weave stories. This
story-teller portion of our left brain’s language centers is specifically designed to make sense of
the world outside us, based upon minimal amounts of information. It functions by taking whatever
details it has to work with, and then weaves them together in the form of a story. Most impres-
sively our left brain is brilliant in its ability to make stuff up, and fill in the blanks when there are
gaps in its factual data.
As my left brain language centers recovered
and became functional again, I spent a lot of time
observing how my story-teller would draw conclusions
based upon minimal information. For the longest time
I found these antics of my story-teller to be rather
comical. Until I realized that my left brain whole-heartedly
expected the rest of my brain to believe the stories it
was making up!. . . .I need to remember however,
that there are enormous gaps between what I actually
know and what I think I know (my italics). I learned I
need to be very wary of my storyteller’s potential for
stirring up trauma and drama.
~ Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight
Affective Realism
makes us believe what we think when it hurts!

28. 28
Might becoming an Interoception Savant positively
influence a couple’s relationship?
Interoception:
sophisticated body
awareness that
includes pain,
temperature,
itch, sensual touch,
muscular and
visceral sensations,
vasomotor activity,
hunger, thirst,
and "air hunger.".

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When we become
skilled at
Interoception our
whole body
becomes brain-like
in its functioning.

30. Emotional granularity
is the construction of
finer-grained emo-
tional experiences.
People who make
highly granular
discriminations are
emotion experts.
How might emotional granularity
support a couple’s relationship?

31. 31
Learning to discriminate between …

32. 32
Irked
Learning to discriminate between …

33. 33
Irked Angry
Learning to discriminate between …

34. 34
Happy
Learning to discriminate between …

35. 35
Happy Joyous
Learning to discriminate between …

36. 36
Learning to discriminate between …

37. How might Beautiful Questions
keep your practice rich, fluid and dynamic?
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38. How might Beautiful Questions
keep your practice rich, fluid and dynamic?
38
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your
heart and try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books that are now
written in a very foreign tongue.

39. How might Beautiful Questions
keep your practice rich, fluid and dynamic?
39
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your
heart and try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books that are now
written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek
the answers, which cannot be given you because
you would not be able to live them.

40. How might Beautiful Questions
keep your practice rich, fluid and dynamic?
40
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your
heart and try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books that are now
written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek
the answers, which cannot be given you because
you would not be able to live them. And the
point is, to live everything. Live the questions
now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without
noticing it, live along some distant day into the
answer.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

41. 41
“All (clients) should learn how to
formulate their own questions.
All (therapists) can easily teach
this skill as part of their regular
practice. It turns out this is a
glaring omission in most formal
and informal educational enter-
prises. The skill of being able to
generate a wide range of ques-
tions and strategize about how
to use them effectively is rarely,
if ever, deliberately taught.
In fact, it has too often been
limited to people who have
access to an elite education.
~ Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana,
Make Just One Change:
Teach (Clients) to Ask Their Own Questions
The Importance of Asking Questions
Question begins
with a quest.

42. “Always the beautiful answer
who asks a more beautiful question.”
~ e. e. cummings
42

43. Which brain cells will
Beautiful Questions help cultivate?
43
Beautiful Questions
help increase
network capacity

44. 44
Beautiful Questions - Definition

45. 45
Beautiful Questions - Definition

46. 46
#1 — How do I shift from knowledgeable practitioner to curious non-knower?
(and get paid for not knowing?)
#2 — Why do I have clients that I don’t enjoy treating?
#3 — What if I was able to be more financially flexible with my clients?
#4 — How does my practice let me know when I need more self-care?
#5 — Why is my practice structured the way it is?
#6 — What if I guided my clients to make most of the treatment decisions?
#7 — How can I love my work even more?
#8 — Why is my practice located where it is?
#9 — What if I was able to work less and earn more income?
Examples: Beautiful Questions

47. 47
#1 — How do I shift from knowledgeable practitioner to curious non-knower?
(and get paid for not knowing?)
#2 — Why do I have clients that I don’t enjoy treating?
#3 — What if I was able to be more financially flexible with my clients?
#4 — How does my practice let me know when I need more self-care?
#5 — Why is my practice structured the way it is?
#6 — What if I guided my clients to make most of the treatment decisions?
#7 — How can I love my work even more?
#8 — Why is my practice located where it is?
#9 — What if I was able to work less and earn more income?
Examples: Beautiful Questions
“A moment of unbridled, loving care towards
another human being momentarily frees us
from the bondage of our own self-centeredness.”
~ Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel,
The Power of an Open Question

48. 48
The Takeaways . . .

49. 49
The Takeaways . . .
1. Understanding some fundamental neuro-
biology can be extremely useful.

50. 50
The Takeaways . . .
1. Understanding some fundamental neuro-
biology can be extremely useful.
2. One or both people can benefit from an
increasing awareness of emotional granularity.

51. 51
The Takeaways . . .
2. One or both people can benefit from an
increasing awareness of emotional granularity.
3. Teaching couples to ask, answer and take action
in response to Beautiful Questions can be
extremely beneficial.
1. Understanding some fundamental neuro-
biology can be extremely useful.
.

52. For further exploration …
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53. For further exploration …
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54. For further exploration …
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55. For further exploration …
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56. Mark Brady, PhD
TheEnchantedLoom@gmail.com
to Subscribe or receive the Powerpoints for Free
The Enchanted Loom
56

57. The Granularity Trilogy

58. The Granularity Trilogy

59. The Granularity Trilogy

60. The Granularity Trilogy

61. The Granularity Trilogy
floweringbrain@gmail.com

62. FINI
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